A team of researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research reported that a new method of measuring glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica showed that the ice was not retreating due to melting as previously reported. They also found that the Earth’s center of mass was shifting slightly.

Basically, the team reported that they closely studied data from many sources and determined that the glacial loss that had been previously reported as melting ice was actually a result of Earth rebound from the last ice age and was not correctly considered in some other researcher estimates. The team noted that previous models had used estimates of the movement of the mass at the Earth’s surface and correcting the data using a post-glacial rebound model. These models used a hydrological model that was not as precise as the new method and contained potentially large errors, which caused them to be in error.

The team also noted that their data showed the center of mass of the planet was also slowly shifting but not at a rate that should cause any harm to life on Earth. Also, the data demonstrated that the water mass around the globe was shifting the Earth’s surface relative to its center by 0.035 inches per year toward the North Pole.

Read the story on the JPL website at www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-298.