21 MAY 2014

Ø  Antarctica is shedding 160 billion tonnes a year of ice into the ocean, twice the amount of a few years ago, according to new satellite observations. The ice loss is adding to the rising sea levels driven by climate change and even east Antarctica is now losing ice. The new revelations follow the announcement last week that the collapse of the western Antarctica ice sheet has already begun and is unstoppable, although it may take many centuries to complete. The new data, published in journal Geophysical Research Letters , comes from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 satellite, which was launched in 2010. CryoSat-2 collected five times more data than before in the crucial coastal regions where ice losses are concentrated and found key glaciers were losing many metres in height every year. The Pine Island, Thwaites and Smith Glaciers in west Antarctica were losing between 4m and 8m annually.

Ø  Gujarat Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel will be the new Chief Minister of the State. The announcement will be made at a meeting of BJP MLAs in Gandhinagar after Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi resigns from the post.