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A NASA satellite designed to precisely measure changes in Earth’s ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice and vegetation was launched into polar orbit from California early Saturday. A Delta 2 rocket carrying ICESat-2 lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 6:02 a.m. and headed over the Pacific Ocean. NASA Earth Science Division director Michael Freilich says that the mission in particular will advance knowledge of how the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica contribute to sea level rise. The melt from those ice sheets alone has raised global sea level by more than 1 millimeter (0.04 inch) a year recently,...

Miami (AFP) - Sea levels are rising around the world, and the latest satellite data suggests that three feet (one meter) or more is unavoidable in the next 100-200 years, NASA scientists said Wednesday. Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than ever, and oceans are warming and expanding much more rapidly than they have in years past. Rising seas will have "profound impacts" around the world, said Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division. "More than 150 million people, most of them in Asia, live within one meter of present sea level," he said. Low-lying US...