A 21-year climate study reveals the fastest melting region in Antarctica tripled its melt rate during the last decade.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica are melting faster than any part of Antarctica. The continent is the biggest contributor to rising sea levels worldwide.

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The mass loss of these glaciers is increasing and is occurring at an amazing, unprecedented rate, said Isabella Velicogna, from the University of California and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA researchers used four different kinds of observational methods to measure the mass balance of the glaciers melting into the Amundsen Sea Embayment. Consolidated data from 1992 to 2013 revealed a total ice loss averaging 83 gigatons every year or 91.5 billion tons. This is equal to the amount of ice on Mt. Everest for two years.

Velicogna compared this massive melt to Mt. Everest's water weight estimated at some 161 gigatons, meaning the glaciers have lost this massive amount of water every two years during the last 21 years.

To date, the averages glacier melt has lost 6.1 gigatons of water every year since 1992.

This data was taken from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites; laser altimetry from NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne campaign and the ICESat satellite; the radar altimetry from the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite and the University of Utrecht's Regional Atmospheric Climate Model.

This study was published in the journal, Geophysical Research Letters.

Tagsglobal warming, antarctica ice melt, NASA losing ice melt water mt. everest triple, Antarctica is Melting As Much Ice the Size of Mt. Everest Every Two Years