The ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are melting at a rate that coincides with the worst situation forecast by climate scientists and has raised world sea levels by 1.8 cm over the past two decades.
British and Danish researchers have warned that sea levels could rise another 1.17 centimeters and put 1 million people at risk of annual coastal flooding as global warming continues to rise, British and Danish researchers have warned.
After the sheet was first observed by satellite in the 1990s, the melting of the ice in Greenland pushed the world’s oceans 10.6 millimeters higher, while a study by scientists at the University of Leeds and Denmark found that the Antarctic ice contributed another 2.2 mm. The latest measurements show the world’s oceans are now increasing by 4 mm per year.
“Although we have estimated that ice sheets will lose increasing amounts of ice in response to the warming of the oceans and the atmosphere, the rate at which they are melting is growing faster than we imagined,” said lead author Tom Slater. Is a climate researcher at the Center for Polar Observation and Modeling at the University of Leeds.
He added, “The melting is surpassing the climate models used to guide us and we are at risk of being unprepared for the risks posed by sea level rise.”
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate change, Compares the latest results of a satellite survey of the mass of ice sheets with the calculations of climate models. The authors warn that the sheets are losing ice in the worst case scenario by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.).
Anna Hogg, a co-author of the study at Leeds University’s School of Earth and Environment and a climate researcher, said: . This is enough to double the frequency of storm surges in the world’s largest coastal cities. “
Due to a system called thermal expansion, the global sea level has historically increased, meaning that it expands as the amount of sea water warms. But in the last five years, melting ice sheets and mountain glaciers have become the main cause of the rising ocean.
A study published last month found that Greenland lost one million tons of ice per minute in 2019, producing enough water to power more than four feet of water in the U.S. state of California.
But Ruth Motram, a climate researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute, says: “It’s not just Antarctica and Greenland that are experiencing water surges. In recent years, thousands of small glaciers have begun to melt or disappear completely, as we have seen with Iceland’s Glacier OK, which was declared ‘dead’ in 2014. This means that melting ice has now taken over as the main contributor to sea level rise. “
A separate study published last week by U.S. researchers threatens to rapidly destroy Antarctic ice sheets, including “huge impacts on the sea surface,” by global warming.
Scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have warned that rising temperatures could lead to rupture of molten water holes in shelves.
The worst case scenario is that “by the end of the century there will be plenty of space,” glycologist and study writer Jonathan Kingsley said.
