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The ice of Greenland and Antarctica is melting faster and faster.
Sea level rise now follows the UN worst case scenario.
– We are not prepared for the risks posed by rising sea levels, climate researcher Tom Slater says in a statement.
In 2020, the world’s glacier alarm reports have become increasingly dense.
At the same time that warm water has penetrated under the so-called “doomsday glaciers” of Antarctica, the Arctic has been hit by prolonged extreme heat, with extensive fires as a result.
According to an August study, the Greenland ice sheet has reached a point of no return, where it continues to melt even as climate change slows.
Photo: Keith Virgo / TT
Ice floats off the coast of Nuuk, Greenland.
On Monday, a group of researchers from the University of Leeds published a new article in the journal Nature Climate Change confirming that the ice in Greenland and Antarctica is melting at record speed.
The study has compared the latest satellite images of the ice masses with calculations from climate models.
Researchers now warn that the concomitant sea level rise is on par with the worst-case scenario from the fifth IPCC report of the UN climate panel.
Worse than expected
“Although we expected the ice sheets to lose more and more ice as a result of the warming of the oceans and the atmosphere, the rate at which the melting accelerates faster than we could have imagined,” said Tom Slater, principal investigator at the University of Leeds. Press release.
He continues:
– The thaw exceeds the climate models that we use as a guide and we are not prepared for the risks posed by rising sea levels.
Affects 16 million
So far, melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica has led to 1.8 centimeters higher sea levels since the 1990s, according to the study.
If it continues at the same rate, only the ice in Greenland and Antarctica will have helped raise the sea level by another 17 centimeters by the end of the century, something that will expose another 16 million people on earth to annual floods.
Photo: David Goldman / TT
Image from 2017 shows how a glacier in Greenland melts into a fjord.
Co-author Anna Hogg warns of the consequences of such a steep rise in sea level:
– It is enough to double the frequency of flooding in many of the world’s largest coastal cities.
New model required
In addition to Greenland and Antarctica, thousands of other glaciers are melting on Earth, contributing to rising sea levels. Furthermore, the sea level is rising as a result of the expansion of the water as it warms.
Being able to calculate sea level rise is essential for the world’s governments to plan to cope with the climate threat. According to Tom Slater, it will now be necessary to develop a new worst-case scenario for sea level rise, reports AFP.
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