Melting of the ice sheets will add more than 15 inches to global sea level rise by 2100
If human beings Continuing to emit greenhouse gases At the current rate, global sea level could rise by more than 15 inches (38 cm) by 2100, scientists have found in a new study.
Greenhouse gases emitted by human activity, such as carbon dioxide, contribute significantly to: Climate change As global temperatures rise, studies continue to show this. As things warm, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are melting. A new study by an international team of more than 60 glaciers, oceanic and atmospheric scientists estimates how much these melting ice sheets contribute to global sea levels.
“One of the biggest uncertainties when it comes to how much sea level rise in the future is how much the ice sheets will contribute,” project leader and ice scientist Sophie Nowicki, currently at the University of Buffalo and previously worked on NASA’s Goddard space flight. Center in Maryland, He said in a statement. “And how much the ice sheets contribute really depends on what the climate will do.”
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The results of this study show that if human greenhouse gas emissions continued at the current pace, melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica would contribute more than 15 inches (28 cm) to global sea levels. This new study is part of the Ice Sheet Model Comparison Project (ISMIP6), led by NASA Goddard.
The ISMIP6 team investigated how sea levels would rise between 2015 and 2100, exploring how sea levels would change in a variety of carbon emissions scenarios.
They found that with high emissions (as we see it now) spread over this time period, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet would contribute about 3.5 inches (9 cm) to global sea level rise. With fewer emissions, they estimate this figure to be around 1.3 inches (3 cm).
The loss of ice cover in Antarctica is difficult to predict, because while ice shelves will continue to erode on the western side of the continent, eastern Antarctica could gain mass as temperatures rise due to increased snowfall. For this reason, the team found a greater range of potential ice cover loss here.
The team determined that the loss of ice cover in Antarctica could boost sea levels up to 12 inches (30 cm), with West Antarctica causing a sea level rise of 7.1 inches (18 cm) by the year 2100 with the highest projected emissions.
However, to be clear: these increases in global sea levels are only predictions for the years 2015 to 2100, so they do not take into account the significant loss of ice sheets that actually occurred between the pre-industrial era and the modern era.
Helen Sirossi, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who led the Antarctic Ice Sheet modeling on the ISMIP6 project, made the same statement.
“With these new findings, we can focus our efforts in the right direction and see what needs to be done to continue improving expectations,” said Ceriusi.
These results are in line with Estimates prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), whose 2019 Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere showed that melting ice sheets will contribute to about a third of the total global sea level rise.
According to the 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the melting of the Greenland ice sheets will contribute from 3.1 to 10.6 inches (8 to 27 cm) to global sea level rise between 2000 and 2100. For Antarctica, the report estimates that the melting of the ice sheets It will add 1.2 to 11 inches (3 to 28 cm).
The results of this new work will help inform the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the sixth overall, which is scheduled for release in 2022, according to the same statement.
“The strength of ISMIP6 is to bring together most of the ice sheet modeling groups around the world, and then connect with other communities of ocean and atmosphere designers as well, to better understand what could happen to the ice sheets,” said a scientist from Utrecht University in the Netherlands who now works at the research center. Norwegian NORCE in Norway, in the same statement.
“It took more than six years of workshops and teleconferences with scientists from around the world working on the ice sheet, the atmosphere and ocean modeling to build a society that could ultimately improve our expectations for sea level rise,” added Novicki, who led Greenland. Ice Cover Project ISMIP6. “The reason for its success is that the Arctic community is small, and we are all very keen on properly solving the sea level problem in the future. We need to know these numbers.”
This was working Posted on September 17 In a special issue of The Cryosphere.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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