A study published on Monday has shown that as temperatures continue to rise, Greenland’s fast-melting ice sheet will cause a huge sea level rise with potentially ominous implications over this century.
According to the study, Melting “zombie” ice from the enormous Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise the global sea level by at least 27 centimetres (10 inches) just on its own.
Published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the study found that sea rise could reach as much as 78cm (30 inches) – enough to swamp vast swathes of low-lying coastlines and supercharge floods and storm surges.
The authors of the study said that this should serve “as an ominous prognosis for Greenland’s trajectory through the 21st century of warming”.
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Recall that last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report projected a range of 6-13cm (2-5 inches) for likely sea level rise from Greenland ice melt by the year 2100.
The lead author of the study, Jason Box, a glaciologist at the Greenland survey, said it is “like one foot in the grave”. Co-author William Colgan, also a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, said: “This ice has been consigned to the ocean, regardless of what climate [emissions] scenario we take now.”
The theory that was used by the researchers was initially developed to explain changes in Alpine glaciers and it holds if more snow piles up on top of a glacier, it causes lower areas to expand.
“In this case, the reduced snow is shrinking in lower parts of the glacier as it rebalances, Box was quoted as saying.
Story was adapted from Aljazeera.
