The melting ice in Greenland has accelerated this century to 500 billion tonnes.
Copenhagen:
The melting of the Greenland ice sheet has gone so far that it is now irreversible, with snowfall no longer able to compensate for the loss of ice even if global warming were to end today, researchers say.
“Greenland’s glaciers have passed a tipping point of sorts, where the snowfall that replenishes the ice sheet each year cannot keep up with the ice that flows into the ocean from the glaciers,” a statement said. from Ohio State University, where several authors of a study published Aug. 13 in Communications Earth and Environment.
Climate change is having a devastating effect on the world‘s glaciers, with melting ice threatening millions of people around the world.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the ice sheet lost around 450 billion tonnes of ice per year, which was offset by snowfall, scientists said after analyzing 40 years of data.
But the melting of the ice has accelerated this century, passing to 500 billion tons and not being sufficiently reconstituted in snow.
“The Greenland ice sheet is losing mass at an accelerating rate in the 21st century, making it the biggest contributor to sea level rise,” the study said.
While researchers agree that the melting ice in Greenland is cause for concern, not everyone agrees that it has reached a “tipping point.”
“We don’t know how much greenhouse gas concentrations will increase,” Ruth Mottram, climatologist at the Danish Meteorological Institute, told AFP.
The published results show that “even if we stabilized temperatures (and greenhouse gas emissions) at current levels, the ice sheet would continue to melt, but only until the size of the ice sheet was again. in balance with the climate, ”says Mottram.
Another recent study from the British University of Lincoln concluded that melting ice in Greenland alone is expected to contribute 10 to 12 centimeters to the rise in sea level around the world by 2100.
The UN’s IPCC Climate Science Advisory Group said in 2013 that it expected sea level to rise by 60 centimeters by the end of the century.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
