A study published on Monday revealed that the rapidly melting Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise global sea levels by at least 27 centimeters, more than double what was previously expected.
This effect can be caused by the so-called “zombie ice”, or “exhausted ice”, which, although associated with thicker areas of ice, is no longer “regenerated” due to nearby glaciers now receiving less snow.
Without this “regeneration”, the “exhausted ice” would melt with climate change and would inevitably lead to higher sea levels, said William Colgan, an expert with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland and co-author of the study.
“It’s dead ice. It will melt and disappear from the ice sheet. This ice will be sent into the ocean no matter what climate scenario we adopt now,” Colgan told a news conference.
The study’s lead author, Jason Books, an expert on Greenland glaciers, cautioned that the situation was “one foot in the grave.”
The study suggests that the inevitable 27cm rise is more than twice the sea level rise scientists had predicted from melting Greenland ice.
The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, suggests that it can reach up to 78 centimeters in length.
On the other hand, last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report projected a range of 6 to 13 centimeters of potential sea level rise, from melting Greenland’s ice, by 2100.
In this work, scientists looked at ice in danger. In perfect balance, snowfall descends into the mountains of Greenland, recharging the sides of the glaciers and thickening them, balancing what is melting.
But in recent decades, less “refueling” and more melting, which leads to imbalance.
The paper’s authors analyzed the percentage of what is being added to what is lost and calculated that 3.3% of the total volume of Greenland’s ice will melt, regardless of what happens in the world while reducing air pollution. Carbon, Colgan noted.
More than 120 trillion tons of ice are already doomed to melt, due to the inability of the ice sheet to regenerate the sides.
“This is a very significant loss and it will have a detrimental impact on coasts around the world,” said New York University’s David Holland, who recently returned from Greenland but was not part of the investigation.
This is the first time scientists have calculated minimal ice loss – and the sea level rise it causes – in Greenland, one of the planet’s two massive ice sheets.
The two are slowly declining due to climate change from burning coal, oil, and natural gas.
Timing is an unanswered question in the study. The researchers stressed that they could not estimate the moment of thawing of the “stricken” ice, but indicated that it would be “within this century”, although they do not concretely assume this.
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