The world will witness an enormous sea level rise if global warming does cater to the 2015 Paris climate agreement target, according to a recent study.
The Rutgers co-authored study published in Nature looked at the Antarctic ice sheet and concluded that they would remain stable only if Paris climate agreement is met. The Paris agreement aims at substantially reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
COLLAPSE OF ICE SHEET
The researchers pointed out that if global warming exceeds the 2 degrees Celsius, the risk of ice shelves melting is higher. The collapse of the ice sheet would trigger melting of the Antarctic. This would result in at least 0.07 inches of global average sea level rise a year in 2060 and beyond. The researchers said that the sea level rise was faster than the average rate of sea level rise over the past 120 years.
Co-author Daniel M Gilford said that the collapse of ice sheet was irreversible. Once the Antarctic ice sheet becomes unstable, it could continue to retreat for centuries, the researchers said.
PROJECTION
In the study, the authors note that climate change caused sea levels to rise. They said that it was hard to project how much Antarctica would respond to this climate change. They also mentioned that Greenland was losing ice faster than Antarctica.
The researchers used an ice sheet model with modern satellite observations, paleoclimate data, and machine learning technique.
Gilford said it was critical to be proactive in mitigating climate change now through active international participation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and by continuing to ratchet down proposed policies to meet the ambitious Paris Agreement targets.
