The world has seen several reports on global warming, ice melting and sea water rising and adding to these is a study from NASA that says that the ice sheet melting in Antarctica and Green land would add to 15 inches of global sea level rise.
NASA said that the rise in seas level would happen if greenhouse gas emissions continue apace. The 15 inch sea level rise is much beyond the amount of sea level rise that was already set in motion with climate warming.
The reports said that this was in line with the projections in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2019 Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere. Meltwater from ice sheets add to a third of the total global sea level rise. The IPCC report had said that ice sheet melt from Greenland would contribute about 3.1 to 10.6 inches to sea level rise between 2000-2100. It also said that the melting of ice sheet in Antarctica could contribute 1.2 to 11 inches.
The Cryoshpere journal published the new study from the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The study resolves around impact of a warming climate on melting ice sheets, understanding its causes and tracking sea level changes.
The ice sheets in Greenland are a big contributor to rise in sea level as they melt in a faster pace with a rise in air and ocean temperatures. The team from NASA looked into two different two scenarios the IPCC has set for future climate to predict sea level rise. One is related to carbon emissions and another to lower emissions.
In the high emissions scenario, the NASA researchers found that the Greenland ice sheet would lead to an additional global sea level rise of about 3.5 inches by 2100. In the lower emissions scenario, the loss from ice sheet would raise global sea level by about 1.3 inches. They found this to be beyond already destined to be lost from the ice sheet.
The NASA team found that Antarctica ice sheet loss was difficult to predict. The found that warm ocean currents erode the bottom of large floating ice shelves in the west. In the vast East Antarctic, ice sheet can gain mass, as warmer temperatures cause increased snowfall.
