The findings from a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change show that 3.3 percent of Greenland’s ice sheet will melt, causing global sea levels to raise by nearly a foot. The Greenland Ice Sheet has been a major contributor to global sea-level rise in recent decades, and the trends show that this is continuing.
Part of this ice sheet loss is because of the effects of warmer air temperatures, and another reason for the change is because of the rising ocean temperatures to which they are being exposed.
According to Northwestern University climate scientist Yarrow Axford, these trends show how climate change is affecting glacial fluctuations in Arctic and alpine environments.
An expert on Greenland’s climate history, Axford is an associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She oversees conducts field-based climate investigations at remote sites in Greenland and the Arctic. Here geological methods are deployed to reconstruct past climate conditions.
This information feeds into climate projection models that help researchers gauge Greenland’s sensitivity to warming and the ice sheet’s behaviour.
Professor Axford explains, in a statement provided to Digital Journal, that: “The warming we have already caused has seriously shifted the balance for Greenland’s massive, Alaska-sized ice sheet.”
This is evident in the new research. As Axford says: “This study finds we’ve already locked in almost a foot of sea level rise from Greenland alone. That’s not even counting the world’s many smaller glaciers that are rapidly shrinking, or the sleeping giant of Antarctica.”
In addition, Axford warns: “That’s also not counting the effects of additional future warming. The exact rate of sea level rise is still debated, but we know that every bit of additional warming will mean even more flooding and catastrophe along the world’s coastlines”
Using very direct language, Axford provides a stark warning as to the future: “I cannot overstate the urgency of drastically reducing emissions to slow global ice loss and slow down all the other dangerous changes we’re causing.”
The research paper is titled “Greenland ice sheet climate disequilibrium and committed sea-level rise.”
