Brought to you by Cosmos Magazine and The Echo
Polar ice is melting at an unprecedented rate and accounts for a quarter of all sea level rise, researchers say.
Figures, published in Earth System Science Data, show there has been a five-fold increase in ice melt since the 1990s, and seven of the worst years have occurred in the last decade.
The research by a decade-long international collaboration between dozens of institutions called IMBIE (Ice sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise) compiled 50 satellite surveys of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets between 1992 and 2020 to quantify the extent of ice loss.
During that time, more than 7,500 billion tonnes of ice has disappeared across both locations.
That’s about the amount of ice that would fit into a 20-cubic-kilometre chunk of ice.
Scientists concerned Antarctic ice melt threatens to collapse deep ocean currents
“Ice losses from Greenland and Antarctica have rapidly increased over the satellite record and are now a major contributor to sea level rise,” says lead researcher Dr Inès Otosaka from Leeds University, UK.
Otosaka says continuous monitoring of the ice sheets is now required to forecast their behaviour and help plan human adaptation.
Dr Diego Fernandez, head of research and development at the European Space Agency that co-funds the IMBIE program with NASA, made the grim assessment that polar ice variations “have reached a scale where abrupt changes can no longer be excluded”.
Increased global temperatures due to ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions are the primary driver of ice melt in polar regions. If melting occurs at the same rate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts 148-272 millimetres of average sea level rise could be solely attributed to the phenomena.
Polar ice melt has contributed 21mm to sea level rise since 1992.
This article was originally published on Cosmos Magazine and was written by Cosmos. Cosmos is a quarterly science magazine. We aim to inspire curiosity in ‘The Science of Everything’ and make the world of science accessible to everyone.
False !! Christian please elaborate !!
Barrow, sensationally quick of you, lifting your noggin out of the sand and offering…nothing… again.
Science always a bridge to far for you.
Years of research, polar ice melting, sea level rising, Denier in Chief Barrow is on hand…it not happening. Lol.
This appeal says it all really.
Desperate times, desperate measures, the appeal…drowned.
They use the same technology on space probes. The result is that they think that the Martian ice caps are melting, and that there is an increasing concentration of methane in its atmosphere, but are at a loss to explain where it may be coming from.
The largest glacier is on Australias Antarctic territory, and in 2015 the scientists identified it was melting from the 2015 increase in temperature, and wouldn’t stop melting untill its gone and eventually contributing aprox 1.5 metres to sea level rise. Recent studies identify all of Europe’s glaciers will entirely melt. The Himalayan glaciers are all melting (with the very real future consequences of the Ganges eventual loss of water, which is the main water supply for agriculture for Indias 1 billion people , and with the concurrent alteration to the previously annual pattern of monsoons). There is a long lag before each increasing temperature level causes the subsequent ice melt and ocean water expansion, which will inevitably wipe out a swathe of our coast, including Byron Bay, Bruns, Ballina etc that will inevitably be under the sea (if all the land based ice and snow melts it will contribute between 40 – 60 metres of sea level rise – which may see the reappearance of Australias previous inland sea. Difficult to see any other sustainable living areas for the generations next century apart from isolated self sustaining pockets.
I think all that assumes we sit back and don’t do anything about climate warming. Quite clearly, that will not happen.
Quite clearly, that is exactly what is happening !
Cheers, G”)
China is doing something. For each coal plant we blow up, they build a dozen new ones. For each EV we buy, they put 100 ICs on the road. India has much the same policy. It’s like the BRICS+ alliance countries know something you don’t.
Yes Christian 1.3% is Australia’s
Contribution ..as suggested
by Mr Finkel..if Australia stopped
Today ..would make not one bit
Of difference to Global warming..
Yet the Greens & labor are throwing
Us under a Bus ..indoctrinated
By the IPPC..etc..China..India
No Problem..!!
You can still get a 30+ year mortgage on a sea front home. You can still insure it. The land prices are higher than ever. Al Gore lives in a mansion at sea level. Ignore the stories their minions tell you. Pay attention to what they do with their own money.
Is this net ice melt? Or seasonal ice melt?