About a year ago, water and climate expert Bob Sandford flew
over Greenland at a moment he says was historic, both scientifically and
climatically — the island recorded the most ice melt, about 11.3
billions tonnes, in a single day since recording began in the 1950s.
"It's an understatement to say that what I saw left me really quite devastated," Sandford said. He's the chair in water and climate security at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.
Now, according to a recent study, led by Thomas Slater, a climate researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds, those rapidly melting ice sheets in Greenland, along with melting ice sheets in Antarctica are thought to be the main contributor to a rise in sea levels around the world. And the rate of the melt matches the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's worst-case climate warming scenario.
The study was co-authored by Anna Hogg, climate researcher with the University of Leeds in England, and Ruth Mottram, a climate researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute.
The researchers compared the latest results from satellite surveys from the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) — an international scientific collaboration of estimates of the ice sheet contribution to sea level rise — with calculations from climate models.
It shows that since the 1990s, melting ice sheets have raised the global sea level by 1.8 centimetres, but the latest measurements show that the world's oceans are now rising by four millimetres each year.
"The implications are profound; the risks posed by future sea level rise may be of a scale we simply are unprepared for. The speed at which ice melt contributions have overtaken thermal expansion contributions to sea level rise should alarm everyone on this planet."
Read more at:
Rise in sea level from ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica match worst-case scenario: study | CBC News
"It's an understatement to say that what I saw left me really quite devastated," Sandford said. He's the chair in water and climate security at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.
Now, according to a recent study, led by Thomas Slater, a climate researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds, those rapidly melting ice sheets in Greenland, along with melting ice sheets in Antarctica are thought to be the main contributor to a rise in sea levels around the world. And the rate of the melt matches the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's worst-case climate warming scenario.
The study was co-authored by Anna Hogg, climate researcher with the University of Leeds in England, and Ruth Mottram, a climate researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute.
The researchers compared the latest results from satellite surveys from the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) — an international scientific collaboration of estimates of the ice sheet contribution to sea level rise — with calculations from climate models.
It shows that since the 1990s, melting ice sheets have raised the global sea level by 1.8 centimetres, but the latest measurements show that the world's oceans are now rising by four millimetres each year.
"The implications are profound; the risks posed by future sea level rise may be of a scale we simply are unprepared for. The speed at which ice melt contributions have overtaken thermal expansion contributions to sea level rise should alarm everyone on this planet."
Read more at:
Rise in sea level from ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica match worst-case scenario: study | CBC News
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