If the forecasts of scientists experts in climate change are confirmed, the increase in global temperature between 1.5 and 2 ºC will cause the melting of large masses of Antarctic ice and the consequent rise in sea level for thousands of years, according to a new study led by Nicholas Golledge of the Antarctic Research Center at the New Zealand University of Victoria.
Golledge and his colleagues, along with other scientists from the Australian University of New South Wales, used computer simulations to assess the response of ice sheets to temperature rise in different greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Only in the unlikely event that emissions were reduced from 2020, large areas of the Antarctic ice pack would melt, raising the ocean level.
“The long-term effects on the southern ice sheet, which can manifest themselves over thousands of years in response to climatic and environmental changes, are coupled with the fact that CO₂ remains in the atmosphere for a long time, which implies that the The warming we are generating now will be very difficult to correct , “according to Golledge. The 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the Antarctic ice sheet would only contribute two inches to global sea level rise by the end of this century, and that in the worst-case scenario.
However, Professor Tim Naish, who has collaborated with Golledge on the new study, believes that when that report was issued there was not enough data to properly assess the effects of warming: “Our research already takes into account the processes that They occur when ice sheets come into contact with the ocean.
93% of the heat produced by human activity has gone to the seas, and these warmer waters are now in contact with the floating margins of the Antarctic ice sheet. If that ice pack melts, the sea level could rise up to 40 centimeters in the year 2100 ”. To prevent this, warming has to be kept below 2 ° C from current levels. And it is that 10% of the world’s population lives on the coasts, in a strip of less than 10 meters above sea level.
