Earth's ice sheet tracking UN's worst-case scenarios for sea level rise

Scientists from University of Leeds and Danish Meteorological Institute, in a recent study said that since 1990s, ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica whose melting rates are increasing rapidly have raised global sea level by 1.8cm. Also, se levels are matching Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's worst case climate warming scenarios. Researchers said that if rates continue to increase at this pace sea levels are expected to rise by a furr 17cm and that can expose approximately 16 million people to coastal flooding by end of century.

main cause of global warming

As a part of study, ice sheets were first monitored by satellite in 1990s, pushing global sea levels up by 7.2mm. le author of study and climate researcher at Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University of Leeds, Dr Tom Slater said that “Although we anticipated ice sheets would lose increasing amounts of ice in response to warming of oceans and atmosphere, rate at which y are melting has accelerated faster than we could have imagined”. He ded that " melting is overtaking climate models we use to guide us, and we are in danger of being unprepared for risks posed by sea level rise”. 

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Dr Anna Hogg, study co-author and climate researcher in School of Earth and Environment at Leeds, said “If ice sheet losses continue to track our worst-case climate warming scenarios we should expect an ditional 17cm of sea level rise from ice sheets alone. That's eugh to double frequency of storm-surge flooding in many of world's largest coastal cities”. study which has been published in a study in journal Nature Climate Change, compares results from satellite surveys from Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise with calculations from climate models. 

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As per study, global sea levels have increased due to a mechanism called rmal expansion. Using this mechanism, volume of seawater expands when it gets warmer. However, in past 5 years, ice melt from ice sheets and mountain glaciers has overtaken global warming. This has become main cause of surging sea levels. Co-author and climate researcher at Danish Meteorological Institute, Dr Ruth Mottram said that “It is t only Antarctica and Greenland that are causing water to rise. In recent years, thousands of smaller glaciers have begun to melt or disappear altoger, as we saw with glacier Ok in Iceland, which was declared "de" in 2014. This means that melting of ice has w taken over as main contributor of sea level rise”.

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