Published 03:58 IST, March 20th 2020
Climate Change: Greenland's melting ice raises global sea level by 2.2mm
A new study has found that the summer of 2019 has triggered the loss of 600 billion tons of ice from Greenland, raising the global sea levels by 2.2mm
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A new study has found that the summer of 2019 has triggered the loss of 600 billion tons of ice from Greenland which is enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2mm within just two months.
According to the reports, on analysing the satellite data it was revealed there has been a great loss to ice caps in just a few months of abnormally high temperatures around the northern pole. Last year was reportedly the hottest on record for the Arctic.
268 tons of ice lost
In the study, scientists have calculated that the enormous ice sheets in Greenland have lost an average of 268 billion tons of ice between 2002 and 2019. Global heating caused by the human-induced climate crisis are resulting the glaciers to melt away around the world.
As per the reports, scientists revealed the ice in Greenland is melting seven times faster as compared to 1990, pushing up previous estimates of global sea-level rise and putting 400 million people at risk of flooding every year by the end of the century.
Recent research has also found that Antarctica, the largest ice sheet on Earth, is also losing its mass at a rapid rate. As per reports, Greenland has been losing an enormous amount of ice at a rate that's six times faster than the 1990s.
Nearly 400 million people at risk
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has been tracking climate change, by the year 2100 around 400 million more people would be exposed to coastal flooding due to the melting of ice sheets. A team of 50 international organisations with 96 polar scientists have conducted the most shocking survey of ice loss in Greenland.
The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) Team carried 26 in-depth surveys to calculate the losses in the mass of Greenland's ice sheets. These surveys were conducted between 1992 and 2018. The IMBIE Team used the data of 11 satellites and they also used the data of the measurements of the ice sheet's changing volume, flow, and gravity.
03:58 IST, March 20th 2020