The world’s ice hubcaps are on their way to uncontrolled melting, leading to a sea level rise in several meters and a “catastrophic” migration from coastal areas, even though the world gets the miracle of maintaining global warming within 1.5 ° C, according to a new survey published on Tuesday (20) in Communications Earth and Environment.
A group of international scientists set out to establish what the “safe limit” of heating for the survival of Greenland and Antarctic ice caps would be for the survival of ice caps. They analyzed studies that used data from satellites, climate models and evidence of the past, such as ice nuclei, deep marine sediments and even octopus DNA.
The world promised to restrict global warming to 1.5 ° C above pre-industrial levels to prevent the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.
However, not only is this limit being out of reach – the world is currently on the way to up to 2.9 ° C of heating by 2100. But the most worrying discovery of study It is that 1.5 ° C may not even be enough to save the ice caps.
Even if the world maintains the current level of heating, 1.2 ° C, this can still trigger a quick retreat of ice caps and a catastrophic elevation of sea level, scientists have discovered.
Together, Greenland and Antarctic ice caps contain enough fresh water to raise the overall level of the oceans by about 65 meters – an unlikely scenario, but must be recognized to fully understand the risk.
Since the 1990s, the amount of ice lost by these caps quadrupled; They are currently losing about 370 billion tons per year. The melting of ice caps is primarily responsible for raising seas, and the annual increase in sea level increase has doubled in the last 30 years. And the tendency is to get worse.
Several studies suggest that 1.5 ° C of heating is “very high” to avoid the rapid retreat of ice caps, a process that would be irreversible on the human time scale, and that the world must prepare for sea level raising meters over the next centuries, according to the study.
“You don’t slow down the rising seawater with 1.5 ° C, you actually see a very fast acceleration,” says Chris Stokes, study author and glacologist at Durham University.
It is an existential threat to the world’s coastal populations. About 230 million people live less than 1 meter above sea level. Even small changes in the amount of ice contained in the caps “will deeply change” global coastal lines, shifting hundreds of millions of people and causing damage that exceeds the limits of adaptation, the study concluded.
Seas can rise 1 inch a year by the end of the century, still within the lives of young people today, according to scientists.
At this rate, which is equivalent to 1 meter per century, “you will see a mass terrestrial migration on a scale we have never witnessed since the emergence of modern civilization,” says Jonathan Bamber, co -author of the study and glacologist at the University of Bristol.
There are still great uncertainties about where the inflection points are. Climate change does not occur linearly and it is unclear exactly when heating can trigger a quick retreat and even collapse.
Most worrying, according to the study’s authors, is that the best “safe” temperature boundaries to preserve ice caps continue to decrease as scientists better understand their vulnerability to climate change.
Initial modeling suggested that temperatures would have to reach about 3 ° C of heating to destabilize Greenland’s ice cap, for example, but recent estimates indicate that about 1.5 ° C would be enough.
Avoiding the rapid collapse of one or more ice caps would require limiting global warming to something closer to 1 ° C above pre-industrial levels, the study authors concluded.
This would require drastic cuts in burning fossil fuels by humans – something that seems extremely unlikely, as countries like the United States continue to bet on oil, coal and gas.
The world is already beginning to experience some of the worst scenarios with regard to loss of ice, said Stokes.
“There is very little that we are observing that he gives us hope here,” he says. “The best possible scenario is that the increase in sea level is slow and constant,” he added.
The results do not mean that the world should give up climate goals, as each degree of heating represents more severe impacts, according to Stokes.
Limiting heating to 1.5 ° C will be a great achievement. It must undoubtedly be our goal, but by no means will it slow down or stop rising sea level and melting ice caps.
This content was originally published in hood melting should accelerate even with climate goal, says study on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
