Published 21.09.2020 Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, whose melting rate is rapidly increasing, have raised global sea levels by 1.8 cm since the 1990s and correspond to the worst-case scenarios of climate warming developed in the latest report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Recent measurements show that the level of the world's oceans has recently been rising by 4 mm every year.
According to a new study by the University of Leeds and the Danish meteorological Institute, if this rate continues, ice sheets are expected to raise sea levels by another 17 cm by the end of the century, putting 16 million people at risk due to a doubling of the frequency of storm surges in many of the world's largest coastal cities and annual coastal flooding. This is enough to
"Although we expected the ice sheets to lose more and more ice in response to the warming of the oceans and atmosphere, the rate of melting increased faster than we could have imagined. ... Melting is outpacing the climate models that guide us, and we risk being unprepared for the risks associated with sea level rise," said Dr Tom Slater, lead author of the book and climate researcher At the centre for polar observations and modelling at the University of Leeds.
Until now, global sea levels have been rising mainly due to a mechanism called thermal expansion, which means that the volume of seawater increases as it gets warmer. But over the past five years, the melting of ice from ice sheets and mountain glaciers has overtaken global warming and become the main cause of sea level rise.
Prepared based on the EurekAlert press release!