Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica whose melting rates are rapidly increasing have raised global sea level by 1.8cm since the 1990s, and are matching worst-case climate warming scenarios.
Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica whose melting rates are rapidly increasing have raised global sea level by 1.8cm since the 1990s, and are matching worst-case climate warming scenarios.
According to a new study led by Dr Tom Slater from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at Leeds and with the Danish Meteorological Institute, if these rates continue the ice sheets are expected to raise sea levels by a further 17cm and expose an additional 16 million people to annual coastal flooding by the end of the century.
The worst-case scenarios are those predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Since the ice sheets were first monitored by satellite in the 1990s, melting from Antarctica has pushed global sea levels up by 7.2mm, while Greenland has contributed 10.6mm. And the latest measurements show that the world's oceans are now rising by 4mm each year.
Read more at University of Leeds
Photo Credit: jodeng via Pixabay
