The melting of the ice in Greenland and Antarctica has quintupled since the 1990s and its consequences can already be measured: this massive disappearance of the ice cap is already responsible for a quarter of sea level rise.
The equivalent of a 20 km2 block of ice disappeared in less than 30 years. New satellite observation data from the European Special Agency and the climate monitoring organization Copernicus give us a clearer picture of the ice cap’s disappearance: Between 1992 and 2020, the polar ice sheets did indeed lose 7,560 billion tons.
The peak of intensity occurred in 2019, the year the poles lost 612 billion tons of ice. The seven fastest melting years all occurred in the last decade. Greenland and West AntarcticaAntarctica are the two most affected areas, while East Antarctica remains at an equilibrium level.
An average sea level rise of 10 centimeters by 2100
While in the early 1990s the melting of the ice accounted for only a very small part of the rise in sea level (up to 5.6%), this proportion increased sharply after the 2000s. The ice sheet is now responsible for 25.6% sea level rises.
The researchers estimate that since 1992, this melting has led to an average sea level rise of 21 millimeters. Two-thirds of this increase was caused by the disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet (13.5 millimeters), versus one-third in Antarctica (7.4 millimeters). .
If global warming continues at the same rate, melting polar ice will cause sea levels to rise by about 148 to 272 millimeters by 2100. That’s more than 10 extra centimeters, to which are added other parameters global sea level rise.
Ice melt has accelerated since the 1990s
Article by Nathalie MayerNathalie Mayer, written on February 6, 2021
north and south. On the seas as well as on land. The ice is melting everywhere. And at an accelerating pace, researchers today are confirming us based on satellite databases recorded since 1995.
For the first time, researchers from the University of Leeds (UK) have used satellite data to study ice melting at the globe level. A survey covering 215,000 mountain glaciers, the polar ice caps, the ice shelves around Antarctica and sea ice, with hardly any reassuring conclusions. Between 1995 and 2017, the Earth lost 28 trillion tons — or 28 x 1,015 tons — of ice. At a rate that has steadily accelerated, going from 0.8 trillion tons per year in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion in 2017.
Melting has accelerated most on the side of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. “In these regions we are tracking the worst of the global warming scenarios defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),” said Thomas Slater, lead author of the study, in a press release from the University of Leeds.
In the direction of significant sea level rise
A total of 7.6 trillion tons of sea ice has been lost on the Arctic side – mainly due to the increase in atmospheric temperature by 0.26°C per decade – and 6.5 trillion tons on the Antarctic ice shelf side – due to an increase in sea temperature by 0.12 °C per decade.
Half of the ice lost was continental ice. A melt that has already raised sea levels by 35 millimeters. “At this rate, sea level rise this century will have serious consequences for coastal communities,” warns Thomas Slater. Remember that for every inch of height, a million people on the planet are at risk.