Antarctica floods cities
The melting ice in Antarctica and its disastrous consequences for the coastal cities of the world.
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| Antarctica |
An international research team has warned of the danger of escalating warming, which in turn increases the rate of ice mass loss on the continent and the implications of this irreparable loss for coastal cities. cultural heritage sites around the world, from London to Mumbai, and New York to Shanghai, in a new study by the team on the stationary state of Antarctica.
Serious consequences.
The study was followed by researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and Columbia University in New York in the United States (New York's Colombia University).
In their study, published on September 23 in the journal Nature, a team of researchers shows how well the Antarctic ice sheet can resist warming.
The study followed the environmental impact over a period of approximately one million hours (approximately 114 years) from the date of the start of the detailed simulations of the climate models they developed.
They were able to determine the exact location at which the glacier would become unstable, as well as the associated warming levels. They found that when ice becomes unstable, it thaws and moves toward the ocean with disastrous long-term consequences.
For example, if the global average temperature level persists for a sufficiently long period of time at 4 degrees above pre-industrial levels, then the melting of Antarctica alone could raise the global sea level by more than 6 meters.
Direct correlation relationship.
Antarctica contains more than half of the Earth's freshwater, frozen in a vast ice cap about 5 kilometers thick.
In view of the warming of ocean waters and the atmosphere; Due to human greenhouse gas emissions, good Antarctic cover loses mass and eventually becomes unstable.
Thus, at a level of two degrees of warming, the melting of the ice and its accelerated flow in the ocean will ultimately lead to a height of 2.5 meters from the global sea level from Antarctica alone.
At 4 degrees of global warming, the sea level rise will be 6.5 meters, and at approximately 6 degrees the sea level will rise for an additional 12 meters, in the event of the continuous escalation of global warming degrees over a long period of time as is the case we are living in today.
Melting is slow but eternal.
Antarctica is considered a heritage foundation in Earth's nearly 34 million-year-old history, and simulations conducted by researchers have indicated that once melted, it will not return to its original state even. if the temperatures drop again.
In fact, temperatures are doomed to return to pre-industrial levels to allow a full recovery, which is an extremely unlikely scenario.
This means that what we lose from the southern continent is considered irrecoverable losses, due to intrinsic mechanisms of the behavior of the ice caps under global warming conditions, as the main driver of ice loss is warm water from there. the ocean, which causes higher melting under the ice shelves, which in turn leads to destabilizing the Earth's ice cap.
Once temperatures cross the 6-degree threshold above pre-industrial levels, giant icebergs slowly sink to lower altitudes as the air is warmer; This melts more ice, as it does in Greenland.
Our fate is in our hands. (Put oil on the fire).
The loss and melting of ice have accelerated considerably over the past decades in Antarctica. However, the authors did not explicitly address the issue of timescale in their work; Instead, they assessed the critical levels of warming, at which parts of the Antarctic ice sheet would become unstable.
This is where the researchers' original contribution lies in their study of determining the timescale of the cascading impacts of global warming.
Ultimately, it is our combustion of coal and oil that determines current and future greenhouse gas emissions, and so we can decide now whether we will be successful in stopping warming and protecting what lies behind it. rest. “Antarctica, and in a better sense to protect cities and cultural sites around the world, from Copacabana to Rio. From Janeiro to the Sydney Opera House to a dark fate in case we fail to stop this warming. So to give up on the Paris Agreement and not respect it means giving up cities like Hamburg, Tokyo, and New York.