Zombie ice from the giant Greenland Ice Sheet will eventually raise global sea levels by at least 10 inches (27 cm), according to a study released Monday.
Zombie or derelict ice is ice that is still attached to dense ice fields, but is no longer fed by those larger glaciers. This is because the original glaciers are receiving less replenishment ice. Meanwhile, climate change is melting the ice, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.
“This is dead ice. It will melt and disappear from the ice sheet,” Colgan said in an interview.
Lead concentrate on creator Jason Box, a glaciologist with the Greenland Survey, said it’s “like a foot in the grave.”
The study assumes ten inches of sea level rise is inevitable, twice what scientists expect before the Greenland ice sheet melts. A study in the journal Nature Climate Change said it could reach 30 inches (78 cm). In contrast, last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report estimated a 2 to 5 inch (6 to 13 cm) rise in sea level by the year 2100 from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
How the researchers helped the review was to notice the ice in balance. In perfect balance, the ice in the mountains of Greenland flows down and recharges the glaciers and the edges of the glaciers, balancing the melting at the edges. But over the past few decades, low supply and high melting have created an imbalance. The study’s authors looked at the ratio of what’s being lost and calculated that 3.3% of Greenland’s total ice volume would melt, regardless of what the world does to reduce carbon pollution, Colgan said.
“I think starving to death would be a good phrase,” Colgan said, referring to what’s happening to Snow.
One of the study’s authors said that more than 120 trillion tons (110 trillion metric tons) of ice is doomed to melt because of the inability to replenish the edges of an already warming ice sheet. When that ice melts and turns into water, if it were concentrated only in the United States, it would be 37 feet (11 m) deep.
It’s the first time scientists have calculated the minimum ice loss — and sea level rise — for Greenland, one of Earth’s two largest ice sheets, which is fueled by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. It is climate-changed. Affected by change, slowly shrinking. . The scientists used a proven technique to calculate the minimum committed ice loss, which is used on mountain glaciers for the entire vast frozen island.
Glaciology Richard Ely of Pennsylvania State University, who was not part of the study but said it makes sense, said that committed melting and sea-level rise would have resulted in ice cubes placed in a cup of hot tea in a warm room. is like
“You have suffered heavy damage from the ice,” Eli said in an email. “Additionally, the greater part of the world’s mountain ice sheets and the bank of Greenland will keep on losing mass on the off chance that temperatures stay steady at present day levels as they are placed into hot air like your ice cube is put into hot tea.”
While 10 inches doesn’t sound like much, it is the global average. Some coastal areas will be more affected, and on top of that, higher tides and storm surges may be worse, so this extreme rise in sea level will have “huge social, economic and environmental impacts”, says Professor Eileen Enderlin. of Geology in Boise. State University.
Two outside glaciologists, Leigh Stearns of the University of Kansas and Sophie Nowicki of the University of Buffalo, said the timing is unknown here and is a minor problem with the study. Researchers in the study said they could not estimate the timing of the promised melt, yet in the last sentence they mentioned “within this century” without backing it up, Stearns said.
Colgan replied that the team did not know how long it would take for all the ice to melt, but to make an educated guess, it would probably be by the finish of this long period, or possibly by 2150.
That’s really the best case, Colgan said. The year 2012 (and to a different degree 2019) was a very big melt year, when the balance between adding and subtracting ice was very much out of balance. If Earth begins to experience more years like 2012, the melting of Greenland could raise sea levels by 30 inches (78 cm), he said. Those two years seem like a lot now, but the years that seem normal now were a lot 50 years ago.
“That’s how climate change works,” Colgan said. “Today’s outliers become tomorrow’s average.”
