Melting of Antarctica’s ice sheet could cause sea levels to rise many meters by the end of the millennium – Watts Up With That?
UNIVERSITY HOKKAIDO
Scientists predict that continued global warming on current trends could lead to a sea level rise of more than 5 meters by 3000 AD.
One of the effects of global warming is sea level rise due to the melting and retreating of the Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers as well as other sources. As sea levels rise, large areas of densely populated coastal land may eventually become uninhabitable without extensive coastal reclamation. Therefore, it is important to understand the impact of different pathways of future climate change on sea level changes caused by ice sheets and glaciers.
A team of researchers from Hokkaido University, the University of Tokyo and the Japan Agency for Earth and Marine Sciences (JAMSTEC) has explored the long-term perspective for the Antarctic ice sheet after the 21st century under extreme conditions. land warming, say by the end of day 21 -average climatic conditions remain unchanged. The models and their conclusions have been published in Journal of Glaciology.
The Ice Plate Model Comparison Project for Phase 6 of the Paired Model Comparison Project (ISMIP6) is a major international effort that uses the latest generation of models to estimate the impacts of global warming. demand for the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. The goal is to provide input to the The sixth assessment report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to sea level rise by 2100 is estimated to range from −7.8 to 30.0 cm under unabated warming and 0 to 3 cm under greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
The team used the iceberg model SICOPOLIS (SImulation COde for POlythermal Ice Sheets) to extend the entire ISMIP6 complex to include fourteen experiments for the unabated warming pathway and three experiments for the emission reduction pathway. Until 2100, the setup remained the same as in the initial ISMIP6 trials. For the period after 2100, it is assumed that late-21st-century climate conditions will remain constant – no other climate trends apply. The team analyzed the results of simulations of the total mass change of the ice sheet, the regional change in West Antarctica, East Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, and also different factors. contribute to the mass change.
Simulations of Antarctic ice sheet mass loss show that, by the year 3000, the unabated warming path produced a sea-level equivalent (SLE) of 1.5 to 5.4 metres. , while for the reduced emissions path, the SLE would be only 0.13 to 0.32 meters. The main cause of the disintegration along the path of unabated warming is the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, possibly because the West Antarctic ice sheet rests on the bed mostly below sea level.
“This study clearly demonstrates that the impacts of 21st century climate change on Antarctica’s ice cover extend well beyond the 21st century, and that the most severe consequences – contributing many meters to sea level rise – will likely be seen only later,” said Dr. Christopher Chambers of Hokkaido University’s Institute of Low Temperature Science and lead author of the paper. “Future work will include simulations based on more realistic future climate scenarios, as well as using other iceberg models to model the results.”
JOURNEYS
Journal of Glaciology
DOI
RESEARCH METHODS
Simulation / computational modeling
RESEARCH SUBJECTS
Do not apply
ARTICLE TITLE
Mass loss of Antarctic ice up to the year 3000 in end-21st century sustainable climates
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
December 22, 2021
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