{"id":63165,"date":"2020-09-25T09:59:17","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T07:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/?p=63165"},"modified":"2020-09-25T09:59:17","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T07:59:17","slug":"stability-check-on-antarctica-reveals-high-risk-for-long-term-sea-level-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/en\/science\/stability-check-on-antarctica-reveals-high-risk-for-long-term-sea-level-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Stability Check on Antarctica Reveals High Risk for Long-Term Sea-Level Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The warmer it gets, the faster Antarctica loses ice \u2013 and much of it will then be gone forever. Consequences for the world\u2019s coastal cities and cultural heritage sites would be detrimental, from London to Mumbai, and from New York to Shanghai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what a team of researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam University and New York\u2019s Columbia University has found out in their new study, published in Nature (cover story), on how much warming the Antarctic Ice Sheet can survive. In around one million hours of computation time, their unprecedentedly detailed simulations delineate where exactly and at which warming levels the ice would become unstable and eventually melt and drain into the ocean. They find a delicate concert of accelerating and moderating effects, but the main conclusion is that unmitigated climate change would have dire long-term consequences: If the global mean temperature level is sustained long enough at 4 degrees above pre-industrial levels, Antarctic melting alone could eventually raise global sea levels by more than six meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Photo:
Photo: Torsten Albrecht, PIK | Nature cover with PIK Antarctica study, showing Ad\u00e9lie penguins on a capsized iceberg in the Weddell sea, Antarctica. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“Antarctica holds more than half of Earth’s fresh water, frozen in a vast ice-sheet which is nearly 5 kilometers thick,” explains Ricarda Winkelmann, researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and University of Potsdam, and corresponding author of the study. “As the surrounding ocean water and atmosphere warm due to human greenhouse-gas emissions, the white cap on the South Pole loses mass and eventually becomes unstable. Because of its sheer magnitude, Antarctica’s potential for sea-level contribution is enormous: We find that already at 2 degrees of warming, melting and the accelerated ice flow into the ocean will, eventually, entail 2.5 meters of global sea level rise just from Antarctica alone. At 4 degrees, it will be 6.5 meters and at 6 degrees almost 12 meters if these temperature levels would be sustained long enough.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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