1.5C warming cap could ‘halve’ sea level rise from melting ice

May 8 ------ Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could halve how much sea levels rise due to melting ice sheets this century, according to a major new study modelling how Earth’s frozen spaces will respond to ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Since 1993, melting land ice has contributed to at least half of global sea level rise and scientists have previously warned that the vast ice sheets of Antarctica were disappearing faster than worst-case scenarios.

An international team of more than 50 climate scientists combined hundreds of melt simulations of the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets, which contain enough frozen water to raise the world’s seas some 65 meters (213 feet). They also included melt modelling from Earth’s more than 220,000 glaciers, which make up only one percent of ice on the planet but contribute as much as a fifth of sea level rise.

The team analyzed the models to come up with probability estimates of how much melting ice would raise oceans under a variety of emissions pathways. They found that if mankind successfully limits warming to 1.5C — the goal set down in the Paris climate deal — it could halve ice’s contribution to sea level rise by 2100. This is compared with the roughly 3C of warming Earth would undergo if countries’ current emissions-cutting pledges played out. “Global sea level is going to continue to rise,” said lead study author Tamsin Edwards, from King’s College London’s department of geography. “But we could halve that contribution from ice melting if we limit warming to 1.5C degrees, relative to current pledges.”

Source: mb.com.ph