ACCORDING to a new study, ice is melting in the western Antarctic at an unstoppable pace.
Climatologists are now warning that the discovery holds major consequences for global sea level rise in the coming decades. The speedy melting means that prior calculations of sea level rise worldwide made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will have to be adjusted upwards.
A large sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet has gone into a state of irreversible retreat. It has passed the point of no return.
Scientists have been warning about this so-called weak underbelly of the western Antarctic for decades, but only since the 1990s have scientists been able to gather detailed information on this remote area. A separate study published in the journal Science found that Thwaites glacier is melting fast and that its collapse could raise global sea level nearly 2ft (60cm).
Another paper shows winds in the wild Southern Ocean are blowing at their strongest in a millennia as climate change shifts weather patterns, leaving Antarctica colder and Australia facing more droughts.
All of this cumulative evidence shows yet again the need for global action to reduce CO2 emissions, and the price that will be paid if action is not taken.
Alan Hinnrichs,
2 Gillespie Terrace, Dundee.
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