Greenland ice melt raises alarm
LONDON: Greenland is losing ice seven times faster than in the 1990s, according to the most complete study of the polar island yet, which said continued melting may lead to 40 million more people exposed to coastal flooding by 2100.
The researchers from 50 international organisations, including those from the University of Leeds in the UK, combined 26 separate surveys t o esti mate changes in the mass of Greenland’s ice sheet between 1992 and 2018. They used data from 11 different satellite missions, including measurements of the ice sheet’s changing volume, flow, and gravity.
The findings of the study, published in the journal Nature on Tuesday, showed that Greenland had lost 3.8 trillion tonnes of ice since 1992 - enough to push global sea levels up by 10.6 millimetres. The researchers said the rate of ice loss has risen from 33 billion tonnes per year in the 1990s to 254 billion tonnes per year in the last decade - a seven-fold increase within three decades.
The study noted that in 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted global sea levels to rise by 60cm by 2100, putting 360 million people at risk of annual coastal flooding. But based on the current study, the researchers said sea levels are rising faster than expected.
2019 WAS NEARLY WORST YEAR FOR ARCTIC WASHINGTON: The Arctic has experienced its second warmest year since 1900, according to a report published on Tuesday. The North Pole has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet since the 90s and the past six years have been the region’s warmest ever.
The average temperature in the 12 months to September was 1.9 degrees Celsius higher than the 1981-2010 average, according to the Arctic Report Card of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA).