Modest warming risks ‘irreversible’ ice sheet loss, study warns
PA R I S : Even modest temperature rises agreed under an international plan to limit climate disaster could see the ice caps melt enough this century for their loss to be ‘irreversible’, experts warned Monday.
The 2015 Paris Agreement limits nations to temperature rises ‘ well below’ two degrees Celsius above pre- industrial levels and to less than 1.5 C if at all possible.
That ballpark of getting 1.5- 2 degrees Celsius hotter by 2100 is scientists’ best- case- scenario based on our consumption of natural resources and burning of fossil fuels, and will require radical, global lifestyle changes to achieve.
For comparison, humans’ business-as-usual approach — if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the current rate — will see Earth heat by as much as 4 degrees Celsius.
Scientists have known for decades that the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are shrinking, but it had been assumed that they would survive a 1.5-2 degrees Celsius temperature rise relatively intact.
However, according to a new analysis published in the journal Nature Climate Change, even modest global warming could cause irreversible damage to the polar ice, contributing to catastrophic sea level rises.
“We say that 1.5- 2 degrees Celsius is close to the limit for which more dramatic effects may be expected from the ice sheets,” Frank Pattyn, head of the department of geosciences, Free University of Brussels and lead study author said. — AFP