Ice Sheets Are Melting Six Times Faster Than Usual, Will Endanger 400 Million Lives By 2100

We know how global warming is affecting our environment in the most drastic way, and the future will only make it difficult for us to survive on the planet we call home. And a recent study adds more fuel to this fire.

Reuters

Researchers from 50 international organisations conducted a study on ice sheets that have melted till this date, due to global warming. Dubbed the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Excercise, the study looked into 11 different satellite missions and 26 separate surveys to look at changes in mass, volume, flow of the ice sheets.

As per the data, researchers found that Antarctica and Greenland have lost a whopping 6.4 million tonnes of ice between the year 1992 and 2017. This has resulted in the sea levels to rise by 17.8mm or around 0.7 inches.

From this total rise -- 60 percent came from Greenland whereas the remaining 40 percent came from Antarctica.

Study author Andrew Shepard from the University of Leeds says, ¡°Every centimetre of sea-level rise leads to coastal flooding and coastal erosion, disrupting people's lives around the planet. If Antarctica and Greenland continue to track the worst-case climate warming scenario, they will cause an extra 17 centimetres of sea-level rise by the end of the century.¡±

He further added, ¡°This would mean 400 million people are at risk of annual coastal flooding by 2100. These are not unlikely events with small impacts; they are already underway and will be devastating for coastal communities.¡±

In total, rate of ice melting has spiked from 81 billion tonnes a year in the ¡¯90s to a striking 475 billion tonnes per year in the 2010s. Researchers estimate that at this rate, the sea levels could rise as much as 6.6-inches by the year 2100, severely affecting lives of over 400 million people who reside on the coast.

According to Josef Aschbacher of the European Space Agency, ¡°The findings reported by IMBIE demonstrate the fundamental importance of using satellites to monitor the evolution of ice sheets, and for evaluating models used to predict the effects of climate change.¡±

The study concludes stating that ocean is rising faster than expected, with the ice sheets being responsible for a third of all sea-level rise.