A recent study has shown the far-reaching effects of global warming. A group of researchers from the United Kingdom have found that about 28 trillion tonnes of ice on the earth’s surface have melted in a period of 23 years.
Scientists from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London had analysed satellite surveys of glaciers, mountains and ice sheets from 1994 to 2017 to find the “staggering” results, reported The World Economic Forum. Such huge ice loss can cause the sea level to rise “dramatically”. Scientists think that a rise of 3 feet is possible to reach by the end of this century.
“To put that in context, every centimetre of sea-level rise means about a million people will be displaced from their low-lying homelands,” Professor Andy Shepherd, associated with Leeds University, told The Guardian.
Researchers have also warned that as the white ice keeps melting away, the black/ dark sea or soil underneath gets exposed. Hence, the earth’s surface is no longer able to reflect back the same amount of solar radiation as before because dark colours absorb heat.
The scientists have confirmed that the result from the study matches the worst-case-scenario predictions made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The study has been published in the journal Cryosphere Discussions.
According to the abstract of the paper, 60 per cent of the ice loss was seen in the northern hemisphere, while the southern half amounted for 40 per cent of the total ice loss. Arctic sea ice, Antarctic ice shelves, mountain glaciers, the Southern Ocean sea ice, the ice sheet of Greenland, and the Antarctic have all decreased in mass.
The group added that the results show how real global warming is. “There can be little doubt that the vast majority of Earth's ice loss is a direct consequence of climate warming”.
