'Sleeping giant' East Antarctic ice sheet's fate 'in our hands' – study

New analysis shows that the fate of the world's largest ice sheet is in human hands. If global warming were limited to her 2°C, the vast East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable, but as the climate crisis heats up, melting could raise sea levels by many meters. I have.

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) holds most of the Earth's glacial ice. If everything melts, sea levels will rise 52 meters. Thought to be stable, it is now showing signs of vulnerability, scientists said.

The EAIS is much larger than the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and It has the so-called 'Terminal' Thwaites Glacierand has lost considerable stability. A complete loss of WAIS would raise sea levels by 5 meters.

Sea levels are rising today at least as fast as 3,000 years or more, as mountain glaciers and Greenland's ice cap melt and ocean water expands due to heat. Even a few meters of sea-level rise would redraw the world map, severely affecting millions of people in coastal cities from New York City to Shanghai.

The Greenland ice sheet, which will lead to a sea-level rise of 7 meters, is on the brink of atipping point, after which accelerated melting will become inevitable, the scientist said. Warned for 2021. The full impact of melting ice will be felt for centuries, so researchers warn that levels of carbon emissions in the coming decades will be locked into future sea level rise.

Analyzes show:The amount of global warming, the upper limit agreed upon by the world's nations in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which has been shown to be kept below 2C, would exceed the sea level rise contributed by EAIS by 2300. It will result in less than 0.5 meters. Above 2C, it will rise from 1.5m to 3m by 2300 and up to 5m by 2500.

"The fate of EAIS is in our hands," said his professor Chris Stokes of Durham University. The British university that led the research. "This ice sheet is by far the largest on Earth, and it is very important not to awaken this sleeping giant. The ice sheets of EastAntarcticaPreviously thought to be less vulnerable to climate change than the land, we know that some areas are already showing signs of ice loss."

In March,the Conger eel ice shelf in East Antarctica collapsed. A sign of what may come.” In 2018, scientists found that glaciers spanning one-eighth of East Antarctica's coastline were melting due to warming seas

. The sensitivity of EAIS to global impacts was evaluated. Heating using data about how people responded to past increases in global warming, information about changes occurring now, and computer simulations of possible futures.

Significant uncertainties remain and in the worst-case scenario he could see sea levels rise by more than 5 meters with EAIS alone. In a best-case scenario, EAIS could actually accumulate more ice than is lost to snowfall, meaning that sea levels would drop slightly.

Professor Andrew Mackintosh of Monash University in Australia, who was not part of the research team, said: Centuries.

"Our emissions choices will lead to very different future worlds," McIntosh said. "Society understands that if climate warming exceeds about 2°C, widespread ice loss from East Antarctica could occur, one of the largest potential impacts of global warming.

This analysis included historical geological data showing that the last time atmospheric CO2 concentrations were higher than today was about 3 million years ago. I'm here. Temperatures at that time he was 2 to 4 degrees higher, a range the world could experience later in the century, and sea levels would eventually be 10 to 25 meters higher than they are today. As recently as 400,000 years ago, parts of the EAIS retreated 700 km inland when global temperatures rose by only 1-2°C.