Despite the fears of many scientists, the collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet – which might cause a sudden rise in sea levels and impact the inhabitants of coastal areas – can still be avoided, scientists say.
One of the many problems with global warmingis that the glaciers melting earlier and earlier and fasterup to three times faster than before depending on WWF. Glaciers and polar ice caps might thus experience “tipping points”, beyond which the consequences of global warming will be irreversible, both for the human species and for biodiversity. Last September, a scientific study warned of the melting of the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica. Called “the glacier of the apocalypse”, its total disappearance would cause an unprecedented rise in sea levels which would modify the continents. But to a certain extent, nothing is decided yet and their fate is still in our hands. Indeed, the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is not “inevitable”, researchers concluded in a new study published Monday in Nature Communications.
A slowing of the rate of retreat of the ice cap
Is the collapse of the ice cap in West Antarctica irreversible? While some scientists fear it, regardless of future climate change, others are more nuanced. A team of researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom have observed the evolution of West Antarctica, which is home to giant, highly unstable glaciers and contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 3.3 meters. According to their satellite records, the rate of ice sheet retreat slowed in a vulnerable region of the coast between 2003 and 2015, caused by variations in ocean temperatures. This is why, according to them, nothing is a foregone conclusion, provided drastically change our lifestyles, consumption and production. “It depends on how the climate will change in the coming decades, a change that we can positively influence by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”emphasizes Eric Steig, professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Glaciers sensitive to climatic variations
In their report, the researchers explain that in these regions of the globe, the wind usually blows from the west, and generates warmer and saltier water, which accelerates the melting of the ice. But during the period studied, the intensity of these winds had been weaker off the Admunsen Sea (South Pacific), thus sparing the glacier some of this water which attacks it. “There is a strong connection between climate and the way ice behaves“, says Frazer Christie, of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge. “We have the opportunity to mitigate ice loss in West Antarctica – if we curb our CO2 emissions“, he recalls. Although he was not involved in this study, Anders Levermann, of the Potsdam Research Institute for the Effects of Climate Change, welcomed the method used while insisting on the fact that the period studied corresponded “at the blink of an eye“from the ice point of view. According to the scientist, it is necessary to continue to predict a rise in the level of the oceans”with the hypothesis of a destabilization of West Antarctica“.
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