New Kiwi study brings bad news for Antarctic and the world

Environmental studies have always been useful in revealing the present state of climate and other geographical features but in recent times such studies have only brought bad news. An important study led by Dr. Nicholas Golledge of Victoria University’s Antarctic Research Centre and GNS Science that was published in journal Nature has predicted a grim future for Antarctic. The researchers used state of the art computer modeling to predict how the Antarctic ice sheet would respond to a range of greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The study showed how the warming would lead to the loss of large parts of ice-sheet.

The only scenario in which this did not happen was significantly reduced emissions beyond 2020, the one which resulted in a substantial rise in the global sea level. Dr. Golledge, while talking about the study, said, “The long reaction time of the Antarctic ice-sheet – which can take thousands of years to fully manifest its response to changes in environmental conditions – coupled with the fact that CO2 lingers in the atmosphere for a very long time means that the warming we generate now will affect the ice-sheet in ways that will be incredibly hard to undo”.

He further said that their new models include processes that take place when ice sheets come into contact with the ocean. He also revealed that around 93 per cent of the heat from anthropogenic global warming has gone into the ocean, and these warming ocean waters are coming into contact with the floating margins of the Antarctic sheets, known as ice shelves. If these ice shelves were lost the Antarctic’s contribution to sea-love rise by 2100 will be nearly 40 centimeters.
UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that the Antarctic ice sheet would contribute only five centimeters to global sea-level rise by the end of this century even for its warmest emissions scenario. However, Tim Naish, who worked with Dr. Golledge on the new study, said that at the time that report was written, there was insufficient scientific knowledge on how the Antarctic ice sheet might respond to future warming. This clearly means that IPCC sea-level projections could have been too modest.

A statistic suggest that o be on track, a global commitment is required to 30 per cent reduction of emissions, below year 1990 levels, by the year 2030. New Zealand will be pressing a new target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels and 11 per cent from 1990 levels by 2030.

Image Source: nzherald.co.nz