Greenland's continental glaciers, which are constantly melting even at this time, have already crossed an irreparable line, research has shown.
In a recent paper, researchers at Ohio State University in the United States predicted that the ice sheet covering Greenland's land was irreversibly melted, and that efforts to slow down global warming would be difficult to prevent the collapse of the ice sheet.
The ice sheet is a dome-shaped ice body that covers a vast area, and is also called a continental glacier. In addition to the Greenland ice sheet, Iceland's Batna ice sheet and Antarctic ice sheet are famous. It is also used as an important data to find out the environment of the past as it has less liquidity than icebergs and has the eyes of a very long time ago.
However, the researchers explained that the Greenland ice sheet, which began to melt rapidly due to climate change including global warming, eventually crossed an irreversible river.
The researchers analyzed satellite data accumulated over the past 40 years to measure changes in the Greenland ice sheet. As a result, the melting rate of ice sheets that have already been exposed to warm sea water since 2000 was found to be so fast that it is difficult to keep up with the rate of creation of new ice sheets. This means that even if climate change stops, it may not be possible to return to the scale of the ice sheet of the past.
The researchers said, “The rate at which the ice sheet melts at the current rate of climate change is going to be faster than it is now. It is coming again.”
The Greenland ice sheet melts more than 280 billion tons each year. The melted water of the Greenland ice sheet flows into the sea and is believed to have the greatest impact on global sea level rise. In particular, in recent years, the Greenland gravitational field has suffered from immense ice losses that can be captured by measurable changes.
As the Greenland ice sheet melts, the sea level rises by 1 mm each year, and if the amount of melting ice is larger, this situation is highly likely to worsen. The researchers predict that as sea levels rise by about 0.91 m by the end of this century, many beaches and coastal assets are likely to disappear. Coastal and lowland island countries such as Florida are particularly vulnerable to this situation. 40% of the U.S. population lives in coastal areas that are vulnerable to sea level rise.