Using historical records from around Australia, an international team of researchers have put forward the most accurate prediction to date of past Antarctic ice sheet melt, providing a more realistic forecast of future sea level rise.
The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest block of ice on Earth, containing over 30 million cubic kilometers of water. Hence, its melting could have a devastating impact on future sea levels. To find out just how big that impact might be, the research team, including Dr. Mark Hoggard from The Australian National University, turned to the past.
“If we want to know what is going to happen in the next 100 years, we need to have an accurate model for how ice sheets respond to climate change,” Dr. Hoggard said.
“Previous forecasts of the Antarctic contribution to global mean sea level rise were anywhere between 20 and 52cm by 2100. But by getting a better idea of sea levels during the Mid-Pliocene era, our study reduces this estimate to between 5 and 9cm.
“The Mid-Pliocene period 3 million years ago is considered the best equivalent to conditions expected this coming century in terms of CO2 levels and temperature.”
2023-11-19 19:41:03
Article from phys.org