Antarctica’s ice sheets could be retreating faster than previously thought, with worrying consequences for sea level rise as well.
The alarm comes from a new study recently published in the journal Nature, the results of which are truly worrying. According to scientists, the ice caps could collapse in such rapid bursts that they would lose up to 600 meters a day, a rate 20 times higher than what had been assumed based on previous analyses.
The new data emerged from an analysis of seafloor sediment formations dating back to the last ice age: a “warning from the past” for today’s world, experts warn, in which the climate crisis is eroding the ice sheets. The discovery confirms that some ice sheets in Antarctica, including the so-called “glacier of the Apocalypse”, could soon undergo phases of rapid collapse destined to further accelerate the rise in sea level, an already very serious threat which in the coming decades will drown hundreds of major cities around the world under water.
The analysis shows that for Antarctica’s ice sheets, ‘impulses of rapid retreat can be much faster than anything we’ve seen so far,’ commented Dr Christine Batchelor of Newcastle University in the UK, who led the research. .
Tackling the climate crisis and limiting the increase in global average temperature is still possible, as IPCC scientists recently confirmed, but time is running out and concrete actions are more urgent than ever.
This article is originally published on iconaclima.it
