Climate change: Greenland ice melt 'is accelerating' Flashcards
how many times faster is Greenland losing ice than it was in the 1990s
7 times faster
where does The assessment of Greenlands ice come from
from an international team of polar scientists who’ve reviewed all the satellite observations over a 26-year period.
what does the international team of polar scientists say about Greenland
Greenland’s contribution to sea-level rise is currently tracking what had been regarded as a pessimistic projection of the future.
It means an additional 7cm of ocean rise could now be expected by the end of the century from Greenland alone.
This threatens to put many millions more people in low-lying coastal regions at risk of flooding.
It’s estimated roughly a billion live today less than 10m above current high-tide lines, including 250 million below 1m.
“Storms, if they happen against a baseline of higher seas - they will break flood defences,” said Prof Andy Shepherd, of Leeds University.
“The simple formula is that around the planet, six million people are brought into a flooding situation for every centimetre of sea-level rise. So, when you hear about a centimetre rise, it does have impacts,” he told BBC New
The imbie assessment shows what?
the island to have lost 3.8 trillion tonnes of ice to the ocean since the start of the study period. This mass is the equivalent of 10.6mm of sea-level rise. What is more, the team finds an acceleration in the data.
what did Prof René Forsberg, from the Technical University of Denmark say
said the Imbie exercise underlined the importance of flying satellites, especially those that can observe the top of Greenland, higher than 83 degrees North. Only two of the present fleet can, and one of those spacecraft is operating beyond its design life.
The new satellite system
for the moment known as Cristal, but to be called a Sentinel if it flies - would be a radar altimeter to measure the changing shape of Greenland.
