New study of sea level rise

Polar ice caps

One of the most worrying effects of climate change is the rise in sea level due to the melting of the polar ice caps. The most coastal cities can be greatly affected by this rise in sea level. That is why studies are continually being carried out to try to predict how this increase in sea level would affect.

A recent study estimates that the sea level could rise two meters in height by the year 2100. This implies new scientific and technical challenges to seek management alternatives and to try to curb the effects of climate change and reduce this rise in sea level.

These estimates predicted by this study are quite pessimistic if we compare them with others carried out in previous studies. Knowing more and more variables about climate change, this study is based on a better understanding of how the Antarctic ice sheet has behaved in the past in the face of other archaic climate changes and global warming. In this way, an analysis of how this ice sheet will be affected by our future climate change can be carried out.

These estimates pose great challenges for both the scientific community and politicians. The study has been published in the journal Science and has been developed by the experts Michael Oppenheimer of Princetown University and Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University. For them, the main difficulty posed by rising sea levels is found in those people who must make decisions about coastal policies in cities. The difficulty is that decision-making must be made based on scientific predictions and projections that may or may not have a margin of error and that can vary rapidly depending on the work done against climate change worldwide.

It also has difficulty for scientists since it resides in them a great responsibility to be able to generate these estimates with the smallest possible margin of uncertainty in order to make projections for the future with the greatest possible precision.

Glacial currents

One of the main reasons for the uncertainty of these predictions and for the difficulty of predicting are glacial currents. Changes in sea level are limited on glacial currents. Glacial currents are regions of ice sheets that move much faster than the rest of the ice around them. They are usually formed from ice and move at great speed. Sometimes it can reach speeds of 1 km per year.

The experts in this study consider that the calculations made of the Antarctic ice sheet are still insufficient and difficult. In this way they limit physical understanding and prediction. According to the studies on which they have been based for the article, the region of the Thwaites glacier, in West Antarctica, would be the most likely place for a rapid loss of ice with its consequent impact on sea level. This area, located on the Amundsen Sea, has been affected by a continuous and accelerated retreat of glaciers.

The melting of glaciers

Oppenheimer said they need a research program that focuses on the field and on observations of the parts of Antarctica that are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The bay of the Amundsen Sea has special emphasis as it is a rather unstable area. Although they also believe that for the rise in sea level and its future prediction, they should not only focus on Antarctica but also on Greenland

This situation in the future motivates a combination of predictive models and observation to characterize the evolution of glaciers and increase precision. To be able to observe it well you must keep and expand satellite monitoring above the ice sheets to better see the rise in sea level.


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  1.   Lauri Y. Orozco Rada said

    Excellent information.