This week a major new study revealed Greenland’s melting ice sheet will likely contribute almost a foot to global sea level rise by the end of the century — that’s twice as much as previously reported. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers found that even if the world were to halt all greenhouse gas emissions today, higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have already doomed 120 trillion tons of Greenland’s ice to melt. Without urgent action to mitigate the damage, researchers warn, sea level rise could be far higher.
“zombie” is a good term. What we found is that the Greenland ice sheet is trying to recover from damage that we’ve already done. So we’re not even talking about future climate change. This foot of sea level rise is due to the damage we have already caused. And in order to kind of correct this damage, the ice sheet is trying to shrink and readjust its position, and this is leaving ice along the margins of the ice sheet essentially dynamically disconnected from the rest of the ice sheet. It’s dead ice. It’s already committed to the oceans. And that’s why we’re calling it “zombie ice.” It’s relegated to the oceans and to sea level rise, and there’s nothing that we can do about that now. Our best hope is just try to prepare for the future and try not to make it worse.
— source democracynow.org | Sep 01, 2022