New Study Predicts Greater Sea Level Rise
06.02.2009 - Water & Oceans, Land & Geology, Ice & Snow, Other, Antarctic
"The Sea Level Fingerprint of West Antarctic Collapse", published in the 6 February edition of Science, is a study conducted by researchers from Oregon State University and the University of Toronto. The study, though not suggesting an imminent collapse of the ice sheet, warns of a sea-level rise that might be higher than previously predicted in the event that the West Antarctica Ice Sheet should continue melting.
According to the authors of the paper, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which released estimates of sea level rise in its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, miscalculated potential sea-level rise due to an oversimplification of the problem. The numbers on which many scientists still rely for their research were obtained through converting the ice volume of Antarctica into water and spreading it evenly all over the globe. However such an approach overlooks a few details:- As an ice sheet melts, it partly loses its gravitational strength on the ocean, leading to water moving away from it. In this case, sea levels near the Antarctic are thus expected to decrease near Antarctica, but to increase in other places, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere.
- The depression in the Antarctic bedrock will also become filled with water, which will be released to the sea as the region rebounds.
- The melting of the ice will cause the Earth's rotation axis to shift by approximately 500 metres, moving water towards North America and into the southern Indian Ocean.
