A snapshot of the current state of health of Greenland's glaciers shows their melting at a faster rate than expected:
INGV is part of the international team of the study published by the journal "Nature"
Greenland's glaciers are melting 7 times faster than in the XNUMXs due to the global warming.
This exceptional situation, which coincides with the worst case scenario of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) projections, will expose 40 million more people to the risk of coastal flooding by the end of the century.
This is the result of a study conducted by an international team of 89 researchers from 50 universities and research institutes, including the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), published today in the journal "Nature".
The research was carried out in the framework of an extensive collaboration (IMBIE - Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison) supported by ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).
The research team, which includes INGV researcher Daniele Melini, used 26 independent measurements carried out by satellite missions to reconstruct the most accurate image possible of the state of health of Greenland's glaciers.
“INGV”, explains Daniele Melini, “contributed to this important result by providing expertise on the mathematical modeling of the Earth's response to variations in loads on its surface, in the context of a collaboration with Giorgio Spada of the University of Urbino. In fact, the melting of glaciers lightens the earth's crust making it rise; this effect, called post-glacial rebound, can be calculated with global geodynamic models and removed from observed data to accurately isolate the effects of climate change."
The study shows that since 1992, Greenland has lost 3.800 trillion tons of ice, enough to raise global sea levels by more than 1 cm. The data also indicate a significant increase in the rate at which Greenland's glaciers melt: from 33 billion tons per year in 1990 to 254 billion tons per year in the last decade, corresponding to a more than 7-fold increase in 30 years. 2011, in particular, was the year in which the maximum melting rate of glaciers was recorded, equal to 335 billion tons per year, 10 times the melting rate of 1990.
“In 2013”, concludes Melini, “the IPCC predicted a rise in global ocean levels of 60 cm by 2100, which would have exposed 360 million people worldwide to the risk of coastal flooding. But the new results clearly demonstrate that the melting of Greenland's glaciers is proceeding at a faster than expected rate, corresponding to the worst case scenario developed by the IPCC, which would correspond to a global sea level rise of another 7 cm by 2100.
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Figure 1 - Annual rate of ice mass change in Greenland. After a phase of relative stability during the 90s, the melting of the ice proceeded at an ever-increasing rate, up to the maximum recorded in 2012. In the last decade, the melting rate decreased slightly, reaching a level of about 250 billion tons per year. The left scale indicates the annual loss of mass in billions of tons per year, the right scale indicates the corresponding sea level rise in millimeters per year. The gray rectangles indicate the margin of error. Credit: Daniele Melini / IMBIE data
Figure 2 - Change in mass of Greenland glaciers from 1992 to present. Estimates indicate a total melting of 3.800 billion tons of ice, corresponding to a global rise in sea level of over 1 centimetre. The scale on the left indicates the change in mass in billions of tons, the one on the right the corresponding change in sea level in millimetres. The light blue region represents the margin of error. Credit: Daniele Melini / IMBIE data
