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Greenland ice: As soon as a threshold is crossed, the melting can hardly be stopped
Photo: Ian Joughin / University of Washington / dpa
In parts of the Greenland ice sheet, according to a new study, a critical tipping point is likely to be exceeded soon, after which a melting point could hardly be stopped. Due to the rising temperatures, the destabilization of central-western areas has already begun, announced the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), citing the findings of German and Norwegian researchers. The melting could then continue even with only limited global warming.
"We have found evidence that the central-western part of the Greenland Ice Sheet has destabilized," said PIK scientist Niklas Boers.
"Our results suggest that there will be significantly increased melting in the future - which is very worrying." The cause is therefore feedback effects, whereby the warming of the ice sheet progresses faster when its height decreases.
"Largely irreversible"
In order to prevent melting, not only would the warming be stopped, but the temperatures would have to drop well below the pre-industrial level in order to return to the ice sheet height of the past centuries.
“In practice, the current and expected mass loss of the ice in the near future will be largely irreversible,” says Boers.
"It is therefore high time that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels quickly and significantly and stabilize the ice sheet and our climate again."
According to previous model results, according to PIK, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is inevitable from a critical threshold of the global mean temperature of 0.8 to 3.2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.
Once this threshold is crossed, the entire ice sheet could melt completely over hundreds or thousands of years, leading to a global sea level rise of more than seven meters and a collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) which is responsible for the relative heat in Europe and North America is responsible.
koe / AFP