New study halves the rise in sea level due to global warming

A new study has halved longstanding projections that estimated a raise of 20 feet in sea levels if Antarctica’s massive western ice sheets fully disintegrates as a result of global warming.

The flow of ice into the sea would probably raise sea levels about 10 feet rather than 20 feet, the New York Times reported quoting an analysis published in the Journal Science.

Scientists also predicted that seas would rise unevenly, with an additional 1.5-foot increase in levels along the east and west coasts of North America.

This is because the shift in a huge mass of ice away from the South Pole would subtly change the strength of gravity locally and the rotation of the Earth.

Several Antarctic specialists, familiar with the new study, had mixed reactions to the projections. But they and the study’s lead author, Jonathan L Bamber of the Bristol Glaciology Center in England, agreed that the odds of a disruptive rise in seas over the next century or so from the buildup of greenhouse gases remained serious enough to warrant the world’s attention, the Times said.

They also uniformly called for renewed investment in satellites measuring ice and field missions that could within a few years substantially clarify the risk.

There is strong consensus that warming waters around Antarctica, and Greenland in the Arctic, will result in centuries of rising seas, the paper noted.

But glaciologists and oceanographers still say that uncertainty prevails on the vital question of how fast coasts will retreat in a warming world in the next century or two.

The new study combined computer modeling with measurements of the ice and the underlying bedrock, both direct and by satellite.