Satellite data confirmed climate models that predicted sea level rise as Greenland’s glaciers melt. Sea levels have reportedly begun to rise as Greenland’s ice sheets and glaciers melt and water disperses into the global oceans.
The Doomsday Glacier is about to break: What danger awaits Earth?
According to the study’s lead author, Sophie Coulson, sea levels are rising unevenly as glaciers melt and distribute water to the world’s oceans. Each glacier and ice sheet is part of a unique pattern of sea level change called a fingerprint. Despite more than half a century of research, these fingerprints were never conclusively identified.
The predictions were unfortunately correct.
The dominant effect in the Greenland region is that as the ice sheet loses mass, the gravitational effect on seawater decreases, causing water to migrate from the ice sheet. This is causing sea level to drop near Greenland, but to increasingly higher sea levels outside the region. Using the new ice melt forecasts, the scientists used this model to predict changes in sea level, and the theoretical calculations matched the actual data.
The new study confirms the accuracy of geophysical sea-level change forecasts and also increases confidence in sea-level rise forecasts for the next decades and century.
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