{"id":13876,"date":"2019-09-26T09:31:55","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T08:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=13876"},"modified":"2019-09-26T09:31:55","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T08:31:55","slug":"ipcc-report-paints-catastrophic-picture-of-melting-ice-and-rising-sea-levels-and-reality-may-be-even-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/science-mct\/science-environment\/ipcc-report-paints-catastrophic-picture-of-melting-ice-and-rising-sea-levels-and-reality-may-be-even-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"IPCC report paints catastrophic picture of melting ice and rising sea levels \u2013 and reality may be even worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Brandon<\/a>, Professor of Polar Oceanography at The Open University writes for\u00a0The Conversation<\/a> about the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change<\/a> (IPCC) and the growing risk to the future of our oceans and cryosphere.<\/p>\n

The IPPC \u2013 the UN body responsible for communicating the science of climate breakdown \u2013 has released its long-awaited\u00a0Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Based on almost 7,000\u00a0peer-reviewed<\/a>\u00a0research articles, the report is a cutting-edge crash course in how human-caused climate breakdown is changing our ice and oceans and what it means for humanity and the living planet. In a nutshell, the news isn\u2019t good.<\/p>\n

Cryosphere in decline<\/h2>\n

Most of us rarely come into contact with the cryosphere, but it is a\u00a0critical part of our climate system<\/a>. The term refers to the frozen parts of our planet \u2013 the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, the icebergs that break off and drift in the oceans, the glaciers on our high mountain ranges, our winter snow, the ice on lakes and the polar oceans, and the frozen ground in much of the Arctic landscape called permafrost.<\/p>\n

The cryosphere is shrinking. Snow cover is reducing, glaciers and ice sheets are melting and permafrost is thawing. We\u2019ve known this for most of my 25-year career, but the report highlights that melting is accelerating, with potentially disastrous consequences for humanity and marine and high mountain ecosystems.<\/p>\n

At the moment, we\u2019re on track to lose more than half of all the permafrost by the end of the century. Thousands of roads and buildings sit on this frozen soil \u2013 and their foundations are slowly transitioning to mud. Permafrost also stores almost twice the amount of carbon as is present in the atmosphere. While increased plant growth may be able to offset some of the release of carbon from newly thawed soils, much will be released to the atmosphere, significantly accelerating the pace of global heating.<\/p>\n

Sea ice is declining rapidly, and an ice-free Arctic ocean will become a regular summer occurrence as things stand. Indigenous peoples who live in the Arctic are already having to change how they hunt and travel, and some coastal communities are already planning for relocation. Populations of seals, walruses, polar bears, whales and other mammals and sea birds who\u00a0depend on the ice<\/a>\u00a0may crash if sea ice is regularly absent. And as water in its bright-white solid form is much more effective at\u00a0reflecting heat from the sun<\/a>, its rapid loss is also accelerating global heating.<\/p>\n

Glaciers are also melting. If emissions continue on their current trajectory, smaller glaciers will shrink by more than 80% by the end of the century. This retreat will place increasing strain on the hundreds of millions of people globally who rely on glaciers for\u00a0water, agriculture, and power<\/a>. Dangerous landslides, avalanches, rockfalls and floods will become increasingly normal in mountain areas.<\/p>\n

Rising oceans, rising problems<\/h2>\n

All this melting ice means that\u00a0sea levels are rising<\/a>. While seas rose globally by around 15cm during the 20th century, they\u2019re now rising more than twice as fast \u2013- and this rate is accelerating.<\/p>\n

Thanks to research from myself and others<\/a>, we now better understand how Antarctica and Greenland\u2019s ice sheets interact with the oceans. As a result, the latest report has upgraded its long-term estimates for how much sea level is expected to rise. Uncertainties still remain, but we\u2019re headed for a rise of between 60 and 110cm by 2100.<\/p>\n

Of course, sea level isn\u2019t static. Intense rainfall and cyclones \u2013 themselves exacerbated by climate breakdown \u2013 can cause water to surge metres above the normal level. The IPCC\u2019s report is very clear: these extreme storm surges we used to expect once per century will now be expected every year by mid-century. In addition to rapidly curbing emissions, we must invest millions to protect at-risk coastal and low-lying areas from flooding and loss of life.<\/p>\n

Ocean ecosystems<\/h2>\n

Up to now, the ocean has taken up more than 90% of the excess heat in the global climate system. Warming to date has already reduced the mixing between water layers and, as a consequence, has reduced the supply of oxygen and nutrients for marine life. By 2100 the ocean will take up five to seven times more heat than it has done in the past 50 years if we don\u2019t change our emissions trajectory. Marine heatwaves are also projected to be more intense, last longer and occur 50 times more often. To top it off, the ocean is becoming more acidic as it continues to absorb a proportion of the carbon dioxide we emit.<\/p>\n

Collectively, these pressures place marine life across the globe under unprecedented threat. Some species may move to new waters, but others less able to adapt will decline or even die out. This could cause major problems for communities that depend on local seafood. As it stands, coral reefs \u2013 beautiful ecosystems that support thousands of species \u2013 will be\u00a0nearly totally wiped out<\/a>\u00a0by the end of the century.<\/p>\n

Between the lines<\/h2>\n

While the document makes some striking statements, it is actually relatively conservative with its conclusions \u2013 perhaps because it had to be\u00a0approved by the 195 nations<\/a>\u00a0that ratify the IPCC\u2019s reports. Right now, I would expect that sea level rise and ice melt will occur faster than the report predicts. Ten years ago, I might have said the opposite. But the latest science is painting an increasingly grave picture for the future of our oceans and cryosphere \u2013 particularly if we carry on with \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d.<\/p>\n

The difference between 1.5\u00b0C and 2\u00b0C of heating is especially important for the icy poles, which\u00a0warm much faster<\/a>\u00a0than the global average. At 1.5\u00b0C of warming, the probability of an ice-free September in the Arctic ocean is one in 100. But at 2\u00b0C, we\u2019d expect to see this happening about one-third of the time. Rising sea levels, ocean warming and acidification, melting glaciers, and permafrost also will also happen faster \u2013 and with it, the risks to humanity and the living planet increase. It\u2019s up to us and the leaders we choose to stem the rising tide of climate and ecological breakdown.<\/p>\n

This article is republished from\u00a0The Conversation<\/a>\u00a0under a Creative Commons license. Read the\u00a0original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Brandon, Professor of Polar Oceanography at The Open University writes for\u00a0The Conversation about the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the growing risk to the future of our oceans and cryosphere. The IPPC \u2013 the UN body responsible for communicating the science of climate breakdown \u2013 has released its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":13883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[473,982,1525,1566],"class_list":["post-13876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-global-warming","tag-news-home","tag-oceans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}