Breaking the two-degree target could melt Earth’s second-largest ice cap, study finds
New Delhi:
Latest research shows that violating the 2 degrees Celsius temperature target set by the Paris Agreement could lead to significant melting of the Earth’s second largest ice sheet, the Filchnaroni Ice Shelf in Antarctica, and could significantly contribute to global sea level rise.
Water temperatures in the trough are regulated by the Antarctic coastal currents, causing seasonally varying amounts of warm, deep water to flow into the Filchner Trough beneath the eastern ice shelf, which covers the southern region bordering the Weddell Sea. Antarctica.
Researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany found through modeling that warm deep-water pulses (different periods of increased water flow into the Filchner Trough) are associated with increased melting of the ice shelves above. bottom.
The authors warn that continued warming of water in ocean troughs could lead to increased melting and, in turn, global sea level rise. Their research is published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
In the study, researchers used data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to simulate the flow of water into the Filchner Trough, which is as deep as 1,600 meters in some areas, under four different climate scenarios from 2015 to 2100. Changes in warm deep water volume. ) Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSP).
They found that under the best-case scenario that meets the Paris Agreement, in which global warming does not exceed 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times, these pulses of warm water become more frequent and the average temperature of the trough increases by 2100 0.5 degrees Celsius above levels between 1850 and 2014.
However, they also observed that between these pulses, the temperature in the trough returned to close to the 1850-2014 average, thus limiting the ice shelf’s melting, although they did not know exactly when or how often these pulses occurred.
In other cases involving larger increases in global average temperatures, the researchers found that pulses of warm water became frequent enough that the trough was filled with warm, deep water for much of the year. As a result, they warn that rising average global temperatures could lead to increased melting and rising sea levels.
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