New climate models suggest faster melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet
Greenland’s vast ice sheet could melt faster than previously thought over the 21st century, according to a new study.
The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest mass of ice on Earth, holding enough water to raise global sea levels by 7.2 metres. Even if warming in the coming decades is kept to low levels, melting from the Greenland ice sheet is expected to reach unprecedented rates in the coming decades, contributing significantly to global sea level rise.
The study, published in Nature Communications, compares estimates of future sea level rise from the Greenland ice sheet in new (CMIP6) models to the previous generation (CMIP5). The study finds that the 21st century sea-level contribution from the Greenland ice sheet is always higher in the CMIP6 models than in the corresponding CMIP5 models running the same emissions scenario. (See Carbon Brief’s detailed CMIP6 explainer.)
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