Climate change is creating a serious problem in Greenlandas the so-called “zombie ice” could rise up to 10 inches (27 centimeters) in sea level in the coming years.
Zombie or doomed ice is ice that is still attached to thicker areas of ice, but is no longer fed by those larger glaciers. This is because the parent glaciers are receiving less replenishing snow. Meanwhile, doomed ice is melting because of climate change, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.
“It’s dead ice. It will just melt and disappear from the ice sheet,” Colgan said in an interview. “This ice has been consigned to the ocean, regardless of what climate (emissions) scenario we take now.”
The study in the journal Nature Climate Change said it could reach up to 30 inches (78 centimeters). By contrast, last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report projected a range of 2 to 5 inches (6 to 13 centimeters) for the likely sea-level rise from Greenland ice melt for the year. 2100.
The study authors looked at the ratio of what is added to what is lost and calculated that 3.3% of Greenland’s total ice volume will melt no matter what happens to the world reducing carbon pollution, Colgan said.
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