Antarctica closing in on a tipping point if emissions aren’t curbed: Scientists
Hindustan TimesWhile US secretary of state Antony Blinken draws attention to climate change in the Arctic at meetings with other national officials this week in Iceland, an even greater threat looms on the other side of the planet. It holds enough land ice to raise global sea levels by more than 60 metres – roughly 10 times the amount in the Greenland ice sheet – and we’re already seeing signs of trouble. The new study shows that if emissions continue at their current pace, by about 2060 the Antarctic ice sheet will have crossed a critical threshold and committed the world to sea level rise that is not reversible on human timescales. Pulling carbon dioxide out of the air at that point won’t stop the ice loss, it shows, and by 2100, sea level could be rising more than 10 times faster than today. The tipping point Antarctica has several protective ice shelves that fan out into the ocean ahead of the continent’s constantly flowing glaciers, slowing the land-based glaciers’ flow to the sea.