The world’s ice sheets just got a dire prognosis, and coastlines are going to pay the price

Glaciers in Antarctica on February 07, 2022. A new study suggests even if the world meets its climate targets it may not be enough to save the planet's ice sheets. (Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

The world’s ice sheets are on course for runaway melting, leading to multiple feet of sea level rise and “catastrophic” migration away from coastlines, even if the world pulls off the miraculous and keeps global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to new research.

A group of international scientists set out to establish what a “safe limit” of warming would be for the survival of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. They pored over studies that took data from satellites, climate models and evidence from the past, from things like ice cores, deep-sea sediments and even octopus DNA.

What they found painted a dire picture.

The world has pledged to restrict global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to stave off the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.

However, not only is this limit speeding out of reach — the world is currently on track for up to 2.9 degrees of warming by 2100. But the most alarming finding of the study, published Tuesday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, is that 1.5 might not even be good enough to save the ice sheets.

Even if the world sustains today’s level of warming, at 1.2 degrees, it could still trigger rapid ice sheet retreat and catastrophic sea level rise, the scientists found.

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets together hold enough fresh water to raise global sea levels by around 213 feet — an unlikely scenario but one that must be acknowledged to fully understand the risk.

Since the 1990s, the amount of ice they’ve lost has quadrupled; they are currently losing around 370 billion tons a year. Ice sheet melting is the dominant contributor to rising seas and the rate of annual sea level rise has doubled over the past 30 years.

It’s set to get worse.

Multiple studies suggest 1.5 degrees of warming is “far too high” to prevent rapid ice sheet retreat that would be irreversible on human timescales, and the world should prepare for many feet of sea level rise over the coming centuries, according to the study.

“You don’t slow sea level rise at 1.5, in fact, you see quite a rapid acceleration,” said Chris Stokes, a study author and glaciologist at Durham University.

It’s an existential threat to the world’s coastal populations. Around 230 million people live less than 1 metre (3.2 feet) above sea level. Even small changes in the amount of ice held in the ice sheets will “profoundly alter” global coastlines, displacing hundreds of millions of people and causing damage that stretches the limits of adaptation, the study found.

Seas could surge by 0.4 inches a year by the end of the century, within the lifetimes of young people now, the scientists found.

At this level, which equates to 40 inches a century, “you’re going to see massive land migration on scales that we’ve never witnessed since modern civilization,” said Jonathan Bamber, a study author and glaciologist at the University of Bristol.

There are still huge uncertainties about where tipping points lie. The way climate change unfolds is not linear and it’s unclear exactly when warming might trigger rapid retreat and even collapse.

What’s hugely concerning, the study authors say, is that the best estimates of “safe” temperature thresholds for saving the ice sheets keep going down as scientists better understand their vulnerability to climate change.

Early modeling suggested temperatures would need to hit around 3 degrees of warming to destabilize the Greenland ice sheet, for example, but recent estimates suggest it would only take around 1.5 degrees.

To avoid the rapid collapse of one of more ice sheets means limiting global warming to closer to 1 degree above pre-industrial levels, the study authors concluded.

This would require drastic cuts to the amount of fossil fuels humans burn, something which looks exceptionally unlikely as countries including the US continue to embrace oil, coal and gas.

The world is already starting to see some of the worst-case scenarios play out in terms of ice loss, Stokes said.

“There’s very little that we’re observing that gives us hope here,” he said. “The absolute best-case scenario is that sea level rise is slow and steady,” he added.

The findings don’t mean the world should give up on climate targets, as every fraction of a degree of warming translates to worse impacts, Stokes said.

“Limiting warming to 1.5 will be a major achievement. It should absolutely be our target, but in no sense will it slow or stop sea level rise and melting ice sheets.”

Written by Laura Paddison, CNN