Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Melting at Accelerated Rate

The Word Economic Forum published the report The Antarctic ice sheet is melting. And this is bad news for humanity.

* The Antarctic ice sheet has been strongly decreasing since 2016.
* If left unchecked, the complete melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet would cause a global sea level increase of 3.3 metres in the future, says an expert.
* At present, the world is heading towards a warming of 2.8C by the end of this century.
* The Antarctic ice sheet will therefore continue to melt and contribute to sea level rise, which will test the adaptive capacity of humanity.

The consequences of the collapsing ice sheet
The sustained melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet could indicate that an unstable retreat (which reinforces itself) is underway or imminent. However, there is high uncertainty about this phenomenon.

The mechanism that would explain this unstable retreat is known as Marine Ice Sheet Instability.

If the bed, where the ice sheet lies, slopes down towards the interior, it destabilizes the position of the grounding line — zone where this ice sheet starts to float. The thinning of the ice shelf causes this grounding line to retreat, which leads to an influx of ice from the ice sheet to the sea. This, subsequently, causes the thinning of the ice shelf and so on and so forth.

The bottom line is that the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet contributes to and will continue to contribute to sea level rise for a long time, which will test the adaptive capacity of humanity.

The sea level increase by 2100 will particularly affect the tropical countries. And so, what happens in the Antarctic will definitely not stay in the Antarctic.

In February of 2023. the Copernicus Programme issued the repot Copernicus: Antarctic sea ice extent reaches all-time minimum in February – Second warmest winter on record in Europe.

February 2023 – temperature highlights:
* February 2023 was the fifth warmest globally
* Most of Europe had above-average air temperatures, particularly northern Norway and Sweden, and the Svalbard region
* Above-average temperatures occurred in the eastern United States, northern Russia, and in Pakistan and India
* Below-average temperatures were experienced across the Iberian Peninsula, Türkiye, the western United States, * Canada, northeast Russia, and northern Australia

February 2023 – Sea ice highlights:
* Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest monthly extent in the satellite data record, at 34% below the average for February, breaking the previous record of February 2017.
* Antarctic daily sea ice extent also reached an all-time minimum, surpassing the previous record set in February 2022.
* Sea ice concentrations were much below-average in all sectors of the Southern Ocean.
* Arctic sea ice extent was 4% below average, ranking 2nd lowest for February in the satellite data record, jointly with February 2016 and 2017.
* Arctic sea ice concentrations were most below-average in the Barents Sea and Svalbard region.