West Antarctica Is Melting Rapidly That Will Lead To Sea Level Rise Bringing Disastrous Consequences

West Antarctica’s ice is melting rapidly and now it has become unavoidable to stop it from melting. This will accelerate the rise in sea level that will bring catastrophic consequences to the people around the globe found by a new research.

The initiative taken all around the globe to limit man-made global warming cannot stop the rapid melting of West Antarctica ice shelves.

In a latest study that was published on 6th November in the Nature Climate Change journal, mentioned that even if the world meets the target given to limit global warming, West Antarctica will still experience ice shelf melting and temperature rise in the sea.

If you don’t know what ice shelves are, they are the ends of glaciers that come out into the ocean like tongues of ice. The ice shelves help holding ice back on land that slows the glaciers flow in the sea and being a defense like a wall against sea level rise. As the ice shelves melt the hold on glaciers to the land losses.

Growing evidence of ice being melted in West Antarctica has worried scientists as there are no certain ways to stop the melting of the ice shelves. Preventing the ice being melted is crucial but no one can predict how much policy changes can slow the melting.

Ocean Modeler, Kaitlin Naughten who works with British Antarctic Survey, says, “It appears that we may have lost control of the West Antarctic ice melting over the 21st century.”  Naughten adds further, “we have every reason to expect that sea level rise would increase as a result, as West Antarctica speeds up this loss of ice into the ocean.”

West Antarctica is known to be the largest contributor to sea level rise in the world and it has an enormous amount of frozen glaciers. If these glaciers melt it is expected to raise the sea level to 5.3 meters on average. The Thwaites Glacier, also called the “Doomsday Glacier” due to the prediction that its collapse can raise the sea level to the extent that coastal regions or low-lying islands have to be abandoned. This glacier is located in West Antarctica, said the Ocean Modeler.