How long before greenland melts

The ice loss has been so massive in recent years, she said, that it has caused a measurable change in the gravitational field over Greenland. Ice melting in Greenland contributes more than a millimeter rise to sea level every year, and that's likely to get worse. Sea levels are projected to rise by more than 3 feet by the end of the century, wiping away beaches and coastal properties.

Read More. Coastal states like Florida, and low-lying island nations are particularly vulnerable. Just 3 feet of sea level rise could put large areas of coastline underwater. This article is more than 3 months old. Data shows ice sheet lost 8. The Danish government data shows that it has lost more than bn tons of ice since the start of June this year. Photograph: Reuters. A higher forcing results in a greater rise in global temperature.

The study focuses on three of these scenarios: RCP8. They describe, respectively, a baseline scenario of very high emissions, an intermediate scenario that broadly matches the trajectory the world is likely to follow in the coming decades, and a stringent mitigation scenario that limits warming to 2C.

Climate scientist Dr Ruth Mottram of the Danish Meteorological Institute , who was not involved in the study, explains the importance of these scenarios:. One of the most notable changes between results from the CMIP5 and CMIP6 models is that the latter predicts a greater temperature rise over the 21st century, the study finds. The figure below compares simulations of global and Arctic warming between the two.

This figure shows that, in a high emissions scenario, CMIP6 models predict a global average temperature increase of 0. Hofer explains that the warmer temperatures in CMIP6 are due to increased sensitivity to greenhouse gases.

He tells Carbon Brief:. However, this divergence between the two sets of models occurs roughly 20 years earlier in the Arctic — around The higher rates of warming in the CMIP6 simulations have a knock-on impact for the Greenland ice sheet. The ice sheet also loses ice via ocean melting at its edge and from icebergs breaking off. This cycle can be seen in the figure below, which shows CMIP5 and CMIP6 simulations for the current climate light blue and orange lines and for the end of the century under the highest emissions scenario red and dark blue.

Furthermore, the melt season — where the ice sheet loses mass through the summer — starts seven days earlier and extends 15 days longer in CMIP6 than in CMIP5, the paper says. This suggests that the increased temperatures and Arctic amplification are the main factors driving the increased melting from the Greenland ice sheet, they conclude.