Hi everyone, welcome to this blog about ice melting. I am studying MSc Environmental Modelling at UCL, and I open this blog as it is the coursework assessment of module GEOGG131 Global Environmental Change. Why I choose to write something about ice melting? The answer is that it is a serious environmental issue challenging our land and playing an important role in climate change. In the following weeks, I am going to explore the world of ice melting, and I hope you can get something useful from here. To begin with, I want to introduce some current situations and serious impacts.
Due to global warming, ice melts quicker than before. Ice in Arctic Sea has decreased in the last few decades,and will keep melting in this century (IPCC, 2013). Maps below, from NASA, show that old ice, particularly older than two years, in Arctic Sea had decreased significantly from 1981 to 2009. Significant ice loss has occurred in glaciers, and the losing rate becomes quicker and quicker. According to IPCC AR5 (2013), the loss rate of glacier ice (excluding those at ice sheets) increased from 226 ± 135 Gr/yr between 1971 and 2009 to 301 ± 135 Gr/yr between 2005 and 2009. Rates of melting of ice sheets have also increased. During period 1992-2001, the average rates of ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet and from the Antarctica ice sheet were about 34 Gr/yr and 30 Gr/yr, while the rates had increased to about 215 Gr/yr and 147 Gr/yr over period 2002 to 2011 (IPCC, 2013).
Rapid ice melting brings many significant impacts threatening climate, as well as human survival. One serious impact of ice melting is that ice melting contributes to global sea level rise. For instance, from 1993 to 2010, ice melting in Greenland ice sheet and Antarctic ice sheet contributed to global mean sea level budget at 0.33 mm/yr and 0.27mm/yr (IPCC, 2013). If you cannot imagine how serous and important this issue is, the following video from YouTube will tell you how much land on the Earth would be submerged if all ice melt.
The rates of ice melting from sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets have accelerated. A series of issues driven from ice melting have affected climate and threatened our survival. Therefore, it is important and necessary to look at how ice has changed in the past and how it will change in the future, so that we may find solutions to deal with the problem.
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