Any predictions that predict one or another rise in sea level as a result of global warming are too optimistic. This is the opinion of planetary scientists from Harvard University, who published their arguments in the journal Science Advances.
From the calculations that scientists carried out under the guidance of Professor Jerry Mitrovica, professor of Science at Harvard University, it follows: in fact, it will be worse. In any case, the level of the world’s oceans will end up being higher. After all, all current forecasts are based on the assumption that the water formed as a result of melting ice will simply drain into the ocean. From this, the level will rise as it would seem logical but not completely true from a physical point of view.
According to scientists, various predicting models do not take into account the phenomenon accompanying the freeing of land from ice, that is, the many kilometers of incredibly heavy and covered cap. For example, the Southern continent, literally presses it into the mantle.
There will be no ice, the islands that make up Antarctica will rise. To put it simply, they will push out more than 100 meters. Additional land will displace water – primarily in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. “Additional” water will flood the coastal zones there.
The melted water in Antarctica will be the first to flood the US
In 2009, the Mitrovica group pledged that the displaced water would give an additional 20 percent to the projected level. Now, having refined the calculations, scientists are scaring a 30 percent increase.
“We need to add a few more meters to the previous forecasts,”
Natalya Gomez said, who participated in the research.
And this is without taking into account Greenland, which will probably kick out too. But it has not yet been taken into account. So the outcome could be even more disastrous, in the sense of the impending “flood”.
The threat of coastal floods appears to be real. Researchers from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have determined that the average temperature on Earth has risen by half a degree Celsius since 1913. In the Arctic and Antarctic regions it has warmed more – by about 2.5 degrees. The temperature continues to rise.
As a result, the rate of melting of glaciers is increasing. Observations that NASA experts have been conducting for more than 40 years indicate that the process has become irreversible and things are gradually moving towards the end – that there will be no ice on Earth at all.
Climatologists have calculated that in order for the planet to free itself of ice, the temperature on it must rise steadily – at the current rate – about 5 thousand years, and if accelerated, then 1000 years will be enough.
And this seems to have happened. The last time the Earth was deprived of ice was 34 million years ago but then, as we see, it grew again.
It takes a very long time to be fully “liberated” from it but its harbingers will make themselves felt much earlier – by floods and deluges.
Forecasts are different. According to the most optimistic estimates, the world ocean level will rise by an average of 3 meters. And for the most panicky, and for all 70 meters. Plus those 30 percent – from one to 20 meters, promised by researchers from Harvard.
Homes far from the sea will find themselves in the coastal zone
Geographers have shown what the whole Earth will become if all the ice melts on it. A series of “post-Flood” maps were published in National Geographic magazine. The white line on them denotes the land boundaries before the flood.
Many coastal cities such as London or Venice will go under the water. Some countries will also disappear – Holland and Denmark in the first place. Little will remain of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
The United States will lose Florida and part of Alaska. San Francisco, thanks to its hills, will turn into islets.
A real disaster is expected in the densely populated areas of Southeast Asia, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia. Territories inhabited by more than a billion people will disappear under the water.
Australia and Africa will suffer the least. Antarctica will change beyond recognition – it will expose its mountainous relief but no one will get hurt there. Perhaps the penguins or the Asians displaced by the flood will move to them.
The Black, Caspian and Aral seas will become a single reservoir. The entire Volga region will be flooded. Astrakhan will be deep under water together with St. Petersburg. No dam will save the city any more. The sea with islands and peninsulas is formed in Siberia – where the Ob flowed before the flood. Crimea will become an island.
