How Much Is 470 Gigatons Of Melting Polar Ice
Over 90% of Earth’s ice mass is locked up in Greenland and Antarctica. As our greenhouse gas emissions warm the planet, those areas, along with glaciers worldwide, melt 470 gigatons of polar ice into the sea, contributing to sea level rise. What is one Gigaton of Ice, what does it compare to Melting polar ice has consequences across the entire globe. As sea ice and glaciers melt and oceans warm, ocean currents will continue to disrupt weather patterns worldwide. Floods. Communities will continue to face billion-dollar disaster recovery bills as flooding becomes more frequent and storms and fires become more intense. Most predictions say the warming of the planet will continue and is likely to accelerate, causing the oceans to keep rising. This means hundreds of coastal cities face flooding. But forecasting how much and how soon seas will rise remains an area of ongoing research.
How will it go?
The most recent special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we can expect the oceans to rise between 10 and 30 inches (26 to 77 centimeters) by 2100 with temperatures warming 1.5 °C. That’s enough to seriously affect many of the cities along the U.S. East Coast. Another analysis based on NASA and European data skewed toward the higher end of that range, predicting a rise of 26 inches (65 centimeters) by the end of this century if the current trajectory continues.
If all the ice that currently exists on Earth in glaciers and sheets melted it would raise sea level by 216 feet. That could cause entire states and even some countries to disappear under the waves, from Florida to Bangladesh. That’s not a scenario scientists think is likely, and it would probably take many centuries, but it could eventually happen if the world keeps burning fossil fuels indiscriminately.
In the meantime, scientists keep refining their models of sea-level changes. They also point out that the extent to which countries work together to limit release of more greenhouse gases may have a significant impact on how quickly seas rise, and how much.