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The melting of the ice sheet in Greenland is faster than expected (researchers)
AFP - Monday 22 September, 22h03COPENHAGUE (AFP) -
The melting of the ice sheet in Greenland, the icecap covering more than 80% of this island, is faster than previously estimated, due to global warming, said Monday a Danish researcher.
The ice cap of 1,8 million km2, containing 10% of the fresh waters of the planet, today loses about 257 km3 of ice creams per year.
It will record in 2080 a net annual loss of 465 km3, according to new assessments from a team of US-based experts working at the Arctic International Research Center at Fairbanks University in Alaska.
This net loss would be in 2080 "81% greater than that of today (...) leading to" a rise in sea level of 107 mm or some 11 cm ", said researcher Sebastian H. Mernild, in a press release.
Satellite observations indicate that "the global water level has increased" since 1993 by about 3mm per year, ie at a much faster rate than during the last century "(+1,7 mm per year) , he stressed.
"The melting season (in summer) of the ice sheet broke a new record in 2007, corresponding to a loss of 50% of the total ice surface. And this record will not be the last", according to this researcher.
"The melting at the end of the decade 2070 will see this percentage increase to 66%, or about 1,204 million km2", according to Dr. Mernild, at the head of this team of researchers, observing that this melting "takes place at a faster rate than estimated in the past ".
The calculations of this team, based on "climate models and scenarios" from the UN climate panel (IPCC) show "that the average air temperature will increase by some 2,7 degrees by the end of this century "in Greenland.
This thinning of the ice surface of the ice sheet is accompanied by an acceleration of the flow of fresh water towards the sea. About 400 km3 per year during the period 1998-2007, this flow will increase to some 675 km3 in 2070-2080, corresponding to an increase of 70% compared to the current period, according to models developed by these researchers.
"We can already notice that the salt content of the seas around Greenland has decreased (...) and this is naturally worrying, because this will have a lot of consequences for countries located in low areas "of the earth as in Asia. (Bangladesh, Maldives), he said, quoted by the Danish agency Ritzau.
This study, published in Hydrological Processes and the Journal of Hydrometeoroly, will be presented in December at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco.