Global ice sheets melting at ‘worst-case’ rates: UK scientists | Al Jazeera

The rate at which ice is disappearing across the world matches “worst-case climate warming scenarios”, UK scientists have warned in new research.

A team from the universities of Edinburgh, Leeds and University College London said the rate at which ice is melting across the world’s polar regions and mountains has increased markedly in the last 30 years.

Using satellite data, the experts found the Earth lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994 and 2017.

The rate of loss has risen from 0.8 trillion tonnes per year in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion tonnes per year by 2017, with potentially disastrous consequences for people living in coastal areas, they said.

“The ice sheets are now following the worst-case climate warming scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),” said Thomas Slater, a research fellow at Leeds University’s Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling.

“Sea level rise on this scale will have very serious impacts on coastal communities this century.”