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Competence Centre on Foresight

We foster a strategic, future-oriented and anticipatory culture in the EU policymaking process.

  • Page | Last updated: 11 Dec 2020
Melting ice cover and permafrost
Foresight
  • Due to rising temperatures, glaciers and ice caps have been melting and as a result sea levels as well as temperatures have been rising.
  • Oceans take up over 90% of global warming. Once the sea ice is gone, the atmosphere will warm up faster.
  • Arctic sea ice volume on July 10, 2018, was at a record low for the time of the year. It has started to break up twice, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer.
  • September Arctic sea ice is declining at an average rate of 13.2% per decade, relative to the 1981-2010 average. In September 2018, the Arctic might be ice-free. 
  • Antarctic ice sheet melting rate has accelerated threefold over the last five years – from 76bn tonnes per year (0.2mm sea-level rise contribution) to 219bn tonnes of ice per year (0.6mm sea-level rise contribution). If present trends continue, Antarctic melting could contribute 27 cm to sea-level rise by 2070.
  • Global sea levels are rising at an average rate of 3.4 millimetres per year, mainly due to melting glaciers and sea ice, and expansion of sea water as it warms.
  • As the Arctic warms faster than anywhere else on earth, the thawing of permafrost could release mercury at a rate much faster than it would occur naturally, with potential consequences to the environment and the food chain.
  • Ocean acidification is increasing as a result of increasing concentrations of CO2, affecting marine ecosystems.
  • If present trends continue, Antarctic melting could contribute 27 cm to sea-level rise by 2070. Antarctic ice sheet melting rate has accelerated threefold over the last five years – from 76bn tonnes per year (0.2mm sea-level rise contribution) to 219bn tonnes of ice per year (0.6mm sea-level rise contribution).
  • By 2100, some 150-200 million people could be displaced by sea level rise, globally. | Related Megatrends: Migration; Security

 

Global Mean Sea Level Scenarios for 2100

gmsl_rise_noaa_report_012017
(© NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Global Mean Sea Level relative to historical geological, tide gauge and satellite altimeter the GMSL reconstructions from 1800–2015 and central 90% conditional probability ranges of RCP-based GMSL projections of recent studies.
Source: Global and regional sea level rise scenarios for the united states, NOAA report, January 2017, pp. 21-22.

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