It seemsBustedwere right ; by the class 3,000 , many of us will be live underwater – if unrestrained burning of fossil fuels is allowed to continue .
Burning Earth ’s remaining fossil fuels will cause significant melting of ice in Antarctica and raise ball-shaped sea levels up to 30 meters ( 100 feet ) by the final stage of the millennium , and up to twice that over a few thousand age , according to a new subject . " If we do n’t stop knock down our waste CO2 into the sky , land that is now home to more than a billion people will one day be submerged , " said lead generator Carnegie ’s Ken Caldeira , in astatement .
The study , published in the journalScience Advances , is the first to mould unrestrained fossil fuel burn down on the entirety of the Antarctic ice bed sheet . And the results , perhaps unsurprisingly , are jolly striking .
It is estimated that there are 10 trillion tons of atomic number 6 interlock up within approachable fossil fuels such as vegetable oil , coal and gas . At current rate , 6 - 8 % of this will be free in the next 60 - 80 year , which would cause the West Antarctic methamphetamine hydrochloride canvas to become unstable . Continued burning will in the end have detrimental effect on the much larger East Antarctic crank sheet .
" The West Antarctic ice rink sheet may already have tipped into a state of unstoppable ice exit , whether as a answer of human natural action or not , ” said co - author Anders Levermann , from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research , in the statement . “ But if we want to go past on city like Tokyo , Hong Kong , Shanghai , Calcutta , Hamburg and New York as our future inheritance , we involve to avoid a tipping in East Antarctica . ”
How emissions will strike south-polar ice . Ken Caldeira and Ricarda Winkelmann .
If global heating does not exceed the oft - cite 2 ° C quarry , then ocean level move up due to Antartic melting will be just a few meters , which is achievable , said the researchers . However , with each tenth of a degree that is added to this , the effects become more and more terrible .
Unrestrained fogy fuel burning would lead to sea level rise of three centimeters ( more an inch ) per twelvemonth over the next 1,000 years . This would leave in a ascension of 30 meters ( 100 feet ) by the year 3,000 , and up to 60 meters ( 200 understructure ) over several thousand year .
" Our findings show that if we do not want to melt Antarctica , we ca n’t keep select fossil fuel carbon out of the ground and just dumping it into the atmosphere as CO2 like we ’ve been doing , " say Caldeira .
