More advanced computer models show Antarctic melt may be less severe

The research study utilized real-world physics in addition to satellite monitors to track the changes for which the scientists are searching.

Tamsin Edwards, one of the lead researchers and professor at United Kingdom college said, “The bed of Antarctica is so important for what the ice sheet is doing, and there are parts of it that are just too bumpy and rough or are not sloping in a way that will allow for anything to happen too quickly”.

A few earlier studies had predicted a high-impact collapse from the unstable ice to add 20-30 inches to the sea levels, but the new study says those predictions “just aren’t plausible”.

A group of French and British scientists who study how a rise in greenhouse gas levels may affect ice sheets in the polar south found that the doomsday scenarios about Antarctic ice melt may be exaggerated. It was through this method they came to the conclusion that a 10 centimeter rise was most likely, which actually agrees with predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013.

Climate forecasts are inherently uncertain, due to the large numbers of variables involved. And, in their study, these uncertainties were minimized by running their computer model about 3, 000 times.

No other studies have tried this, she said.

A new study indicates that while Antarctica will contribute to sea level rises due to global warming in this upcoming century, the nightmare scenarios that many have been predicting just don’t seem at all likely to happen, according to a BBC report.

“People have done multiple simulations before, but what they haven’t then done is see how well they compare with the present day, and put that into re-weighting the predictions”.

In the United Kingdom, Scotland is rising – and so its relative sea level is falling – because ice from the last ice age has melted, and the reduced weight means it is bobbing up like a cork.

One of the biggest triggers, or factors, is the flows of warm water that have caused a decline in the West Antarctic ice sheet for the past several decades.

“With our model we have done a few 3,000 simulations”, explained Dr Edwards. “But those approximations are not supported by the physics used in this evaluation, and the physics used in this analysis is pretty well warranted”.

“But because this study has really raised the game in terms of reporting, the other models won’t get published unless they adopt a similar amount of sophistication”.