The two biggest ice sheets in the world, Greenland and Antarctica, are melting.
It’s not happening all too quickly, but a new report says the melting could accelerate and cause global flooding.
“Right now, the sea level rise in Greenland has been quite small - since 1992 just 11mm - but the patterns we see are worrying, the tripling of the sea contribution over 20 years, but we're looking at what’s going to happen over the next 100 years and that's what people are concerned about,” says Leeds University’s Professor Andrew Shepherd.
The report in the US journal Science took data from 10 different satellites since 1992. It matches time periods and geographical locations to get a more accurate picture of ice cap melting.
The research says the ice caps are melting faster than they're reforming, and that's causing concern down south.
“The Dutch have been building dykes for centuries now; we haven't got anything in place,” says Tim Naish of Victoria University’s Antarctic Research Centre. “So even just beginning to think about how either locally or nationally we're going to deal with this problem needs to start now.”
The Dunedin City Council is putting plans into motion this week, increasing minimum floor level standards across the city.
“[There’s] two things: sea level rising and the surge effect from greater tides, so they both have a communal effect and an individual effect, it makes some areas more flood prone, more erosion prone,” says Dunedin City councillor Kate Wilson.
From now on, floor levels must be between 45cm and 1.2m higher than the previously allowed 2.15m above mean sea level.
In Dunedin around 7000 properties currently sit below the new minimum floor level.
“If you're not selling [there’s] no effect at all, there may be an issue while people get their head around what the true effect is,” says Ms Wilson.
“They're not in danger immediately, we are required under the building act to have a 50-year time frame, so we're looking 50 years out.”
But while that seems a long time, the onus is on world leaders to act sooner rather than later.
3 News
source: newshub archive
