Sea levels will rise all over the world, even if global warming stops now.

This is the "alarming" and potentially underestimated conclusion of a study published this Monday in the journal

Nature Climate Change

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Glaciologists have studied the already started melting of the Greenland ice cap.

They realized that current climate change, regardless of any additional pollution, would result in a minimum loss of 3.3% of the volume of the Greenland ice cap, or a 27.4 cm rise in sea level.

A low and “cautious” forecast

The authors of the study could not establish a precise timetable but according to them, the major part of this increase could occur by 2100. The current projections of the scientists would therefore be underestimated.

The results of this study are also a lower limit, as they do not take into account future warming.

"This is a conservative lower limit," says Jason Box, lead author of the study.

“It is enough that the climate continues to warm around Greenland for the effect to be greater.

If the extreme levels of melting observed in 2012 were repeated every year, the water rise could even reach about 78 cm, synonymous with submersion for large areas all over the world.

A looming challenge

In its 2021 report, the IPCC estimated, in the worst-case scenario for greenhouse gas emissions, that the melting of the Greenland ice cap would contribute 18 cm to the rise in sea level by here at 2100. The other major source of rising sea levels is the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet.

For Jason Box, who participated in this report, these estimates are now “too low”.

According to him, climate change brings more immediate threats (such as food insecurity) but accelerating sea level rise will in turn become a challenge.

“It will be on the agenda in a few decades, because then it will start to displace more and more people,” said the researcher.

In its 2022 report, the IPCC declared that by stabilizing between 2 and 2.5°C, global warming would cause a rise in water levels affecting at least 25 megacities in the world.

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