West Antarctic Melting Could Raise Seas by 3 Meters, Scientists Warn

West Antarctica is estimated to cause world sea levels to rise by 3.3 meters, or over 10 feet, if the oceanfront glaciers in its Amundsen Sea region would melt due to warm waters.

In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Johannes Feldmann and Anders Levermann of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research featured a complex climate model to observe the possible effects if the West Antarctic glaciers would melt.

“We showed that there is actually nothing that stops it. There are troughs and channels and all this stuff, there’s a lot of topography that actually has the potential to slow down or stop the instability, but it doesn’t.” Levermann said in a report by Washington Post.

The paper stated that if the Amundsen Sea Sector is destabilized, the whole marine part of West Antarctica will be released into the ocean. West Antarctica is the smallest of three planetary ice sheets. East Antarctica is the biggest at around 200 feet, while Greenland is next with about 20 feet. This means that East Antarctica can cause a sea level increase of 200 feet, while Greenland can result to a 20-foot rise.

West Antarctica is the most vulnerable among the three, because of the Amundsen Sea glaciers being planted on a seabed with a downward slope as it goes inland. The largest glacier in the region, Thwaites, may be its most vulnerable point. Thwaites is larger than the state of Pennsylvania.

Levermann explained that if the bedrock declines as it moves inland, the grounding line is thicker as it goes further inland. The ice flux will be larger and more ice will be lost the further you move inland. The researchers provided a visual concept of how a marine ice sheet instability happens.

The Guardian revealed that another scientific paper based on Nasa satellite data from 2003 to 2008 showed that Antarctic ice accumulated mass, sufficient to exceed the amount lost in other regions.

Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with Nasa Goddard Space Flight center, agreed that there is a rise in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island parts of west Antarctica. They disagree, however, on the ice at east Antarctica and the interior of west Antarctica. They reportedly saw an ice gain that surpasses the losses in the other regions.

Overall, people should be aware about the potential negative effects caused by global warming, which might spur the worldwide adaptation of coastal protection practices.