According to a new study published in the Nature Climate Change journal on Monday, rapid melting of West Antarctica’s ice shelves may be “unavoidable” as global warming continues to heat up.
The study claims that even if climate change is curbed in the coming years, West Antarctica is still set to suffer from widespread ice shelf melting – something that would subsequently cause global sea levels to rise in turn.
The research went on to say that even if rising global temperatures are somehow curbed to only 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial levels, global ocean temperatures are still likely to triple.
“It appears that we may have lost control of the West Antarctic ice melting over the 21st century,” said study author and British Antarctic Survey ocean modeler Kaitlin Naughten.
