Environment

The scientific world is not hiding its concerns. According to a study published on June 25 in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers have discovered that the Antarctic ice caps are heading towards uncontrolled melting.

According to scientists, a new tipping point is about to be crossed.

“A climate tipping point is a critical threshold beyond which a system reorganizes itself, often abruptly and/or irreversibly, leading to a series of cascading consequences,” specifies BFMTV. The water from the oceans, warmer because of global warming, infiltrates this area where the sea and land meet and begins to move forward under the ice. This phenomenon is at the origin of the melting of the Antarctic. The warmer the sea water, the faster the intrusion under the ice.

The study sounds the alarm and explains that a tipping point can be exceeded "beyond which ocean water is introduced in an unlimited way under the ice sheet, via an uncontrolled melting process". As a consequences we will witness a rise in sea level and complete drowning of coastal populations, all over the world.

Alexander Bradley, lead author of the study and researcher at the British Antarctic Survey, specifies that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has largely underestimated the phenomenon and has not taken it into account in its projections concerning the impact of global warming on Antarctica. "This only underlines the need for urgent climate action to prevent these tipping points from being exceeded."

(MH with AsD - Source: BFMTV - Illustration: Unsplash)