It’s another story about the Earth’s melting ice, I’m afraid. A survey of the planet’s polar ice caps, mountains, and glaciers showed a total of 28 trillion tonnes of ice had melted since 1994. And that melted ice could cause serious problems for thousands of people:
“To put that in context, every centimetre of sea level rise means about a million people will be displaced from their low-lying homelands,” said Professor Andy Shepherd, director of Leeds University’s Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling.
The scientists also warn that the melting of ice in these quantities is now seriously reducing the planet’s ability to reflect solar radiation back into space. White ice is disappearing and the dark sea or soil exposed beneath it is absorbing more and more heat, further increasing the warming of the planet.
Whether people believe in global warming or not, the damaging effects are going to happen regardless. So instead of arguing, why don’t people deal with the problem at hand before millions lose their homes and die?
You can read the full review, Earth’s ice imbalance, in The Cryosphere.