Sea levels could rise over 4 feet

Cambridge (global-adventures.us): The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) says that warming seas are accelerating the melting of polar ice in the west of Antarctica. The Cambridge (UK) based organization predicts that Sea levels are likely to rise by about 4 foot 6” (1.4 meters) globally by 2100. The report called “Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment” was written using contributions from 100 leading scientists in various disciplines, and reviewed by a further 200 experts.

SCAR's executive director Dr. Colin Summerhayes said the report painted a picture of "the creeping global catastrophe that we face. The temperature of the air is increasing, the temperature of the ocean is increasing, sea levels are rising, and the Sun appears to have very little influence on what we see."

The Antarctic Peninsula, a strip of land that points towards the southern tip of South America, has warmed by about 3 Centigrade over the last 50 years, the fastest rise seen anywhere in the southern hemisphere, according to the report. The rest of the continent has remained largely immune from the global trend of rising temperatures. East Antarctica appears to have cooled, bringing a 10 percent increase in the sea ice extent since 1980.

This report backs the theory that East Antarctica has bucked the global trend largely because of ozone depletion in the stratosphere above the polar region. "We used to have a big blanket of ozone, and when we took it away we saw a cooling," said Editor John Turner from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

The ozone hole is expected to repair itself in about 50 years, now that the Montreal Protocol has curbed the use of ozone-destroying substances. As it does so, the SCAR team predicts that greenhouse warming will come to dominate the temperature change across Antarctica, as in other parts of the planet.

A copy of the full report is available on the SCAR website.