Even if the world meets ambitious targets to limit global heating, West Antarctica will experience substantial ocean warming and ice shelf melting, according to the new study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Ice shelves are tongues of ice that jut out into the ocean at the end of glaciers. They act like buttresses, helping hold ice back on the land, slowing its flow into the sea and providing an important defense against sea level rise.
While the study focused on ice shelf melting and did not directly quantify the impacts on sea level rise, “we have every reason to expect that sea level rise would increase as a result, as West Antarctica speeds up this loss of ice into the ocean,” Naughten said. Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved with the study, said the findings are “sobering.