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Executive Summary for December 18th

We review and analyze the latest news and most important developments in the Arctic, including the contribution of ice loss in Greenland to rising sea levels and a warning about the migration sea-ice pollutants. Our goal is to keep you informed of the most significant recent events.

Published on Dec. 18, 2015 Read time Approx. 2 minutes

Sea Levels Will Rise by at Least 1m

Even if all warming were stopped today, sea levels will irreversibly rise by about 1m (3ft) by 2300, according to a new report published by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, a nonprofit based in Burlington, Vermont. Polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers will continue to melt for thousands of years, even with efforts to contain global warming within 2C (3.6F), InsideClimate News reports.

Greenland has already lost massive amounts of ice since 1900. A new study published in Nature finds 9,103 gigatons (one gigaton is equal to 1 billion metric tons) of ice have melted or calved off the the glacier in the past 115 years. That translates to adding 25mm (1in) of global sea-level rise, Carbon Brief reports.

The researchers, from the National History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen, used thousands of black-and-white aerial photos fished out of archives to fill gaps in their understanding of just how much of the Greenland ice sheet has disappeared over the past century.

They found the thickness of the ice on the western and southern portions of Greenland had thinned by as much as 14cm (5.5in) per year, on average, between 2002 and 2014. The annual rate of loss doubled in the period of 2003 to 2100, compared to the 20th century, according to The Washington Post.

This animation of the retreat of the Kangerlussuaq glacier in eastern Greenland between 1900 and 2013 illustrates the process the researchers used to interpret the photographs.

Sea-ice Pollutants Moving Faster and Further

As Arctic sea ice thins and shrinks, it is becoming more mobile, traveling faster and further – and carrying icebound materials with it. Microorganisms, dirt and pollution produced in one part of the Arctic can hitch a ride to far-flung destinations, warns new research, presented at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

The roaming ice raises the risk of pollution from Arctic oil spills and coastal mining operations being transported to faraway places, Science News reports. The pollutants settle into the water or on top of the ice and become trapped as new ice forms. In the summer, as the ice begins to melt, the cargo moves across the Arctic and is deposited in a new location, sometimes hundreds of kilometers from its origin.

Most of Norway’s sea-ice imports come from Russia, but as that ice becomes more mobile, it is also being exported into Canadian and U.S. waters more rapidly. It now takes less than five years for ice to travel from Russia to Canada, instead of the six or seven years it took in 2000.

Recommended Reads

Top image: Pools of melted ice form atop Jakobshavn Glacier, near the edge of the vast Greenland ice sheet. Greenland’s glaciers are hemorrhaging ice at an increasing rate. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

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