Planet Earth loses 1.2 trillion tons of ice each year, a new study has confirmed.
The grim milestone was published in the magazine Cryosphere, showing that ice loss has risen by almost 60% since 1994, thanks to the acceleration of global warming.
Between 1994 and 2017, the Earth lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice – enough to cover the UK with a 300-foot-deep cover sheet – a sum that is set to continue to rise as the atmosphere the Earth continues to rise in temperature.
Meanwhile, sea levels have risen 1.3 inches worldwide since 1994, E&E News Reports.
This latest study is the first time that the entire planet’s ice has been fully assessed, looking at the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and glaciers on all over the world.
Climate researcher and lead author of the Cryosphere study, Thomas Slater, said in a statement:
The ice sheets now follow the worst-case climate warming conditions described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Sea level rise on this scale will have a devastating effect on coastal communities in this century.
If IPCC estimates are anything to go by, sea levels could have risen another 16 inches by the year 2100.
However, while we as a species are beginning to become more environmentally friendly, another recent study has suggested that the rate at which our planet is losing ice will not tend to accelerate cessation.
Study published in Advances in science they found that 74 major ocean-ending glaciers in Greenland structures are being weakened as a result of irrigation with water from warming oceans.
‘It’s like cutting the legs off the glacier rather than melting the whole body. You melt the legs and the body collapses, instead of melting the whole body, ‘explained Eric Rignot. The Washington Post.
He went on to say that predictions of rising sea levels may be too conservative and that they could rise much faster than we think.