A new study indicates that we may have greatly overestimated just how much sea levels are rising.
The paper, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, finds that two major factors that had been overlooked are slowing down the melting of the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet, according to a Phys.org report.
These findings indicate the sea level rise will be more gradual than had been though, despite recent studies that warned the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be witnessing “runaway retreat” soon, leading to a sudden rise of as much as three meters in global sea levels.
But two geophysical elements hadn’t been considered in the doomsday research. These factors were the ice sheet’s gravitational pull on the water that surrounds it, as well as the mantle beneath the bedrock that is surprisingly fluid.
Lead author Natalya Gomez, who is an assistant professor at McGill University in Montreal, said that while scientists are rightfully concerned about melting and limiting CO2 emissions to prevent it, computer models have overestimated the sea level rise by not taking these factors into account.
Gravity plays an important role in this situation, because the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is so massive that a reduction in its mass would lower its gravitational pull, which would actually cause sea levels near the ice to lower and thus slow the retreat of the ice sheet itself.
Also, the mantle beneath the ice sheet flows fairly freely, causing the land underneath the ice sheet to pop up, which would further slow this retreat.
Still, if CO2 emissions aren’t slowed down significantly, the study warns, it could overwhelm these factors anyway, underscoring the importance of still tackling the CO2 problem despite these findings.