Sea ice is melting faster than researchers previously estimated according to a United Nations report that hasn’t been officially released yet. via Bloomberg
Greenland’s ice added six times more to sea levels in the decade through 2011 than in the previous 10 years, according to a draft of the UN’s most comprehensive study on climate change. Antarctica had a fivefold increase, and the UN is raising its forecast for how much the two ice sheets will add to Earth’s oceans by 2100. [...]
Greenland’s contribution to rising sea levels “very likely” rose to an average of 0.59 millimeters a year from 2002 to 2011, from 0.09 millimeters a year in the prior decade, according to the draft. The rate in Antarctica “likely” rose to 0.4 millimeters a year from 0.08 millimeters, it said.
Greenland may add a total of 4 centimeters to 21 centimeters to ocean levels by the period 2081 through 2100, across a range of carbon-emissions scenarios assessed in the study, compared with the period 1986 through 2005. That’s up from a 2007 forecast of 1 centimeter to 12 centimeters, when the UN carried out its last major assessment of climate science.