Regardless of any future cutbacks on carbon emissions, sea levels will rise about 6 feet over the next few centuries, according to a new study based on simulations calculating the future state of the West Antarctic Ice Shelf.
Dr. Kaitlin Naughten, a British Antarctic survey oceanographer, led the study in which researchers used computer simulations to calculate the future melting projections of the Antarctic ice sheets.
“Our simulations suggest that we are now committed to the rapid increase in the rate of ocean warming and ice shelf melting over the rest of the century,” Naughten told the Associated Press.
The simulations looked at four different levels of carbon dioxide emission. In each of the four emission levels, huge portions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were shown to melt due to high water temperatures, which is the result of oceans absorbing more greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The EPA’s website said that changes to the ocean system occur over longer stretches of time. Even with immediate cutbacks, the oceans wouldn’t start adjusting for many more centuries.
The figures from Naughten’s study reveal how the retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may contain enough ice to raise the global mean sea-level. They also project the upwards trend of ocean temperature for every future scenario, although mitigation scenarios like Paris 1.5°C — a goal of the Paris Climate Agreement to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels — can flatten out the warming trajectory in a few centuries.
According to Sarah Feakins, a professor of earth sciences at USC, this has been an ongoing phenomenon, as past model projects and reconstructions have revealed how current levels of carbon dioxide will result in less ice.
“It just takes a while for the ice to melt and come into equilibrium with greenhouse gases,” she said. “Even if we stopped all [greenhouse gas emissions] today and let the clock roll forward a few hundred years, or a few thousand years, we’d expect to see a lot of that ice gone.”
However, Naughten said she was still wary of using words like “doomed” to describe the current state of the climate crisis because the study only covers years up to 2100.
“After 2100, we probably have some control,” she said.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), climate change is such a large-scale issue that many people feel as if there’s nothing they can do to solve it. As stated by the APA, climate grief surrounds the loss of a predictable future and a fear for the loss of ecosystems and landscapes. However, climate grief is differentiated from other cycles of grief because climate change is ongoing and “all-encompassing,” according to the APA.
Dr. Emily Smith-Greenaway, an associate professor of sociology and spatial sciences at USC, spoke to Annenberg Media about climate grief and how media rhetoric can influence how readers perceive and respond to climate change.
“There’s kind of this desire to sensationalize science,” Smith-Greenaway said. “I think there’s a responsibility to ensure that we’re presenting results in a more balanced and neutral manner that’s not turning our science into this kind of clickbait phenomenon.”
According to Smith-Greenway, there is sociological evidence that negative news affects how people understand mass events, and it can measurably affect their mental health.
Students also spoke to Annenberg Media about their awareness of the sea-level rise and how they perceive the scale of the climate issue.
“I think many people are not paying serious attention to this,” said Pradeep Bhattarai, a graduate student studying finance. “But, looking at the statistics, this is a really serious thing.” Bhattari worries that island and coastal nations are the most vulnerable and “so many nations could disappear.”
According to the Pew Research Center, news rhetoric surrounding climate change is often met with suspicion by readers. Interviews conducted by the center revealed that language describing climate change as an “urgent threat” led to a disconnect between interviewees’ own beliefs and what the media publishes.
According to Professor Feakins, language indicating hopelessness can result in inaction. Despite the inevitable rising sea levels, “it would be wrong to think that we can’t do anything,”
Even though part of Antarctica’s ice sheet will be lost, Feakins said that “the messaging always has to be that every drop of CO2 saved is a good thing.”
According to Naughten, there are vulnerable sections of the environment that can still be saved.
“Just always remember that it can be a lot worse,” Feakins said. “So we don’t want to give people a sense that there’s nothing we can do.”