Climate research: How the Greenland ice sheet can still be saved
No green light for "more business as usual"However, the new findings do not mean that society can be satisfied with its climate protection achievements to date; instead the findings are to be seen much more as a second chance and an outlook for the future.
In the simulation the researchers used two different ice sheet models.
A large number of scenarios were run, with global warming between 1.5 and 6.5 degrees Celsius until 2100 and a subsequent cooling phase of between 100 to 10,000 years.
"Using super-computers we were able to calculate this enormous number of scenarios reaching 100,000 years into the future so that we could be completely certain that the Greenland ice sheet is in balance.
However, in both ice sheet models we were able to show that the ice sheet can recover, as long as the critical temperature threshold value is only exceeded for a limited period of time of several centuries," says Nils Bochow, scientist at UiT and also member of PIK.
No green light for "more business as usual"
However, the new findings do not mean that society can be satisfied with its climate protection achievements to date; instead the findings are to be seen much more as a second chance and an outlook for the future. In the simulation the researchers used two different ice sheet models. A large number of scenarios were run, with global warming between 1.5 and 6.5 degrees Celsius until 2100 and a subsequent cooling phase of between 100 to 10,000 years. "Using super-computers we were able to calculate this enormous number of scenarios reaching 100,000 years into the future so that we could be completely certain that the Greenland ice sheet is in balance. However, in both ice sheet models we were able to show that the ice sheet can recover, as long as the critical temperature threshold value is only exceeded for a limited period of time of several centuries," says Nils Bochow, scientist at UiT and also member of PIK.
