Chapter: Drowning

[Part 1: The Facts]

     As stated on page 65 of David Wallace-Wells’ The Uninhabitable Earth, Greenland’s ice sheet is currently losing about a billion tons of ice at a daily rate. This environmental disturbance can cause global sea levels to rise 10-20 feet if the ice sheet melts completely. 

[Part 2: Relationship to Climate Change]

Wallace-Wells writes that “One study suggests that the Greenland ice sheet could reach a tipping point at just 1.2 degrees of global warming” … “business-as-usual emissions trajectories warm the planet by just over 4 degrees by 2100” One can see that it is guaranteed for Greenland to suffer intense collapse of its ice sheet, and sea levels rising as a result. The planet is projected to far surpass the tipping point of catastrophic melting of Greenland, and the consequences to sea level are dire. The connection between Greenland’s extreme loss of ice and climate change is rather clear due to how closely linked they are. It is a fact that temperatures are rising, and warmer temperatures mean melting ice, adding more water to the ocean, elevating sea levels.

[Part 3: The Future]

     If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt completely, sea levels could rise six meters eventually drowning places like Miami, Manhattan, London, Shanghai, Bangkok and Mumbai. If the planet were to get 4 degrees warmer, our shorelines would move by miles, putting many states, cities, and towns under water.

Emily Duffy, Catherine Buckley, Abigail Cicerchia