Melting of East Antarctic Ice Sheet could cause sea level rise

The world's largest ice sheet could cause sea levels to rise drastically if global temperatures continue to rise, according to new research.

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) contains most of the Earth's glacier ice.

The ice sheet was previously viewed as less vulnerable to the impacts of climate change compared to the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.

However, some parts of the EAIS have been lost over recent decades, which suggests climate change may be having a greater impact on the region than first thought.

Researchers at Durham University concluded that if global greenhouse emissions remain high, the melting EAIS could cause nearly half a metre of sea-level rise by 2100, and between two and five metres by 2500.

However, this impact could be greatly small if emissions were to be significantly reduced, contributing around just two centimetres of sea level rise by 2100, according to the study.

This would be far less than the ice loss expected from the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets which are much smaller in size than the EAIS.

The research team, which included scientists from the UK, Australia, France and the US, looked at how the ice sheet responded to past warm periods when making their predictions.

They ran computer simulations to model the effects of different greenhouse gas emission levels and temperatures on the ice sheet by the years 2100, 2300 and 2500.

"A key conclusion from our analysis is that the fate of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet remains very much in our hands," said lead author Chris Stokes, from Durham University's Department of Geography.

"This ice sheet is by far the largest on the planet, containing the equivalent of 52 metres of sea level and it's really important that we do not awaken this sleeping giant."

In 2015, world leaders agreed at the 2 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris to limit global warming to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5°C.

Chris Stokes said: "Restricting global temperature increases to below the 2°C limit set by the Paris Climate Agreement should mean that we avoid the worst-case scenarios, or perhaps even halt the melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, and therefore limit its impact on global sea level rise."