Greenland’s ice sheet is the second largest body of ice in the world, but global warming has been causing it to melt rapidly in the decades prior to now. Despite efforts to halt the heating of the planet, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, climate work has seemingly proved futile, and experts are warning of a huge sea level rise before the end of the century.
The ice covering Greenland is up to three kilometres thick in certain places, covering an area seven times the amount of the UK.
Under previous climate models, experts had anticipated so much ice to melt from Greenland that it would lead to a 10-centimetre sea level rise.
However, using revised climate models, which are more in line with the way the planet’s temperatures are heading, sea level rise could increase by 18 centimetres by the end of the century.
To put that into perspective, an average centimetre rise in sea levels leads to the displacement of one million people.
A statement from the University of Liege said: “The results obtained showed that for the same evolution of greenhouse gas concentrations until 2100, these new scenarios predict a 60 percent greater surface melting of the Greenland ice cap than previously estimated for the previous IPCC report (AR5, 2013).”
If all of Greenland’s ice were to melt, it would cause sea levels to rise by a staggering seven metres, which could have major implications for the UK.
In the event of a seven-metre sea level rise, northern France will struggle while virtually the entirety of the Netherlands will be submerged, according to Google’s interactive map FireTree.
Low-lying Denmark would also become much smaller.
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Hull becomes almost completely submerged while areas east of Lincoln all the way down to the east of Cambridge will cease to exist.
London will also become a lot smaller as the Thames estuary floods, wiping out the majority of the centre of the capital.
Down south, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Brighton will struggle to remain.