10 Disastrous Consequences Of Man-Made Climate Change
8. We’re Losing Our Ice At An Alarming Rate
More than 95% of the world’s freshwater is found frozen in the ice at the poles, but that ice is melting at an alarming rate. Between 1993 and 2016, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets decreased in mass by an average of 281 billion tons of ice each year. If you look at that in pounds, that’s a total of 509,837,823,880,000,000 lbs per year.
Antarctica fared slightly better only losing around 119 billion tons each year during that timeframe, though its loss has tripled in the last decade. The clearest danger posed by ice loss is the increase in global sea-levels, which have risen considerably in recent years.
The loss of ice has had an impact on the planet’s ecosystems as well as the weather. Increased sea-levels have also impacted the global oceanic temperature averages, which have a direct relationship with storm activity. There was one positive aspect of the loss of so much ice.
The fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the Canadian Arctic opened up a few years ago and continues to reopen annually. It might help in shipping, but it’s terrible for the ecosystem.