More than 100 scientists spent the last three years looking at the impact of climate change on the Earth's oceans and the ice locked around the North and South Poles and in mountain areas.
The 900-page report shows the damage climate change has already done to the planet’s vast oceans and fragile ice sheets and forecasts the future for these crucial parts of the climate system. Researchers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were encouraged by Prince Albert II and the Monaco government in 2015 to produce a special report on the oceans and cryosphere, the Earth's surface where water is frozen solid.
The report contains the growing threat from rising sea levels that could imperil hundreds of millions of people before the end of this century. It will also warn of the threat posed by the growing acidification of the seas, the threats to coral and fisheries and the possibility that warming might melt permafrost, releasing huge amounts of the CO2 gas that's the key to rising temperatures.
According to studies, the amount of ice lost from the vast frozen region increased six-fold per year between 1979-1990 and 2009-2017.
"The melting of ice sheets after Snowball Earth caused a dramatic rise in sea level, ultimately flooding the continents, driving a remarkable retreat of shorelines and the development of clearer ocean water. Researchers have long been aware that the timing of Snowball Earth and the development of more complex life seem to have coincided, but no one has really thought about how the oceans being starved of sediment might have helped ancient organisms thrive in the oceans," stated Co-author Dr. Milo Barham.
Maritime Business World