Increased snowfall in Antarctica due to global warming can offset sea level rise

A new study has recently revealed that increased snowfall in Antarctica caused due to global warming can offset global sea level rise.

However, the effect would not be nearly as strong as many scientists previously anticipated because of other, physical processes. That meant that many computer models might be underestimating the amount and rate of sea level rise if they had projected more significant impact from Antarctic snow.

Peter Clark, an Oregon State University paleoclimatologist and his colleagues found that ice cores taken from the Antarctic Ice Sheet captured snow accumulation over time, and they could match that accumulation with established temperature data. They focused on a period from 21,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago, when the Earth gradually came out of the last ice age.

What they found was that Antarctica warmed an average of 5 to 10 degrees (Celsius) during that period and for every degree of warming, there was a 5 percent increase in snowfall.

The scientists also found that the ice core results agreed with projections from three dozen computer models used to calculate future changes in snowfall.

The end result, Clark said, was that projected increasing snowfall would still have a limiting effect on sea level rise, but that impact would be some 20 percent less than previously anticipated.

The study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.