Photo credit: cloudzilla

A new study, published in the journal Nature, shows that Antarctica, like the rest of the world, is warming up. The authors of the study fear that West Antarctica may have reached a “tipping point” which will melt most of the ice. If all of West Antarctica was to melt away it would raise global sea levels of up to seven metres with devastating consequences around the world.

Eric Steig, of the University of Washington, one of the authors of the study, said:

“The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that’s not the case. If anything it’s the reverse, but it’s more complex than that.

“Antarctica isn’t warming at the same rate everywhere, and while some areas have been cooling for a long time the evidence shows the continent as a whole is getting warmer.”

Professor Barry Brook, of the University of Adelaide, said after seeing the study that together with the melting of Greenlands ice sheet global sea levels would rise 14 metres:

“This new analysis of the warming trend over the other large vulnerable ice sheet, West Antarctica, suggests it is also precariously balanced.

“A complete melting of both of these ice sheets would cause about 14 metres of sea level rise, but even losing a fraction of both would cause a few metres this century, with disastrous consequences. I worry, with the observed polar warming over the last few decades and more in the pipeline due to lags in the climate system, that their large-scale melt is now a fait accompli.”

The study notes that man-made climate change is to be blamed for warming up Antarctica:

“This warming trend is difficult to explain without the radioactive forcing associated with increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations.”

Also read: The world’s glaciers continues to melt, will raise sea levels and threat 2bn people

In 100 months it will be too late to stop climate change. Then we have passed the “tipping point” where climate change will run out of control and leave us powerless to intervene. The message comes from the new campaign One Hundred Months from the New Economic Foundation (NEF), which wants to highlight this dangerous “tipping point.”

“If you shout “fire” in a crowded theatre, when there is none, you understand that you might be arrested for irresponsible behaviour and breach of the peace. But from today, I smell smoke, I see flames and I think it is time to shout. I don’t want you to panic, but I do think it would be a good idea to form an orderly queue to leave the building,” says Andrew Simms, policy director and head of the climate change programme at NEF.

The New Economic Foundation’s plan to stop climate change before December 2016 is pretty downright. They want to stop constructions of “infrastructure that is fossil-fuel-dependent.” Such as high-ways, airports and coal power plants, invest in renewable energy and public transportation systems and put a heavy tax on companies that invest money into fossil fuels.

100 months might sound like a short period of time. But unfortunately these calculations are based on old numbers and science from the IPCC. So the time until we reach the “tipping point” might be a lot less than these 100 months.

No matter if we only have 100 months left, or 50 months left, or if we have already passed the “tipping point” there is no reason for our current inaction. “Now it is time for the government to lead, and do its best to make sure that neither a bang, nor a whimper ends the show.”