Antarctica Sees Similar Climate Change Effects As Greenland: Study

The planet's warming climate is having effects in Antarctica that increasingly resemble those observed in the Arctic, meaning global sea levels could rise faster that previously predicted, Danish researchers warned on Friday.

"Antarctica has long been considered more stable than the Arctic. But today, the picture has changed," Ruth Mottram of the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) said in a statement.

"Sea ice is disappearing. Temperatures are rising here too. Ice streams are accelerating and meltwater is penetrating the crevasses in the glaciers, causing them to slide faster towards the sea," she continued.

Mottram warned that the development was "alarming, because the ice masses in the south have a dramatic potential in terms of rising sea levels here in the north".

The Danish researcher, together with six colleagues, published an article in the journal Nature Geoscience on the "Greenlandification of Antarctica".

The scientists, whose conclusions are based on satellite observations and climate models, use the term "Greenlandification" as a way to understand and "predict changes in the Antarctic environment through the lens of well-observed and understood changes in Greenland".

"We use the experiences from Greenland as a kind of 'laboratory' to understand the same processes in Antarctica," Mottram explained. 

"Unfortunately, it appears that our experiences from home are becoming increasingly relevant."

"The Antarctic cryosphere reflects a dynamic environment strongly influenced by regional atmosphere and ocean changes, more similar to Greenland than previously recognised," the researchers say in the article.

If Greenland's ice sheet were to melt entirely, global sea levels would rise by about seven metres (23 feet). 

If this were to occur in Antarctica, the sea level rise could exceed 50 metres, DMI said.