Ice is now melting four times faster in Greenland than it did in 2003, according to recently published climate-change research by an Ohio State University scientist.

“Transfer of ice mass to the oceans is the second-largest contributor to sea-level rise. Greenland has been losing ice mass even faster than Antarctica in the last few decades, so any major acceleration in ice loss will lead to a significant acceleration in sea-level rise,” said Michael Bevis, a professor of geodynamics at Ohio State.

Bevis, who was the lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the largest amount of ice loss came from southwestern Greenland.

"The bottom line of this study is that Greenland has hit a tipping point in terms of its melting point. So, 0.5 degrees warming in the future will cause much more extra melting than 0.5 degrees warming did in the last century," he said in an email to The Dispatch.

Climate-change researchers have documented increased rates of ice melt in both Greenland and Antarctica.

"Greenland has enough ice to raise sea level by 7 meters if all the ice melted. Only a very small percentage has been lost in the last few decades, but the big worry is that the rate of ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica is accelerating, and the rate of sea-level rise is accelerating," he said.

So what's causing the ice to melt faster? Both the atmosphere and the ocean are warming, Bevis said.

The North Atlantic Oscillation is a naturally occurring cycle of westerly winds that causes ice to melt under normal circumstances and has been happening for more than a thousand years. When it's "combined with man-made global warming, though, the effects are supercharged," he said.

The implications could be serious for coastal communities.

"The melting process is going non-linear in time. It will accelerate. This means sea-level rise will accelerate," Bevis said. "That is bad news at most coastlines, including most of the Atlantic coast, all of Florida, all of the Gulf Coast of the USA, but also worldwide."

Although this won't affect Ohio directly, Ohioans also should be concerned because "the other aspects of global warming certainly will," Bevis said.

Trish Demeter, vice president of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council, said it's sometimes hard to make that connection.

"It's a very real impact, and it's something that we have to actively mitigate the causes for and also get ready for those impacts," she said.

Demeter said more effort is needed to reduce carbon emissions, which lead to greenhouse gases that spur climate change.

In Ohio, climate change means more rainfall, including downpours, in addition to rising temperatures.

For example, last year Columbus surpassed the record for its wettest year, which had been 54.96 inches set only seven years earlier, in 2011.

Bevis cited other potential effects of climate change: "I think we can count on major problems with algae blooms turning our water toxic, for example. We can count on more extreme flooding events, too,"

Bevis plans to continue to measure ice loss across Greenland using data from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite mission, which features twin satellites managed by NASA and Germany. He'll also use GPS data and regional climate modeling systems to project what might happen in the next 20 to 30 years.

As for those who raise doubts about climate change, Bevis said there's wide scientific consensus on the issue.

"Since modern, well-funded, professional science emerged after World War II, there is not a single example of a nearly unanimous scientific consensus involving thousands of scientists being wrong. Think of smoking and lung cancer, acid rain, the ozone hole, etc.," he said. "The scientific community was right then, and it is right now about global warming.

"The notion that we must choose between saving our climate system and saving our economy is absurd."

bburger@dispatch.com

@ByBethBurger