Between 1994 and 2017, British scientists analyzed satellite images of glaciers, mountains and ice sheets and found that the Earth lost a staggering 28 trillion tonnes of ice during that period.
Scientists from universities in Leeds, London and Edinburgh they call such ice loss incredible and believe it could cause sea levels to rise drastically, perhaps as much as a meter by the end of the century.
The results of the study were published in the journal Cryosphere Discussions.
"To put this into context - every centimeter of sea level rise means that in the near future a million people living at low altitudes will be forced to relocate," the professor told the Guardian Andy Shepherd from the University of Leeds.
Dramatic loss of ice it can also have other consequences, including disruptions to the biological health of Arctic and Antarctic waters and a reduction in the planet's ability to reflect solar radiation back into space.
British the results correspond the worst possible scenario of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
"Scientists have previously studied some areas where the ice is melting, for example Antarctica or Greenland, but this is the first time anyone has studied the global melting of the ice that is disappearing from our planet,” Shepherd told the Guardian. "And what we discovered amazed us."
"It is unlikely that much of the 28 billion tons of lost ice is not a direct result of global warming," he also said.
