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If greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the combined meltwater from the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets could contribute to an additional 44 cm sea-level rise by 2100, on top of what recent warming has already triggered. The journal The Cryosphere reports this on the basis of an international study, including that of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
This new estimate is the result of an international collaboration of more than 60 ice, ocean and atmosphere scientists, including scientists from the VUB. The results of this Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6) were published under the direction of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Progress
“The strength of this project is that for the first time almost all existing ice sheet models have performed the same experiments under the same climate scenarios, so that we can gain a better picture of the uncertainty resulting from differences in ice dynamics and future oceanic and atmospheric conditions. This is a big step forward to better inform the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ”, explains ice expert Philippe Huybrechts of the VUB.
Ice sheets
The project team examined two different scenarios developed by the IPCC: one with a rapid increase in carbon emissions and another with lower emissions. “One of the biggest uncertainties when it comes to how much sea levels will rise in the future is how much the ice sheets will contribute to this,” said project leader and ice scientist Sophie Nowicki. “And how much the ice sheets contribute depends on what the climate will do.”
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