Sea level rise from Antarctic collapse may be slower than suggested
Impact on sea level of Antarctic ice sheet collapse
BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY
A new study by scientists in the UK and France has found that Antarctic ice sheet collapse will have serious consequences for sea level rise over the next two hundred years, though not as much as some have suggested.
This study, published today in the journal Nature, uses an ice-sheet model to predict the consequences of unstable retreat of the ice, which recent studies suggest has begun in West Antarctica. Scientists, led by Catherine Ritz from Université Grenoble Alpes in France and Tamsin Edwards from The Open University, predict that the contribution is most likely to be 10 cm of sea-level rise this century under a mid to high climate scenario, but is extremely unlikely to be higher than 30 cm. When combined with other contributions, that’s a significant challenge for adapting to future sea level rise. But it’s also far lower than some previous estimates, which were as high as one metre from Antarctica alone.
