Global Ice Sheets at Risk

Ice Sheet at Risk

One of the most controversial areas of climate science is how high the seas are likely to rise in a warmer world. Last year, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that sea levels would rise by 15-59cm this century, an average of 38.5cm.

...Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the IPCC, said: "Some are raising the [sea level] issue as being far more alarming than we had projected, but in the synthesis report we clearly said that we didn't know enough and therefore we can't place an upper limit on sea level rise this century."

...In September, a team led by Tad Pfeffer at the University of Colorado at Boulder, published calculations using conservative, medium and extreme glaciological assumptions for sea rise expected from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps. They concluded the most plausible scenario, when factoring in thermal expansion due to warming waters, will lead to a total sea level rise of roughly 100-200cm by 2100.

...Jim Hansen, of NASA, has argued that most estimates of sea level rise are too conservative. He says that feedbacks in the climate system would quickly accelerate ice melt, and could lead to runaway collapse.

Dec. 9, 2008

for complete article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/poznan-ice-sheet-sea-level-greenland-arctic