From Ice to High Seas
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Material Information

Title:
From Ice to High Seas
Creator:
The Ice2sea Consortium
Publisher:
British Antarctic Survey
Publication Date:
Language:
English

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Climate change ( lcsh )
Sea level rise ( lcsh )
Glaciers ( lcsh )
Antarctica ( lcsh )

Notes

Abstract:
The future security and prosperity of European coastal cities and the survival of many unique European coastal habitats are threatened by rising sea-levels and increased risk of coastal flooding. Reliable projections of future sea-level change provide a basis for planning associated adaptation and risk-management strategies. Ice2sea has reduced uncertainty in the contribution of ice sheets and glaciers to sea-level projections by: making key measurements of current changes; improving understanding of their causes; and by developing new methods for projection. Ice2sea has established a substantial European capability in sea-level projection, has identified where the remaining uncertainties exist, and which key processes are still not fully understood. Ice2sea is a scientific programme that was developed in response to the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4, 2007) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which identified a major uncertainty in the understanding of the contributions of glaciers and ice sheets to future sea-level change. Funded by the European Union, ice2sea has focussed the efforts of researchers in 24 institutes from across Europe and around the world - in a coordinated programme of fieldwork, satellite observations, and computer simulations. The cooperation achieved by ice2sea between key institutes and scientific disciplines has advanced the understanding of present and future sea-level change to a degree that would not otherwise have been possible. Ice2sea has made fundamental progress in measuring ongoing changes in ice sheets and glaciers, and in understanding the processes responsible for rapid ice-loss, and both global and regional sea-level rise. Combining expertise across a wide range of scientific disciplines has enabled ice2sea to develop projections of continental ice-loss using computer models that are based exclusively on representations of the physics at work in glaciers and ice sheets. Several important processes, that were previously not included due to insufficient understanding, have been incorporated in these models. These advances achieved by ice2sea directly address issues that were of concern to the IPCC AR4. Ice2sea projections have been presented to the IPCC, to contribute to the development of best estimates of future sea-level rise that will be published by Working Group I in the Fifth Assessment Report in autumn 2013 (AR5, 2013). The ice2sea projections based on simulations of physical processes suggest lower overall contributions from melting ice to sea-level rise than many studies published since AR4. They suggest a contribution of 3.5 - 36.8cm to global mean sea-level rise to the year 2100 for a “business as usual” mid-range emissions scenario (A1B). To obtain a projection of total global sea-level rise, other contributions, not explicitly addressed by ice2sea, must be added (e.g. thermal expansion of the oceans, and changes in terrestrial water storage). For the period after 2100, sea levels will continue to rise, initially at an accelerating rate, for many centuries. These numbers represent the state-of-the-art in projections based on a clearer understanding of the physics, but inevitable uncertainties remain both in how the climate is expected to change over the century, and in the ice sheets’ response. To explore these remaining uncertainties, ice2sea has used a less-formal approach of an “expert elicitation.” This method concluded that there is a less than 1-in-20 risk of the contribution of ice sheets to global sea-level rise exceeding 84cm by 2100. ( English )

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Source Institution:
Florida International University
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