An expert judgement assessment of future sea level rise from the ice sheets
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Material Information

Title:
An expert judgement assessment of future sea level rise from the ice sheets
Series Title:
Nature Climate Change Volume 3
Creator:
Bamber, J.L.
Aspinall, W.P.
Publisher:
Macmillan Publishers Limited
Publication Date:
Language:
English

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Climate change ( lcsh )
Sea level rise ( lcsh )
Ice sheets ( lcsh )
Greenland ( lcsh )

Notes

Abstract:
A major gap in predictive capability concerning the future evolution of the ice sheets was identified in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a consequence, it has been suggested that the AR4 estimates of future sea-level rise from this source may have been underestimated. Various approaches for addressing this problem have been tried, including semi-empirical models and conceptual studies. Here, we report a formalized pooling of expert views on uncertainties in future ice-sheet contributions using a structured elicitation approach.We find that the median estimate of such contributions is 29 cm—substantially larger than in the AR4—while the upper 95th percentile value is 84 cm, implying a conceivable risk of a sea-level rise of greater than a metre by 2100. On the critical question of whether recent ice-sheet behaviour is due to variability in the ice sheet–climate system or reflects a long-term trend, expert opinion is shown to be both very uncertain and undecided. ( English )

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Source Institution:
Florida International University
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Sea Level Rise