Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica have raised the global sea level by 1.8cm since the 1990s – and are matching worst-case climate-warming scenarios predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
According to a study led by research fellow Dr Tom Slater in collaboration with colleagues in Denmark, if these rates continue, the melting ice sheets are expected to raise sea levels by a further 17cm by the end of the century, exposing millions more people to annual coastal flooding.
“Although we anticipated the ice sheets would lose increasing amounts of ice in response to the warming of the oceans and atmosphere, the rate at which they are melting has accelerated faster than we could have imagined,” said Tom.
“The melting is overtaking the climate models we use to guide us, and we are in danger of being unprepared for the risks posed by sea level rise.”