Working to Decrease Uncertainty of Future Sea-level Rise from Antarctica

Eos, January 10

Pinning down the amount, rates and timing of future sea-level rise from Antarctica requires more targeted and integrated efforts to identify and understand the key processes affecting ice sheet melt. Many of these involve dynamic instabilities, as well as potentially irreversible behavior by the ice sheet. Such inter-disciplinary studies will not only help improve efforts at adaptation, including potential needs for managed retreat; but also identify a threshold level of atmospheric carbon dioxide that once crossed, may cause unstoppable, multigenerational ice loss and sea-level rise from Antarctica. This article provides an overview of knowledge to-date, and a description of the Instabilities and Thresholds in Antarctica (INSTANT) program launched last year by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR).

https://eos.org/features/the-uncertain-future-of-antarcticas-melting-ice