But with 230 feet
of potential sea level rise on the table, it doesn't take a whole lot more melting for a coastal city to be okay in one set of assumptions, and under water in another.
And researchers are now beginning to identify significant
potential sea level rise contributions from Antarctica alone (ranging from two feet to nearly two meters) before the end of this Century.
The speedy glaciers on the island's warmer west coast, shedding kilometers of ice into the sea each year as warm ocean waters undermine them, have raised the most alarm
about potential sea level rise.
Understanding Antarctic climate change is important not only because of
the potential sea level rise locked up in the vast Antarctic ice sheet, but also the shift in the westerly winds has moved rainfall away from southern Australia.
Yet those are amongst the regions most vulnerable to
potential sea level rise, which in their case would cause a direct reduction of habitat.
As Roland told me in email: «the fact that the region behind the floating part of the Totten has a large region with bedrock below sea - level is important for
the potential sea level rise.
If the planet warms, the ice shelves holding all this ice in place could break off, leading to massive discharge of ice in the ocean and
potential sea level rise of tens of meters», said Lenaerts.
Ritz, C. et al. (2015)
Potential sea level rise from Antarctic ice sheet instability constrained by observations, Nature, doi: 10.1038 / nature16147
42 Eric, data on the volume of ice and
potential sea level rise (pslr) associated with the various components are given in a table on this page:
A new study revealed that previous climate models may have underestimated
the potential sea level rise over the next 100 years.
Potential sea level rise would have a severe impact with almost 40 percent of Asia s population of nearly 4 billion living within forty - five miles of coastlines.
Ritz, C. et al. (2015)
Potential sea level rise from Antarctic ice sheet instability constrained by observations, Nature, doi: 10.1038 / nature16147
Ritz, C. et al. (2015)
Potential sea level rise from Antarctic ice sheet instability constrained by observations, Nature,
Most of that ice is — for now — stable, but scientists are concerned that the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which holds about 11 feet of
potential sea level rise, has reached a tipping point and will collapse.
In fact, the two researchers say previous climate models underestimated
the potential sea level rise over the next 100 years, as well as the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Compared with
the potential sea level rise from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the volume of land - based glaciers is relatively small, Huss said.
If these ice caps were to melt entirely
the potential sea level rise could be around 200 feet.