Sea level rise is perhaps the most tangible and ubiquitous consequence of global warming, with major cities all over the world being threatened by its encroachment. A new model, co-designed by Penn State’s Dr. David Pollard and informed by Dr. Richard Alley, suggests that the IPCC’s most recent end-of-century sea level-rise projections may underestimate what is possible under the loss of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by several feet. [1] Dr. Alley suggested the mechanism for faster disintegration which entails the loss of the buffering sea ice that borders the ice sheet due to warming waters around the continent. This could then destabilize the ice sheet to such a degree that it’s loss could become rapid, and the ice sheet holds enough water to raise sea level by 12 feet. When this method was incorporated into the model, Dr. Pollard and his colleagues were for the first time replicate a rise in sea level of 20-30 feet which is known to have occurred in a warming event 125,000 years ago. The test of a good climate model is its ability to recreate climate history, so this success lead further credibility to the model as it was used to predict the effects of human-induced warming on the ice sheets and sea level rise. Under the new model conditions, researches found it would be possible to achieve 5-6 feet of total sea level rise by the end of the century, which could be catastrophic to major low-lying cities and countries. This result is in no way definitive, but it does have the effect of making our future outlook even more bleak if we do not take serious steps to abate our carbon emissions and global warming at large.

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