I dropped into a site where the climate scientists hang out and had a quick look at the articles. One struck me and I thought I'd have a look as I follow the movements in the ice in the Antarctic and also follow sea level rise.
Why is future sea level rise still so uncertain?
if you are interested it is a fairly lengthy read about all the uncertainties, the things models need to factor in and a long discourse on the things they have found out about Antarctic ice shelves and the way they disintegrate in the presence of a warmer climate.
The end is fairly poignant though.
Ice sheet science and the consequent sea level rise, like many cutting-edge topics, generally has a widening of uncertainty when the tools and theory start to really kick off. It is only later that this uncertainty is constrained as more observational data is brought to bear. Then, and not before, will projections start to narrow.
Until then, the most productive way to reduce uncertainties might just be to reduce emissions.
Well now who would have thought that one up???
If you choose to read it there is one thing to keep in mind. Current sea level rise is 3.5mm per year. The graphs shown here, with input from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with projections of only really starting to impact at all from 2050, are only a very small part of the picture of feed in's to the sea level rise.
Right now the single largest factor in sea level rise is the warming of and expansion of, the oceans. Second is glacier loss on land, which is finite and diminishing. Third is Greenland and then comes WAIS.
