As Greenland's ice melts, new research predicts even more severe sea-level rise.
The study came to a more dire conclusion than previous assessments, in part because it utilized a different approach to calculate ice loss. Image source According to a new study published on Monday, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet might eventually raise global sea levels by at least 10 inches even if humans immediately quit burning the fossil fuels that are warming the world to dangerous levels. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, focuses on what researchers call "committed" sea-level rise, a metric that accounts for past warming. That approach contrasts with most previous research, which was based on computer modeling and expected significantly lower ice losses from the Greenland ice sheet. The most recent assessment from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, predicts a two to five-inch rise in sea level by 2100. The 10-inch increase anticipated in the current study, which does not provide a timescale, may be much high...