Predicting sea level rise caused by the accelerating Greenland ice sheet melt

Rising sea levels from melting glaciers and ice sheets pose an increasing threat to coastal communities worldwide. A new analysis of high-resolution satellite observations takes a major step forward in assessing this risk by confirming theoretical predictions and computational models of sea-level changes used to forecast climate-change-driven impacts.

“Using sea-surface-height observations from satellites, in the way we have, independently verifies observations of Arctic and Greenland ice-mass loss and allows us to tease apart contributions to global sea-level rise from individual ice sheets and glacier systems," said Sophie Coulson, a postdoctoral researcher in fluid dynamics and geophysics at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Coulson is lead author of a paper in the journal Science on detecting the “fingerprint” of sea-level change attributable to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. “Accurately predicting regional patterns of sea-level change is absolutely central to understanding the impacts of future climate change and forecasting hazards.