Thin Ice

NEW!! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO OUR ICE SHEETS?

“Thin Ice – the inside story of climate change” is based on interviews with climate scientists between 2007 and 2010, and captures the knowledge and understanding of the times as reported at conferences and inresearch papers of this period. Since then research has added robustness to the findings, and the UN Paris Agreement of December 2015 has reflected a global commitment to one of the key messages of the film – the need to reduce carbon emissions to zero before 2100.

Prof Robert DeConto, U Massachusetts September 2014

Rob talks about insights from numerical modelling of the Antarctic ice sheets for future sea level rise as a consequence of global warming, including the need to incorporate recently recognised ice collapse processes. These were incorporated into a new model published in 2016 with colleague David Pollard, projecting an overall 2 metre of sea level rise by 2100 for high CO2 emissions but much less than 1 metre for low emissions.

VIDEO: SHOWING HOW ICE SHEETS MELT (10 mins)

Prof Eric Rignot, UC Irvine, and JPL NASA February 2017

Eric leads a US research group that uses satellite data to monitor the world's ice sheets. He explains how measurements since the early 1990s show that Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice at an accelerating rate, which, if unchecked, will result in about 1 metre of sea level rise by the end of the century, and 6 - 9 metres in the next few hundred years.

VIDEO: WATCHING OUR ICE SHEETS DISAPPEAR (12 mins)