Sea levels ‘could rise by up to six feet, displacing hundreds of millions of people’
Melting ice sheets could lead to a ‘catastrophic’ sea level rise of more than six feet – leading to the displacement of up to 187 million people.
Millions of square miles of land would also disappear, including areas critical for producing the food we eat, the scientists warned.
The researchers behind the new study examined the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic, something which has been difficult to predict using traditional methods of analysis.
The team of international scientists used a technique called structured expert judgment to ask 22 ice sheet experts to estimate plausible ranges for future sea level rises.
They asked them to consider the projected melting of each of the Greenland, West Antarctic and East Antarctic ice sheets under low and high future global temperature rise scenarios.
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Lead author professor Jonathan Bamber, from the University of Bristol, said: ‘Structured expert judgment provides a formal approach for estimating uncertain quantities based on current scientific understanding, and can be useful for estimating quantities that are difficult to model.
‘Projections of total global subsequent sea level rise using this method yielded a small but meaningful probability of subsequent sea level rise exceeding two metres by the year 2100 under the high temperature scenario, roughly equivalent to ‘business as usual’, well above the ‘likely’ upper limit presented in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
‘Such a rise in global sea level could result in land loss of 1.79 million km2, including critical regions of food production, and potential displacement of up to 187 million people.
‘A subsequent sea level rise of this magnitude would clearly have profound consequences for humanity.’
