GEOS 1004 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: West Antarctica, Global Change, Eugenius Warming
8 Mar 2018
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Lecture 23: earth"s climate iv: modern climate change. Possible implications of global warming: sea level rise. Poles are more affected by warming; may rise up to +10 c , whereas tropics may rise by only 1 c, and global average rises only 3 . If all ice melted, sea level rises by 65 m (213 ft) above today. 10% of global population is within 10 m of sea level today. 1 m rise in sea-level would devastate nations (e. g. bangladesh) and many major cities (e. g. new orleans, manhattan). Sea level has risen 20cm in last 100 years. Ipcc predicts 45-95 cm by 2100 based on just ice melting and ocean heating. This does not take into account change in glacier stability (i. e. meltwater channels, marine undercutting, ice sheet collapse). During the last interglacial period, temperatures were only 1c higher, but sea level was 4-6 m higher.
