Extreme Arctic Melt Is Raising Sea Level Rise Threat; New Estimate Nearly Twice IPCC's

Trajectory of dramatic climate change in the Arctic is locked in through 2050, but what happens after that depends largely on our choices today, report says.

Global sea level rise could happen at nearly twice the rate previously projected by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, even under the best scenario, according to a new report.

By the end of this century, as some glaciers disappear completely, the Arctic's contribution to global sea level rise will reach at least 19 to 25 centimeters (7.5 to 10 inches), according to the report by the Arctic Council's Arctic Monitoring Assessment Program (AMAP).

Factoring those numbers into projections about other sources of sea level rise results in a minimum of 52 centimeters (20 inches) of sea level rise by 2100 under a best-case scenario and 74 centimeters (29 inches) under business as usual.  "These estimates are almost double the minimum estimates made by the IPCC in 2013," the authors wrote.

The report, called "Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic 2017," takes a comprehensive look at the changes already underway in the Arctic, as well as what's in store. It was one of a handful of reports examining climate change in the Arctic and its effect on communities there that were released by AMAP in advance of this week's International Conference on Arctic Science and the Arctic Council ministerial in May, when the U.S. will hand off the Council chairmanship to Finland.

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