Predicting sea-level rise from melting ice European and international partners are generating detailed projections of how the melting of continental ice and glaciers will contribute to sea-level rise over the next 200 years. Climate Change and Environment © Thinkstock The EU-funded 'Estimating the future contribution of continental ice to sea-level rise' (ICE2SEA) project will perform targeted studies of key related processes in mountain glacier systems, ice caps and ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. ICE2SEA has developed key datasets that provide a firmer basis for the numerical modelling of glacial systems. This includes an understanding of recent changes in temperature and precipitation over Greenland and cross-validated maps of ice loss and gain for the Antarctic and Greenland. Project members have also completed end-to-end projections of the likely consequence of greenhouse gas emissions on the contribution of ice sheets and glaciers to sea-level rise. Based on these projections, it has become apparent that changes in the surface accumulation and melting of snow in Greenland will be key. Similarly, changes in snowfall will have direct impacts on the mass of the ice sheet in Antarctica. At the end of the project, important and unique datasets will be archived and made fully available to the wider community of researchers. These resources will provide a legacy to assist researchers around the world in developing, implementing and testing future ice-sheet and glacial models.
