Threatening the economy, the ecology and the existence of coastal regions worldwide, global mean sea level has risen by around 8 cm since 1992. Land ice loss and ocean thermal expansion contribute equally: the future of sea level rise is set to become dominated by the highly uncertain behaviour of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. The potential for the rapid collapse of these ice sheets, which may already be under way, is making us aware of humanity’s vulnerability to ice sheet change. So, knowing how they are reacting to global warming is central to getting a clearer idea of what lies ahead. Our three guests, all of whom have received support from EU research and innovation funding, have been working on improving our understanding of these interactions. Here to share their work with us today are: Eric Wolff(opens in new window), an honorary fellow at the British Antarctic Survey(opens in new window), who studies past climate and environment, mainly from Antarctic and Greenland ice cores. He is a Royal Society research professor in the Department of Earth Sciences(opens in new window) at the University of Cambridge and coordinated the WACSWAIN project. Alessio Rovere(opens in new window), a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics(opens in new window) at Ca’Foscari University of Venice, is interested in palaeo climate and sea level changes and how geological processes have changed coastlines over deep time, a subject he explored through the WARMCOASTS project. A director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research(opens in new window) (CNRS), Gaël Durand(opens in new window) specialises in the modelling of polar ice sheets and the dynamics of coastal glaciers, with a focus on their impact on sea level rise. Through the PROTECT project, he improved our understanding of the stability of ice sheets, and their potential responses to climate change.
source : european commission
