Glaciers dominate eustatic sea-level rise in the 21st century.
Ice loss to the sea currently accounts for virtually all of the sea-level rise that is not attributable to ocean warming, and about 60% of the ice loss is from glaciers and ice caps rather than from the two ice sheets. The contribution of these smaller glaciers has accelerated over the past decade, in part due to marked thinning and retreat of marine-terminating glaciers associated with a dynamic instability that is generally not considered in mass-balance and climate modeling. This acceleration of glacier melt may cause 0.1 to 0.25 meter of additional sea-level rise by 2100.
Meier
Mark F
MF
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, UCB 450, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0450, USA. mark.meier@colorado.edu
Dyurgerov
Mark B
MB
Rick
Ursula K
UK
O'neel
Shad
S
Pfeffer
W Tad
WT
Anderson
Robert S
RS
Anderson
Suzanne P
SP
Glazovsky
Andrey F
AF