Trakar
VIP Member
- Feb 28, 2011
- 1,699
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An expert judgement assessment of future sea level rise from the ice sheets
J. L. Bamber1
W. P. Aspinall2
Abstract
A major gap in predictive capability concerning the future evolution of the ice sheets was identified in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a consequence, it has been suggested that the AR4 estimates of future sea-level rise from this source may have been underestimated. Various approaches for addressing this problem have been tried, including semi-empirical models and conceptual studies. Here, we report a formalized pooling of expert views on uncertainties in future ice-sheet contributions using a structured elicitation approach. We find that the median estimate of such contributions is 29 cmsubstantially larger than in the AR4while the upper 95th percentile value is 84 cm, implying a conceivable risk of a sea-level rise of greater than a metre by 2100. On the critical question of whether recent ice-sheet behaviour is due to variability in the ice sheetclimate system or reflects a long-term trend, expert opinion is shown to be both very uncertain and undecided.
(the paper has just been released, if anyone is interested I will see if I can find an open-source link for it, or at least provide a few more details in excerpt form from the pay-walled journal paper.)
J. L. Bamber1
W. P. Aspinall2
Abstract
A major gap in predictive capability concerning the future evolution of the ice sheets was identified in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a consequence, it has been suggested that the AR4 estimates of future sea-level rise from this source may have been underestimated. Various approaches for addressing this problem have been tried, including semi-empirical models and conceptual studies. Here, we report a formalized pooling of expert views on uncertainties in future ice-sheet contributions using a structured elicitation approach. We find that the median estimate of such contributions is 29 cmsubstantially larger than in the AR4while the upper 95th percentile value is 84 cm, implying a conceivable risk of a sea-level rise of greater than a metre by 2100. On the critical question of whether recent ice-sheet behaviour is due to variability in the ice sheetclimate system or reflects a long-term trend, expert opinion is shown to be both very uncertain and undecided.
(the paper has just been released, if anyone is interested I will see if I can find an open-source link for it, or at least provide a few more details in excerpt form from the pay-walled journal paper.)