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PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM YUNGEL, NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY
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The world’s seas already are rising faster every year. Against that backdrop, any news of massive ice melts from Antarctica worries scientists--like the unexpected collapse of a New York City-size ice shelf in Antarctica earlier this month.
The collapse, the first in East Antarctica, won't itself drive appreciable sea level rise, but it highlights the risks posed by other ice shelf collapses, which could speed polar melting. Any extra meltwater may eventually affect the 110 million people living where coastal flooding already occurs regularly during high tides. Earlier this year, NOAA predicted seas would rise a foot by 2050 on U.S. coasts—and two feet by the end of the century.
Warmer West Antarctica poses a more immediate threat. An ice shelf (pictured above) that is already two-thirds collapsed protects the enormous Thwaites Glacier, which itself holds enough ice to raise global sea levels at least two feet. “It’s not a question of if seas will rise two feet, it’s when,” sociologist A.R. Siders tells Nat Geo. “We just have to make the decision [to adapt], even with some uncertainty.”
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