EU researchers make crucial input to climate change forecasts
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Environment & climate action Innovation Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Italy Netherlands Poland United Kingdom Iceland Switzerland Environment Norway Chiledate: 21/08/2015
Project: Ice2sea - estimating the future contribu...
acronym: ICE2SEA
See also: CORDIS
The rate of sea level rise is an important indicator of the effects of climate change and the potential impact on coastal communities. ICE2SEA’s research, which concluded in November 2013, was reflected in the IPCC’s fifth report.
The report captures the current state of scientific knowledge on climate change. It will serve as the main input into international negotiations at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, France starting 30 November 2015.
ICE2SEA’s research fills a crucial gap in scientific knowledge by allowing a more accurate calculation of the rate of ice loss from the ice-sheets of Antarctica and Greenland and glaciers around the world caused by global warming.
Project coordinator David Vaughan of the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) says ICE2SEA’s research methodology and models of ice sheets are currently being used and refined by other researchers in the field.
For example, ICE2SEA’s research supported the creation of the Randolph Glacier Inventory, the first complete global inventory of glaciers. A current NERC project on the Filchner ice shelf in Antarctica is following up on research from ICE2SEA, says Vaughan.
“Scientific papers are still being published applying ICE2SEA’s models to wider geographical areas,” he says. “The project’s legacy continues in many areas of research.”