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One of the major concerns related to climate change is sea level rise. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated that we are likely going to see sea level rise of around three feet by 2100. However, these estimates have come under heavy criticism in recent years as being far too conservative. Why are the IPCC estimates so conservative (i.e. what information does the IPCC not include in its models or estimates of sea level rise)? According to the VICE documentary piece that profiles Dr. Eric Rignot, how much would global sea levels rise if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt? (5%) How is Eric Rignot and his research team able to use radar and lasers to determine the thickness and melt rates of West Antarctic ice shelves?
Answer all the questions please. Thank you
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. Checking 20 years worth of projections shows that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has consistently underestimated the pace and impacts of global warming.
Climate Science Predictions Prove Too Conservative.
Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world's most authoritative voice on climate science has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger those impacts represent, say a growing number of studies on the topic. A comparison of past IPCC predictions against 22 years of weather data and the latest climate science find that the IPCC has consistently underplayed the intensity of global warming in each of its four major reports released since 1990. The drastic decline of summer Arctic sea ice is one recent example: In the 2007 report, the IPCC concluded the Arctic would not lose its summer ice before 2070 at the earliest. But the ice pack has shrunk far faster than any scenario scientists felt policymakers should consider; now researchers say the region could see ice-free summers within 20 years.
Sea-level rise is another. In its 2001 report, the IPCC predicted an annual sea-level rise of less than 2 millimeters per year. But from 1993 through 2006, the oceans actually rose 3.3 millimeters per year, more than 50 percent above that projection.
Eric Rignot and his research team worked on a remote sensing technique known as synthetic-aperture radar, in which a radar antenna is mounted on a moving platform, such as a satellite. The continuous motion of the radar antenna increases the effective size of the antenna, thereby increasing the resolution of the image relative to a stationary antenna. A major advantage of radar for remote sensing is the ability to see through clouds.Rignot and his colleagues combined historical satellite data with climate model outputs to reconstruct the Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance over the past four decades. They found that the rate of mass loss during 2009–2017 was six times greater than in the 1980s. In addition to the well-studied contribution of West Antarctica to sea-level rise, Rignot also found a significant contribution from East Antarctica, which has received comparatively little attention.