While the ClimateCorps is primarily intended to be a website of solutions to the current climate crisis that is upon us, we also include pages of ‘background’ which we hope will maintain the reader’s interest and promote committment to making the changes that need to be made.

Here is a small photo composite showing satellite imagery stacked up to reveal the shrinking of a small sample of the Antarctic coastal ice pack.

The Antarctic Peninsula 1986-2002, (c) University of Innsbruck.

Source: European Space Agency

While foreboding, the shrinking of coastal ice and glaciers do not directly raise the global sea level.  However, once the ocean-based ice is removed, scientists have found that the land-based ice which lies behind it proceeds on its march to the ocean up to 5 times as fast as before the sea ice vanishes.  This land-based ice contributes to the small but accelerating ocean rises measured over the last century. 

It is conservatively estimated that oceans will rise by a meter (39 inches) or so by the end of the 21st century.  This conclusion of the United Nations IPCC report does not factor in the melting of either the land-based Greenland ice sheet nor the vast land-based ice sheets of Antarctica.  Such melting is, however, currently occurring and really presents the potentially devastating possibility of ocean rises of several meters within the next few generations.

We must act now to avoid the worst of the potential consequences that lie ahead.