Climate change may not be in the headlines like it once was, as a rumored AI apocalypse dominates the news cycle, but new research shows the threat continues to grow as melting ice drives rising seas and threatens coastal communities.
Scientific Data released a new report Wednesday saying more than 12 trillion tons of ice have melted from Greenland and Antarctica in the last 47 years.
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This ice loss has contributed about an inch to global sea-level rise, increasing flood risk for millions worldwide.
According to the study, for every third of an inch of sea-level rise, 2-3 million people are flooded at least once a year. Millions are already at risk due to the one-inch rise over the last 47 years, and scientists say glacial melt is accelerating.
“There is a clear trend that the ice sheets are losing more mass and it has been increasing from decade to decade, especially if you look at the ice being discharged to the ocean,” lead study author Ines Otosaka said. “And that’s quite clear that there’s a link to climate change.”
According to the report, ice sheets were relatively stable in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. However, in the 2010s, melting really started to pick up.
“That’s something to be concerned about as it shows that the changes are tracking decades behind global warming, which means we can expect them to continue for decades more — even if we are able to stop heating the planet,” said study co-author Andrew Shepherd.
Climate change debates
The report comes amid differing opinions on how quickly sea levels will rise in the coming decades. Scientists model different possible trajectories based on factors including future greenhouse gas emissions, warming and changes in the world’s ice sheets. Those scenarios produce different estimates for how much sea levels could rise.
In 2022, the U.S. government released its own sea-level projections, outlining five scenarios based largely on different assumptions about future greenhouse gas emissions and warming.
One of the biggest uncertainties involves the massive ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica. Rapid ice loss could produce significantly higher sea levels than projected under more moderate scenarios. Scientists understand the processes that could drive that rapid loss, but confidence remains limited about whether, when and how quickly some of those processes could occur.
At the end of the day, however, the different projections aren’t about whether sea levels are rising, but how quickly they will rise, how high they could ultimately get, and how those changes will affect individual coastal communities. Researchers’ ability to accurately measure what’s happening to the land is also key to these estimates.
Coastal areas at risk
One study in Nature looked at the areas most at risk and found that by 2050, 176,000 to 518,000 people could be exposed to severe flooding as the sea rises and land sinks.
It also broke down risk for 32 cities across the U.S., and while all the cities are at risk, a few stand out.
On the Atlantic coast, Miami has the largest projected share of exposure in the study. New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast are also hot spots, the study found, including cities like Naples, Florida; Mobile, Alabama; Galveston, Texas; and more.
Why is there less talk of climate change?
Years ago, these recent reports would’ve been national news and major talking points across social media, news outlets and public spaces. But the attention climate change receives has shifted drastically.
The answer is simple: news is volatile, and climate change has to compete with a lot to make headlines.
With artificial intelligence, inflation, political fights, sports and entertainment to compete with, there’s often simply not enough space and time to cover recurring national stories like our changing climate.
But there’s still coverage there — it’s simply framed differently, with regular stories about heat records, wildfires, agriculture, energy prices and hurricanes. Recent events include catastrophic flooding in Nepal, record-low water levels in Colorado, and wildfires across the country.
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