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Improvements in ice-sheet sea-level projections

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Ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland are the largest uncertainty in sea-level projections. Nevertheless, improvements in ice-sheet models over recent decades have led to closer agreement with satellite observations, keeping track with their increasing contribution to global sea-level rise.

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Figure 1: Average global sea-level contributions from Antarctica and Greenland according to IPCC predictions and satellite observations.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (cpom300001), the European Space Agency, and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We thank T. Slater for collating IPCC sea-level projections. This work was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council's Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (cpom300001) and iSTAR Programme (NE/J005681/1), the European Space Agency, and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration Cryospheric Science Program,. We thank T. Slater for collating IPCC sea-level projections.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Andrew Shepherd

  2. the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, 20771, Maryland, USA

    Sophie Nowicki

Authors
  1. Andrew Shepherd
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  2. Sophie Nowicki
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Correspondence to Andrew Shepherd.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table S1

Sea level contributions due to changes in the mass of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets based on the five IPCC assessment report (AR1 to AR5) predictions and on reported satellite observations (XLSX 14 kb)

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Shepherd, A., Nowicki, S. Improvements in ice-sheet sea-level projections. Nature Clim Change 7, 672–674 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3400

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