Rising sea levels – more data for better modelling

A good way to understand what’s coming is to look at what happened in the past – so what can prehistoric polar ice tell us about future sea level rise?The highly uncertain behaviour of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets will dominate the future of sea level rise: land ice loss and ocean thermal expansion contribute equally. Our three guests, all of whom have received support from EU research and innovation funding, have been working on improving our understanding of these interactions.Eric Wolff is an honorary fellow at the British Antarctic Survey, who studies past climate and environment, mainly from Antarctic and Greenland ice cores. He is a Royal Society research professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge.Alessio Rovere, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics at Ca’Foscari University of Venice, is interested in palaeo climate and sea level changes.A director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Gaël Durand specialises in the modelling of polar ice sheets and the dynamics of coastal glaciers, with a focus on their impact on sea level rise.