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1.5°C target too high for polar ice sheets and sea level rise
Efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C under the Paris Climate Agreement may not go far enough to save the world’s ice sheets.
That’s according to a new study led by Professor Chris Stokes in our Department of Geography.
The research suggests the target should instead be closer to 1°C to avoid significant losses from the polar ice sheets and prevent a further acceleration in sea level rise.
Global sea levels
The team reviewed a wealth of evidence to examine the effect that a 1.5°C rise would have on the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
The mass of ice lost from these ice sheets has quadrupled since the 1990s and they are currently losing around 370 billion tonnes of ice per year. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, current warming levels are around 1.2°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The researchers argue that further warming to 1.5°C would likely generate several metres of sea level rise over the coming centuries as the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt in response to both warming air and ocean temperatures.
This would make it very difficult and far more expensive to adapt to rising sea levels, causing extensive loss and damage to coastal and island populations and leading to widespread displacement of hundreds of millions of people.
Limiting warming to 1.5°C would be a major achievement and this should absolutely be our focus. However, even if this target is met or only temporarily exceeded, people need to be aware that sea level rise is likely to accelerate to rates that are very difficult to adapt to – rates of one centimetre per year are not out of the question within the lifetime of our young people.
Policymakers and governments
Professor Stokes has attended each of the last three COP meetings and suggests that policymakers and governments need to be more aware of the effects a 1.5°C rise in temperatures could have on ice sheets and sea levels.
Currently, around 230 million people live within one metre of sea level and melting ice represents an existential threat to those communities, including several low-lying nations.
Belize long ago moved its capital inland; but its largest city will be inundated at just one metre of sea-level rise.
Findings such as these only sharpen the need to remain within the 1.5°C Paris Agreement limit, or as close as possible, so we can return to lower temperatures and protect our coastal cities.
The researchers add that further work is urgently needed to more precisely determine a “safe” temperature target to avoid rapid sea level rise from melting ice sheets.
Find out more
- Read the full research paper in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.
- The research was led by Professor Chris Stokes.
- Our Department of Geography is ranked 11th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2025. Visit our Geography webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
- The research team also included experts from the universities of Bristol, Wisconsin-Madison and Massachusetts Amherst.
- The study was funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council.
Main picture: Looking across bedrock to the terminus of Vanderford Glacier, Wilkes Land, East Antarctica (photograph: Richard Jones).