Sea level rise is one of many destructive impacts of climate change, and the melting of the world’s two ice sheets – Greenland and Antarctica – is one of the largest contributors to rising oceans. The ISMIP6 project brings together an international group of glaciologists, atmospheric scientists and oceanographers to provide our best estimates to date of how much and how fast our ice sheets will shrink. These estimates will feed directly into leading climate reports to shape future policy decisions.

Fiamma Straneo leads the Ocean Forcing group of ISMIP6, whose task is to forecast how the oceans around Greenland and Antarctica will change over the coming century, and how these changes interact with the edges of the ice sheets. As part of this effort, Donald Slater has led the development of projections of glacier retreat in Greenland. Since changes in the ocean are known to strongly influence the ice sheets, our work on this project is critical to obtaining the best estimates of future sea level.