Loss of ice from the West Antarctic ice sheet is likely to contribute some tens of centimeters to global sea level rise over the next century, according to a new report by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). “We can see the West Antarctic glaciers are shrinking at a rate fast enough to contribute to a sea level rise of 1.4 meters by 2100, but it will be no more than that,” SCAR executive director Colin Summerhayes told reporters at a media briefing in London, according to Reuters.

This is scary. I just finished reading the Red/Green/Blue Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson. One of the main events in that book is melting of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, collapse into the ocean and a corresponding 8m rise in sea level. Hoping fiction turns out stranger than truth.