Sea levels may rise by as much as one meter before the end of this century

150 million people will be affected

Sea levels can be expected to rise by between 0.5 and 1.5 metres before the next century, according to the report Melting Snow and Ice: A Call for Action, published by the Norwegian Polar Institute, which attracted a lot of attention at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December last year.

"Melting glaciers and the melting ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic will account for 75% of the rise in sea levels, while expansion of the water as it warms will account for 25 %," said Director Jan-Gunnar Winther of the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Such a rise in sea levels will have a tremendous impact on coastal communities around the world. There are 150 million people who live within one metre of the current coastline, and who will be severely affected, said Professor Tim Naish of the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Professor Naish is doing research on ice cores from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet -- an area of particular interest with respect to rising sea levels.

New estimates of ice loss

The loss of mass from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the area around the Amundsen Sea is much higher than previously suspected, according to Postdoctoral Researcher Mike Willis from Cornell University. Using state-of-the-art satellite technology and modern GPS technology, he has produced new and accurate measurements of the ice masses in Antarctica.

"As glaciers grow and shrink, the earth moves up and down. By monitoring the earth's movement with GPS technology, we can take the earth out of the equation and come up with more accurate measures of the ice masses," he said.

Sue Nelson's popular science session on the first day of the conference also included an interview with scientist Tom Jordan, whose group presented the first images ever of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains earlier in the afternoon. Dr Steve Rintoul from the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre talked about his research, which involves attaching motion sensors to elephant seals that spend the winter feeding beneath the sea ice in order to record data on the water quality of the Southern Ocean.