What did the Greenland ice sheet used to look like? Using maths to understand climate change

摘要

As average global temperatures increase, one of the biggest impacts of climate change can be seen in the form of rising sea levels. Sea level changes have the potential to cause devastation to some of the world's most densely populated areas, meaning that it is vital to obtain accurate estimates of these increases. Unfortunately making predictions in this area is difficult, and scientists have made estimates for sea level rises which contain a great degree of variation. One of the reasons that prediction is difficult is that the earth has not gone through such a significant warming in the recent past, meaning that scientists don't have the data to explain how the ice sheets will melt and how sea levels might rise.