Beneath the great, white expanse of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, a mysterious realm of streams and lakes lies out of sight. Much about this hidden water world remains poorly understood. But a new study suggests that if scientists continue to overlook it, they might greatly underestimate global sea level rise.
Factoring this subglacial water into computer simulations could boost projections of sea level rise over the next two centuries by about two meters, researchers report April 7 in Nature Communications. For context, scientists estimate that climate warming has raised sea levels by about 0.2 meters over the last century.
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