‘Serious change is almost certainly coming,’ says N.L. climate mathematician

A group of scientists who span the globe, including one originally from St. John’s, are working on a mathematical model to anticipate rising sea levels.

David Holland, a climate mathematician with New York University, is working with a team to come up with a model to forecast glacial melt, which will help predict the rise of sea levels. It’s information that will be incredibly valuable to have access to, he said.

“Think of it as a hurricane coming, except one on a glacier,” he recently told CBC News from Greenland.

Weather forecasts, like knowing when a hurricane is expected to land in Newfoundland, allow people to prepare. Likewise, he said a forecast for glacial melt would help people prepare for incoming changes.

“We don’t have that equivalent, but we could with some research,” said Holland.

He said warming water is “triggering” the retreat of Greenland’s inland ice, which is a massive piece of mountain-like ice that wants to fall into the ocean.

‘Rewriting of the global coastline’

Holland said the Greenland ice sheet is massive and due to climate change, it’s “pouring ice” into the ocean.

“Ultimately producing many majestic and beautiful icebergs, but also sea level rise,” he said.

Holland said melting glaciers is a serious problem that is going to have an impact across the world.

“Some serious change is almost certainly coming and this story is not going away. In fact, it’s getting worse year by year,” he said.

Ice melts around the world can lead to the “rewriting of the global coastline,” Holland said, adding that even the coastline increasing by three metres around the world, including Newfoundland, could be “devastating.”

“We’ve built so much coastal infrastructure. Perhaps a billion people at least live on the coastline of the world and their habitat, as well as marine ecosystems, will be threatened by this change that we may have triggered.”

Their research is based in both Greenland and Antarctica because of the presence of icebergs. In Antarctica they’re measuring warming water temperature and in Greenland they are focused on a process called calving, where ice breaks off and suddenly falls into the ocean.

“That’s a much more difficult physical process to understand and to describe mathematically. The reason we’re really focused on Greenland is that it’s like a laboratory for Antarctica,” said Holland.

During a recent trip to Antarctica, they were joined by many scientists from around the world, including Canada, the United States, South Korea, the U.K., Australia and others, he said.

“It’s only through several nations working together — bringing different skills, hot water drilling, autonomous vehicles, remote sensing, bringing it all together — can we get a handle on this,” said Holland.

WATCH | The CBC’s Carolyn Stokes chats with David Holland about his research:

He said changes they’re seeing in Antarctica are a result of greenhouse gases caused by humans.

However, Holland said it will likely take years before a model can be created, adding autonomous drones is also going to “revolutionize” the data they’re able to collect.

‘Massive uncertainties and breakage points’

MUN climatologist Joel Finnis said if he looked back 30 years ago, he would have been “minorly concerned and interested in sea level rises from glacial melt,” but it wouldn’t have necessarily been a “pressing concern.”

“I think some of what we’re seeing these days, with work like David Holland’s, is a reminder that things can accelerate and move much faster than what we expect,” said Finnis. “And that those half-metre to a metre sea level rise risks are something that cannot be dismissed as a low probability risk these days.”

Finnis said the mathematical model could be a useful communication tool to highlight scientific evidence of the risk of rising sea levels.

However, he said recent stalling on climate change action could mean even good, solid evidence of climate change won’t convince more people of its risk.

Finnis added the climate system is complex, with “massive uncertainties and breakage points” which are difficult to anticipate.

“But when they show up, the impacts can be really pronounced,” Finnis said, like rapid loss of arctic sea ice.

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