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Science 24 March 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5768, pp. 1747 - 1750
DOI: 10.1126/science.1115159
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Reports

Paleoclimatic Evidence for Future Ice-Sheet Instability and Rapid Sea-Level Rise

Jonathan T. Overpeck,1* Bette L. Otto-Bliesner,2 Gifford H. Miller,3 Daniel R. Muhs,4 Richard B. Alley,5 Jeffrey T. Kiehl2

Sea-level rise from melting of polar ice sheets is one of the largest potential threats of future climate change. Polar warming by the year 2100 may reach levels similar to those of 130,000 to 127,000 years ago that were associated with sea levels several meters above modern levels; both the Greenland Ice Sheet and portions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet may be vulnerable. The record of past ice-sheet melting indicates that the rate of future melting and related sea-level rise could be faster than widely thought.

1 Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, Department of Geosciences, and Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
2 National Center for Atmospheric Research, Post Office Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307, USA.
3 Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Campus Box 450, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
4 U.S. Geological Survey, Mail Stop 980, Box 25046, Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225, USA.
5 Department of Geosciences and Penn State Ice and Climate Exploration Center, Pennsylvania State University, 0517 Deike Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jto{at}u.arizona.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)