That accelerating projection "has the potential to double the total sea level rise by 2100 as compared to projections that assume a constant rate -- to more than 60 cm instead of about 30".
Two feet instead of one. I still don't see where six feet is coming from.
I read $SOMEWHERE recently that the the worst case scenario predicted six feet. But that's, IIRC, if we do absolutely nothing, the methane in the Arctic is all released, and Greenland melts. The more likely scenario is somewhere from 1-3 feet.
So unless memory fails me, the article didn't just pull it out of its arse, but a source would've been nice rather than just throw a number out there with no backing whatsoever.
I found it curious that this research only went back 450 years or so, since that takes you back to just before the Little Ice Age, a time of unusually cold temperatures, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. One wonders what they would have found had they kept going further back in time.
BTW, they already know that a lot of the melting in Greenland is from the bottom up (geothermal) rather than from the top down. But of course you don't hear too much about that, do you?
You are right, it's not losing mass through melting.
But it is losing mass when iceberg calving is accounted for.
"Over the year, it snows more than it melts, but calving of icebergs also adds to the total mass budget of the ice sheet. Satellite observations over the last decade show that the ice sheet is not in balance. The calving loss is greater than the gain from surface mass balance, and Greenland is losing mass at about 200 Gt/yr."
Edit: And i thought this article on the scale of a gigaton of water was interesting as well:
Actually that link makes no prediction at all about how much sea levels will rise. It merely looks at the impact if the sea level were to rise by the given amounts.
