NASA synopsis:

Sea level rise is an indicator that our planet is warming. Much of the worlds population lives on
or near the coast, and rising seas are something worth watching. Sea level can rise for two
reasons, both linked to a warming planet. When ice on land, such as mountain glaciers or the ice
sheets of Greenland or Antarctica, melt, that water contributes to sea level rise. And when our
oceans get warmer another indicator of climate change the water expands, also making sea
level higher. Using satellites, lasers, and radar in space, and dedicated researchers on the ground,
NASA is studying the Earths ice and water to better understand how sea level rise might affect
us all.

Transcript

Narrator (00:20)

The ice is melting. The seas are rising. Little by little in most parts of the world, the ocean is over
taking the land. Most of us dont think much about sea-level rise, but its one of the biggest signs
that humans are affecting the earths climate, and its something worth watching. So the big
question is, are we facing a doom-and-gloom scenario?

Josh Willis (00:46)

I prefer not to think about climate change and global warming in terms of doom-and-gloom
scenarios so much as a change in our planet. Our planets definitely changing, and were
definitely causing it, so were going to have to learn to deal with some of these changes, but in
addition, were going to have to learn how to make a slightly smaller footprint on our planet.

Josh Willis (01:12)

The sea level is rising effectively because of global warming. As the planet heats up, then two
things happen to the ocean. One is that the temperature of the water increases, and as that
happens, the water actually expands and takes up more room. The other thing that happens is that
ice that was on land in the form of glaciers and ice sheets begins to melt, and as that runs off into
the ocean, it increases the water in the ocean, and it actually raises sea level as well.

Narrator (01:43)

Its important to understand how the worlds ice sheets form, how they change over time, and
how fast they are moving into the sea. Thats where researchers like NASAs Lora Koenig come
in. She recently spent three months in Greenland studying the composition of those ice sheets.
All ice sheets and glaciers start as snowfall. Those tiny flakes get compressed by the weight of
more snow above, and eventually become dense masses of ice.

Lara Koenig (02:11)

What were seeing right now with the ice sheets and the glaciers is that they are shrinking in size.
And as glaciers on land are shrinking over all, that contributes a little bit to sea-level rise. And
we are worried as we see warming over the ice sheets and increased melting over the ice sheets,
that they are going to start contributing much more to sea-level rise.

Narrator (02:38)

Two-thirds of the fresh water on earth is frozen in the worlds ice fields. If that ice melts, the seas
will rise. If all of that ice were to melt, sea level would rise world wide by 70 meters. No one
expects all of that ice to melt anytime soon, but even the meter of sea level rise that many
scientists predict in the next century could have dramatic consequences.

Lara Koenig (03:05)

Even though the polar regions seems very far from a lot of peoples day-to-day life, they are very
important because they are the regions that cool our earth. And as they change, theyre going to
cause larger changes throughout the rest of the globe.

Josh Willis (03:21)

A lot of people live in coastal areas, coastal places that have beaches. As sea level rises, then
beaches begin to erode and we begin to lose wetlands. A lot of different ecologically sensitive
regions lie along the coastline. And as sea level rises, these get flooded, the ecosystems are
forced to change. And so all of this can have big consequences for people and especially
people who live near the coast. As the great ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland begin to melt
and break up due to global warming, we really might experience very rapid sea-level rise, three
or four times as fast as the rate we see today. So predicting this rate out into the future is very
tricky, because we really dont know when the ice sheets might break up, and how fast they will
when they do. So predicting future sea-level rise is one of the great scientific problems of the
future.