Glaciers and Ice Sheets in a Warming World
Channel: The Royal Society of Victoria
Date: 2023-06-22

Glaciers have experienced near-universal retreat during the last century. Mass loss from the massive ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland is accelerating, and glaciers and ice sheets are now the largest contributor to sea level rise. Retreating glaciers also threaten water supplies and are linked to mountain hazards.

While ice seems distant to us in Australia, a 2014 report by the Climate Council indicated that $226 billion dollars of our infrastructure is located within 1.1 m of sea level and is at risk of inundation by the end of this century under high-emission climate change scenarios, with ice melt being a major source of risk. Globally, sea level rise poses an existential risk to low-lying islands, major deltas, and coastal megacities. The science of glaciology is far from settled – our ability to measure and simulate how ice is changing has improved dramatically – but future predictions of glacier and ice sheet contributions to sea level change remain challenging.

Professor Andrew Mackintosh is a Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative ‘Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future,’ and the Head of Monash University's School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment. Here he describes his research group’s work to reconstruct past glacier and ice sheet changes and improve predictions, illustrated with field work photos and video from the Southern Alps of New Zealand and Antarctica.

This is livestream footage of the 2023 Howitt Lecture, an annual joint presentation between the Geological Society of Australia (Victoria Division) and the Royal Society of Victoria, commemorating the contributions made to regional natural history and geology by Alfred William Howitt. Recorded at the Royal Society of Victoria with the support of the Inspiring Victoria program. The high definition, edited footage is available at https://youtu.be/jFDabrhKH9I .