As consensus builds around climate change, with new evidence seeming to emerge daily, many questions remain about the degree to which human activity contributes, the rate at which carbon dioxide levels are increasing, the severity of and speed at which the changing climate will impact modern society.

New research into the planet’s most recent warming trend – that was followed by an ice age – indicates sea levels rose by staggering amounts. What is not clear, however, is whether this change occurred over a timescale of thousands or hundreds of years. This information is crucially important because if it’s the former, humans could have time to adapt, arguably mitigating the impacts in a manageable way.

The latter would be much worse and some scientists believe a rapid Antarctic or Greenland ice shelf breakup could precipitate major sea level increases in a dangerously-short time frame.

This is from a recent New York Times article:

“But if sea level is capable of rising several feet per century, as Dr. O’Leary’s paper would seem to imply and as many other scientists believe, then babies being born now could live to see the early stages of a global calamity.”