Greenland ice sheet melting could expose 400 million people to flooding, study says

About 400 million people could be at risk for flooding by the end of the century should the Greenland ice shelf continue to melt at its current pace, according to a new study.

The ice shelf, one of Earth's largest, is widely considered to be the largest annual contributor of water into the ocean, and it's expected to continue to be a major contributor to global sea-level rise in the future, according to the study, published in the journal Nature on Tuesday.

The study, commissioned by NASA and the European Space Agency, compared a combination of 26 satellite measurements of changes in the ice sheet's volume, flow and gravitational potential to produce a "reconciled estimate" of its mass balance.

The ice sheet was close to a state of balance in the 1990s, at about 25 billion metric tons per year, but annual loses have risen considerably, peaking at a loss of about 335 metric tons in 2011. The ice sheet has lost a total of about 3.8 trillion metric tons between 1992 and 2018, causing ocean levels to rise by an average of about 10 millimeters, according to the study.

For comparison, 10 millimeters is about .4 inches, meaning 25 millimeters would be roughly an inch.

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