Glaciers and their contribution to sea level change

Increased melting of glaciers and ice caps, excluding Greenland and Antarctica, will probably represent the second largest contribution to global sea level rise by 2100. The temperature sensitivity of sea level rise depends upon the global distribution of glacier areas, the temperature sensitivity of glacier mass balance in each region, the expected change of climate in each region, and changes in glacier geometry resulting from climate change. None of these are particularly well known at present. Improvements in global climate models should eventually give better information about expected climate changes in regions where glaciers occur but there is also much work for glaciologists. For example, glacier areas, altitudes, shape characteristics and mass balance sensitivity are still not known for many glacierized regions and ways must be found to fill gaps. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.