In spite of the fact that global ice melting is happening with shocking speed, future melting is unpredictable enough for it to be left out of key IPCC calculations. The sea level rise figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change only reflect the expansion of warming water.
AdaptNSW, a branch of the NSW Government, says, “include processes associated with the melting of ice sheets (and) NSW could (see) sea level rises of up to 2.3 metres by 2100 and 5.5 m by 2150”.
It is not just the clear denial of people such as Barnaby Joyce preventing us saving ourselves. Scientific reticence, the reluctance to spell out the full risk implications in the absence of perfect information, has left us uninformed, and ill prepared, for the true risk we face.