Work

Global ice loss drives source-independent amplification of sea-level rise at Pacific and Indian Ocean Small Island Developing States

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: We quantify the spatial pattern (“fingerprint”) of sea-level rise caused by mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and from glaciers worldwide through 2100. Using ensembles of ice-sheet and glacier mass-balance projections and gravitational, rotational, and deformational sea-level modeling, we calculate normalized sea-level fingerprints and their impacts on Small Island Developing States. We show that Small Island Developing States in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are located within persistent sea-level-rise hotspots where the ice-melt contribution to local sea-level rise systematically exceeds the global mean by up to ~ 24%. This amplification emerges regardless of whether meltwater originates from Greenland, Antarctica, or the global glacier system. We identify a source-independent and geographically systematic amplification of sea-level rise affecting some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations .

Source: Communications Earth & Environment

DOI: 10.1038/s43247-026-04132-4