Ian Wesley Bolliger

and 18 more

Recent advances in modeling 21st-century sea-level rise (SLR) and its associated societal outcomes have demonstrated that the spatial pattern of SLR combined with highly variable population density along global coastlines exert a strong control on its impacts. Here, we extend this research by examining differential costs arising from two sources of SLR that exhibit distinct spatial “fingerprints” — mass flux from the Antarctic (AIS) and Greenland (GrIS) Ice Sheets. To do this, we employ the DSCIM-Coastal data and modeling platform to quantify flood extents and population exposure to inundation from sea-level changes associated with an ensemble of Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project projections between 2015 and 2100 CE. We also introduce the Social Cost of Ice Sheet Mass loss (SC-ISM) metric and calculate this for both AIS and GrIS mass loss scenarios. Due to the distinct sea-level fingerprints of the two ice sheets, we find that mass flux from the AIS floods a larger area and would inundate a greater (present-day) population than an equivalent mass flux from the GrIS and yields a substantially higher SC-ISM. Across a suite of future climate scenarios, the global SC-ISM associated with AIS mass loss is ~30% higher than that of GrIS, driven largely by differential SLR rates along North Atlantic coastlines. Additionally, across both ice sheet mass loss scenarios and a uniform sea-level rise scenario, the SC-ISM exhibits disproportionate impacts. In other words, when normalized by local GDP, low-income regions experience a greater economic burden than high-income regions, regardless of sea-level rise source.