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 Product projections between 2015 and 2100 CE. We also introduce the Social Cost of Ice Sheet Melt (SC-ISM) metric and calculate this for both AIS and GrIS melt 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 SC-ISM associated with AIS melt is ~30% higher than that of GrIS, driven largely by differential SLR rates along the North Atlantic coastline. However, for either source, SC-ISM normalized by local GDP shows strongly disproportionate impacts, with low-income regions experiencing a significantly greater economic burden than high-income regions.