Vanishing Ice: Glaciers, Ice Sheets, and Rising Seas represents the culmination of a long journey into research on global sea level change that initially began years ago at the suggestion of James Hansen, former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. Subsequently, it became clear that the fate of the ice sheets remains a major uncertainty in predicting the future course of sea level rise. This has led to a growing interest in what was happening to the cryosphere, not only the two major ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, but also the valley glaciers, permafrost, and floating ice, in particular sea ice and fringing ice shelves, and what the consequences of a meltdown may be for the rest of the world.
I wish to thank Patrick Fitzgerald of Columbia University Press for encouraging me to write this book and for his many beneficial comments along the way. Thanks are also extended to Ryan Groendyk and Brian Smith, assistant editors at Columbia University Press, for their expert editorial support. Appreciation is also expressed to Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA GISS; and Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA GISS and the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University, for their continued support and patient understanding during this lengthy undertaking. I also thank the reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions that have contributed to the improvement of this book.
Numerous colleagues have also contributed many perceptive insights and advice. In particular, my sincere thanks are extended to Joerg Schaefer of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) at Columbia University for clarifying the history of Quaternary ice sheet changes in Greenland; Robin Bell of LDEO for insightful discussion on ice sheet dynamics; to Marco Tedesco of LDEO for proving images of the Greenland Ice Sheet, to Mark Chandler of GISS for helpful conversations on mid-Pliocene climates and sea levels; and Allegra LeGrande of GISS and Anders Carlson of the University of Wisconsin for information on late-Quaternary ice sheet retreat and sea level change. The book has also greatly benefited from stimulating discussions with Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University and Robert Kopp of Rutgers University on extreme regional sea level–rise scenarios arising from recent models of future hydrofracturing and cliff failure mechanisms in Antarctica. Discussions and papers presented at cryosphere-focused sessions at the American Geophysical Union and Geological Society of America annual meetings, 2012 through 2015, also provided useful information during the early stages of writing.