Rising land beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet could slow ice loss and reduce sea-level rise in coming centuries. However, if emissions continue to rise, the effect could raise sea levels even more than the melting ice alone. 

Associate Professor Alexander Robel with the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences comments on a study recently published in ScienceAdvances that models the relationship between melting ice and rebounding land under different emission scenarios. He says the scenario where rebounding land increases sea level rise is based on worst-case assumptions about emissions as well as the rate at which the ice sheet retreats.