Revisiting the “Crisis” of Sea Level Rise

Whenever a natural disaster occurs anywhere in the world that can be connected in some way with the alleged climate crisis, out come the professionals to make that connection.

From the federally funded NPR, “A melting glacier contributed to the deadly Nepal floods. We can expect more like this.” From CBC, “Scientists fear Nepal’s disaster is just a glimpse of the carnage climate change could cause.” And from BBC, “Nepal calls for ‘global effort’ to address climate change after devastating flash floods.”

This is just a taste of the media consensus, backed by scientists whose careers and credibility are built on perpetuating the panic. But what exactly would constitute a “global effort” to address climate change? And here again, business professionals and politicians step in, and the results are laughable. Europe is deindustrialized and risks terminal economic decline in pursuit of “net zero,” while India, China, and every other emerging nation are building, exploiting every form of energy they can possibly get their hands on. Fossil fuel consumption worldwide has risen, in absolute terms, by 36 percent for oil, 67 percent for natural gas, and 79 percent for coal.

The overall role of fossil fuels has not changed. Over the past 25 years, total energy production worldwide has increased by 58 percent, and the share contributed by fossil fuels is virtually unchanged. It was 87 percent in 2000, and it was 86 percent in 2025. The use of fossil fuels is not going to decrease significantly for several decades to come.

The only way to adapt to whatever long-term changes in weather may throw at humanity is to develop every source of energy we can as fast as we can, because more energy will create more prosperity, and more prosperity in turn will give us the means to adapt. Not only can prosperous nations build more effective flood control infrastructure and other adaptations to climate and weather events. They can also apply their wealth to eliminating other, equally if not more urgent environmental challenges.

One area of climate concern that the disaster in Nepal has highlighted is sea level rise caused by melting ice. But the numbers don’t support panic, and there is great uncertainty in the estimates. Here are the reported sources of sea level rise from melting ice over the past quarter century (the best datasets don’t offer exactly 25 years of compilations).

• Antarctica—8.62 mm, total, from 2002 to 2025
• Greenland—16.9 mm, total, from 2002 to 2025
• Glaciers—18.9 mm, total, from 2000 to 2023

Altogether, melting ice is estimated to have caused sea level rise of 44 millimeters, or 1.7 inches, over the past quarter century. But before we even consider whether this is an alarming rate of sea level rise, consider the proportions involved and the uncertainty those proportions signify.

The ice cap atop the Antarctic continent is estimated to have a volume of 27.2 million cubic kilometers (6.5 million cubic miles). Over the past 23 years, that ice cap is estimated to have suffered a total net loss of 3,128 cubic kilometers (750 cubic miles). Think about how unlikely it is that even today, with all the various remote sensors we can deploy, we can actually claim Antarctica’s ice cap has shrunk by twelve one-thousandths of one percent. Any engineer will assure you that a change that insignificant is far below what may be referred to as “the variability of measurement.” If Antarctica is currently shrinking, expanding, or staying the same, when we’re claiming a 750 cubic mile change on a base of 6.5 million cubic miles over 23 years, what we’re really saying is we don’t know.

When it comes to Greenland, the proportions are slightly less extreme but still questionable. Experts claim that Greenland’s ice cap, with a volume of 3.0 million cubic kilometers (717,000 cubic miles), has shrunk by 6,141 cubic kilometers (1,473 cubic miles) between 2002 and 2025. That represents a shrinkage of two-tenths of one percent over 23 years. Same question: Is this below the level of accurate detection? In Greenland’s case, the official answer is probably yes. The variability of measurement acknowledged by the scientific community is 20,000 cubic kilometers up or down. Which is to say that while the estimated net loss of ice in Greenland since 2000 is 6,141 cubic kilometers, the acknowledged uncertainty over how much ice cap really sits atop Greenland varies by 40,000 cubic kilometers.

Which brings us to the glaciers of the world. Estimates vary, but at 158,000 cubic kilometers (37,906 cubic miles), the ice mass of the world’s glaciers is far less than Greenland or Antarctica. But the acknowledged uncertainty in this measurement is huge: 41,000 cubic kilometers greater or less than the baseline. Total glacial ice mass could be as high as 199,000 cubic kilometers or as low as 117,000 cubic kilometers. That is a huge and understandable range of uncertainty, since the glaciers of the world are scattered across every continent except Australia (even Africa still has one). There are more than 200,000 glaciers in the world. It is hard to accurately monitor all of them.

Against this denominator, over the past 50 years, glaciers have shrunk by an estimated 6.1 percent. It is likely that total glacial mass in the world is declining, and in some parts of the world the decline is obvious. But we must recognize that the decline over a half-century of 6.1 percent is against a backdrop of uncertainty regarding the total ice mass of the world’s glaciers that varies by 26 percent in both directions.

No analysis prefaced in the context of a terrible tragedy should fail to respect what a devastating and heartbreaking loss has occurred. But similarly, these tragedies should not be the latest excuse for members of the climate industrial complex to come out of the woodwork to foment panic in pursuit of their ideological and professional agendas. Certain realities are immutable.

For example, most experts agree that the Earth’s climate has been gradually warming for several hundred years since the “Little Ice Age” ended in the 1860s, and more broadly, since the end of the last major ice age around 11,000 years ago. And speaking of sea level rise, back then, the ocean was 400 feet lower than it is today. A few more inches of sea level rise is not even a blip on the geologic record.

There are no guarantees against epic paroxysms of nature. Earthquakes. Tsunamis. Volcanic eruptions. Fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes. Landslides, heat waves, droughts, blizzards. We can only do so much to prepare for any of these events, but this gives rise to the other immutable reality that belongs in the discussion spawned in the wake of the tragedy in Nepal.

There is no way humanity is going to stop using fossil fuels. This will remain true regardless of whether using it contributes to climate change or not, regardless of whether a slightly warming planet, overall, is a good thing or not. Developing cost-effective, abundant energy through investment, innovation, and competition is the path to greater global prosperity. Only through that approach can we build the resilience needed to withstand natural disasters and adapt to a constantly changing natural environment.

Edward Ring is the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013. Ring is the author of several books, including The Abundance Choice – Our Fight for More Water in California (2022), and The Analyst’s Cookbook: Making the Case for Abundance Using Numbers (2026).