Jamin Greenbaum

Enormous regions of Antarctica previously assumed to be stable are on the precipice of runaway retreat. I explore beneath the uncharted areas of the polar ice sheets and surrounding oceans in search of vulnerabilities to accelerated melt and sea level rise caused by the next hundred years of warming climate. This work includes finding where and why ice sheets collapsed in the geological past when climate conditions were similar to what they are today. To collect vital, missing geophysical data, I have probed through the ice and coastal ocean of over 500,000 kilometers of Antarctica across sixteen expeditions there and two in Greenland, spending about four years of my life on the ice. In the field, the work requires a production mindset to do our best with the limited opportunities and technology at our disposal.

Between campaigns we are innovators and entrepreneurs, adapting and evolving our approaches and platforms to overcome technical and logistical barriers encountered on expeditions. These challenges transcend the practical limits of any single nation’s polar program and has only been possible through genuine collaborations with scientists, air crews, ship’s crews, and logistical personnel in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, France, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Korea, the U.K., and the U.S. I am passionate about empowering our global teams to accomplish otherwise impossible goals. As a leader and mentor, I am driven by the belief that the successful response to problems related to climate change—from diagnostic science to impact assessment, mitigation, and adaptation—demands building teams of interdisciplinary and intercultural explorers and scientists who are comfortable working across all cultural, geographic, linguistic, and political boundaries.

My life changed completely when I learned one simple but fundamental fact about our planet: Sea level today is 20 to 30 feet lower than it should be. The last time Earth’s climate was similar to what it is today was about 130,000 years ago. The geology, in other words, was the same as today, but the oceans were much higher. That extra water came mostly from melted glaciers, and from a warmer, swollen ocean. So even if humans did not exist, the natural world would be trending toward higher sea level. But humans do exist, and we are pumping forty billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually. Which means not only is sea level rise inevitable, but we are forcing the issue with a carbon hammer. The solution is not “simply” moving a billion people from endangered coastal zones. Three-quarters of the world’s economic output originates there. The whole world will suffer.

Antarctica likely contributed about half the sea level deficit, so it is vital that its ice and ocean, in all their complexities, be mapped and monitored. Our models currently produce a range of sea level projections because our picture of Antarctica is incomplete. We need precision, and we need it soon, because the thing all models agree on is that we are causing sea levels to rise higher, faster. 

The choices we make about greenhouse gas emissions matter a lot. So too does our ability to prepare for the future, which means making the conditions and caprices of the ice and ocean as easily accessible as air temperature and wind speed. It won’t be easy, but it is at least as achievable as any other major technical challenge we have confronted, or will confront, when faced with an existential threat.