Gaël Durand, a CNRS research director, discusses the sensitivity of the polar ice caps to climate change in this video (8’01). First, he shows how the loss of mass in these ice caps impacts sea levels, and then he highlights the existence of instability risks for Greenland and Antarctica.

Learning Objectives:

- Understand the mass balance of a polar ice cap
- Identify the contribution of the polar ice cap mass loss to the increase in sea levels
- Know about the instability factors for the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps