Burning all the world's fossil fuel reserves could thaw the entire Antarctic ice sheet and push up sea levels by nearly 60 meters (200 feet), an international study said on Friday.
Such a melt, which also would eliminate the far smaller ice sheet on Greenland, is a worst-case scenario of climate change. It would inundate cities from New York to Shanghai and change maps of the world, with much of the Netherlands, Bangladesh and Florida under water.
"Burning the currently attainable fossil fuel resources is sufficient to eliminate the (Antarctic) ice sheet," the scientists wrote in the journal Science Advances. The water from Antarctica's ice would raise the sea level by 58 meters (190 feet).