Earth is warming and sea levels are rising as land-based ice is lost to melt, and oceans expand due to accumulation of heat. The pace of ice loss and steric expansion is linked to the intensity of warming. How much faster sea level will rise as climate warms is, however, highly uncertain and difficult to model. Here, we quantify the transient sea level sensitivity (TSLS) of the sea level budget in both models and observations. Models show little change in sensitivity between the first and second half of the 21st century for most contributors. The exception is glaciers and ice caps (GIC) that have a greater sensitivity pre-2050 (2.8±0.4 mm/yr/K) compared to later (0.7±0.1 mm/yr/K). We attribute this change to the short response time of glaciers and their changing area over time. Model sensitivities of steric expansion (1.5±0.2 mm/yr/K), and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (0.8±0.2 mm/yr/K) are greater than, but still compatible with, corresponding estimates from historical data (1.4±0.5 mm/yr/K and 0.5±0.1 mm/yr/K). Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) models tends to show lower rates of sea level rise with warming (‑0.0±0.3 mm/yr/K) in contrast to historical estimates (0.4±0.2 mm/yr/K). This apparent low bias in AIS sensitivity is only partly able to account for a similar low bias identified in the sensitivity of GMSL excluding GIC (3.2±0.5 mm/yr/K vs 2.2±0.4 mm/yr/K). The balance temperature, where sea level rise is zero, lies close to the pre-industrial value, implying that sea level rise can only be mitigated by substantial global cooling.

The ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland present the greatest uncertainty in, and largest potential contribution to, future sea level rise. The uncertainty arises from a paucity of suitable observations covering the full range of ice sheet behaviors, incomplete understanding of process influences, and limitations in defining key boundary conditions for the numerical models. To investigate the impact of these uncertainties on ice sheet projections we undertook a structured expert judgement study. Here, we interrogate the findings of that study to identify the dominant drivers of uncertainty in projections and their relative importance as a function of ice sheet and time. We find that for the 21st century, Greenland surface melting, in particular the role of surface albedo effects, and West Antarctic ice dynamics, specifically the role of ice shelf buttressing, dominate the uncertainty. The importance of these effects holds under both a high-end 5°C global warming scenario and another that limits global warming to 2°C. During the 22nd century the dominant drivers of uncertainty shift. Under the 5°C scenario, East Antarctic ice dynamics dominate the uncertainty in projections, driven by the possible role of ice flow instabilities. These dynamic effects only become dominant, however, for a temperature scenario above the Paris Agreement 2°C target and beyond 2100. Our findings identify key processes and factors that need to be addressed in future modeling studies in order to reduce uncertainties in ice sheet projections.