The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is one of the largest and most vulnerable ice masses on Earth. As global temperatures rise, its melting is expected to be a major driver of future sea-level rise. But how has it responded to past climate shifts—and what can that tell us about its future stability?In this ClimTip webinar, Dr. Alexander Robinson from the Alfred-Wegener-Institute (AWI) in Potsdam explores the big picture of Greenland’s ice loss. By looking at the ice sheet’s behavior over the past million years, he unpacks what remains uncertain: How much warming does it take to trigger major ice retreat? How small did the Greenland Ice Sheet get during past interglacial periods? And what does that mean for projections of sea-level rise in the coming centuries?

Key Topics Covered:

• How the Greenland Ice Sheet has changed over the last 1 million years

• What past interglacial periods reveal about its stability

• Uncertainties in the forces driving past ice loss

• Future risks of major ice retreat and rising sea levels

Speaker Profile:

Dr. Alexander Robinson is a climate scientist and glaciologist, specializing in three key research areas: Earth System Complexity, Climate Extremes and Risks, and Energy-System Resilience.

In 2023, he joined the AWI-Potsdam as a senior scientist, where he leads the Earth System Complexity group. His work focuses on understanding the intricate connections between large-scale components of the Earth system and exploring its long-term evolution—both in the past and into the future.

Before this, Dr. Robinson spent over a decade at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he began as a postdoctoral researcher in 2011. In 2018, he became an Assistant Professor in the Paleo Modeling and Analysis (PalMA) group within the Department of Earth Science and Astrophysics. In addition to his European research contributions, since 2021, Dr. Robinson has also served as an Associate Scientist at the US National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research.

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Thumbnail and opener: Design by Kuat Abeshev. Photo by NASA/GSFC/Michael Studinger.