The emission of greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere is a by-product of modern marvels such as the production of vast amounts of energy, heating and cooling inhospitable environments to be amenable to human existence, and traveling great distances faster than our saddle-sore ancestors ever dreamed possible. However, these luxuries come at a price: climate changes in the form of severe droughts, extreme precipitation and temperatures, increased frequency of flooding in coastal cities, global warming, and sea-level rise (1, 2). Rising seas pose a severe risk to coastal areas across the globe, with billions of US dollars in assets at risk and about 10% of the world’s population living within 10 m of sea level (3⇓–5). The price of our emissions is not felt immediately throughout the entire climate system, however, because processes such as ice…