These maps show what melting Antarctica will do to New York and cities across the U.S.

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Good news: The chances of your home becoming beachfront property in the next 80 years may have just gone up 200%! That's also the bad news.

A renowned team of climatologists just published a new study about sea level rise in the science journal Nature. By factoring in the frightening increase in the rate of melting ice from Antarctica and Greenland, they calculated a global sea level rise of more than six feet by the end of the century — more than twice as much as previously predicted.

'Cause that's not concerning. Nope, not at all. Photo by Philippe Huguen/Getty Images.

Basically, that awful thing that we already knew was coming? It's probably going to be even worse than we thought.

We're already feeling the undeniable effects of climate change. At this point, it's still mild enough for most of us (in the U.S., anyway) that we're willing to chalk it up to random weird weather flukes, rather than the warning signs of an impending disaster.

And based on earlier climate models, it looked like we were still two generations away from the "real damage." But according to this latest study, children who are living today will live to see some pretty catastrophic changes.

Not to get all "think of the children!" but, well, think of the children!

Oh! Look! A father and son having fun in the water! ... Because rising sea levels destroyed their home! Hooray! Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.

If you're a climate scientist — or a writer who pays attention to these things — you're probably freaking out right now.

But if you're having trouble trying to fathom what six feet of sea level rise actually means for your life, or the lives of your children and grandchildren, please allow me demonstrate what six feet of water by the year 2100 means for some major American regions.

In Seattle, for example, it won't just be the rain that makes it wet...

All GIFs via National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

And the Bay Area will be a lot more "Bay" than "Area."

"Los Angeles 2100" both sounds and looks like a big budget disaster movie.

On the plus side, coastal Texas will be too busy fighting floods to worry about oil spills in the Gulf.

And if you thought the hurricanes and floods that have been ravaging southern Louisiana were bad before, just wait.

Do you think the phrase "climate change" will still be banned when Miami looks like this?

Of course, the coast of North Carolina won't look so pretty either.

As for the New York metro area? It'll be less "Empire State of Mind" and more "Waterworld."

Boston's going back to the bay, and taking MIT and Harvard with it.

As for those of you who live inland? Your hometown might not look so bad in 80 years. But that doesn't mean that everything is hunky-dory either.

Think about what happens to our national economy when all of the coastal land has been destroyed and people start to flock en masse to landlocked states. After all, that's basically what happened in Syria.

So while you lovely Nebraskans might be safe from flooding for the time being, it won't protect you from rising temperatures, agricultural bedlam, ravenous mosquito hordes, vicious winds, or the general calamity caused by mass migration.

As for why the prediction changed, the simple truth is there are a lot of factors involved in ecological disaster — all of which work together like a "Mad Max"-style domino chain.

Even if some of these climate models have changed over time — and if the predictions haven't been 100% accurate — it's not because climate change isn't real. It's because it's hard to figure out every detail of how it'll affect the world.

But hopefully, the thought that our children — not some distant future generation, but our actual children — are almost certainly going to suffer from our environmental hubris will be enough to motivate more people into taking action to cut our carbon emissions and stop this post-apocalyptic future before it happens.

Which, again, is much sooner than you think.

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See incredible photos of a jail where inmates and abandoned animals find a second chance.

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Mike Smith was out of jail for 10 days when he blacked out while drinking and was arrested alongside a busy street in Key West.

When he sobered up, he was back in jail. By his own admission, he was not surprised to be there. The blacking out had happened before.

"I’m done," Smith told himself. "If I don’t stop, I’m gonna spend the rest of my life in prison."

He has no recollection of being arrested, half a block off Duval Street.

This time, Smith knew he would have to do a small stint before he could get a spot in a substance abuse program.

In the interim, he signed up to be a trustee at the jail, working on a farm that for the last two decades has become a corner of Monroe County where abandoned, abused, confiscated, and donated animals from around the country have found refuge behind razor wire.

It's a place where a miniature horse named Bam Bam grazes his days away on a pasture as men in orange jumpsuits muck stalls and make sure water dishes are brimming.

Snowflake the alpaca is shown here as inmate Michael Smith visits with Arabella at the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Animal Farm. All photos by Kim Raff, used with permission.

Inmate Orlando Gonzalez shows Boots the alligator to visitors during an open house day.

Curator Jeanne Selander holds Mo the sloth, the most well known animal at the farm.

Smith was amazed on his first day at the farm at the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Stock Island Detention Center.

"I figured it’d be just a couple of pigs, maybe," he said. "I didn’t know there was gonna be snakes and lizards and alligators and everything else."

21 years ago, out on the busy road that runs alongside the jail, a flock of ducks was losing its battle with traffic. In response to their dwindling numbers, a fence was erected, a pond put in, and a few picnic tables where the guards took breaks. But the sanctuary didn’t stay small for long. And as word spread through the "coconut telegraph" — the unofficial gossip tree that spans the Florida Keys — the jail’s animal population began to increase and diversify. There was a lot of need, and it turned out the jail was beginning to look like the place to fill it.

Attention-hound Misty, a Moluccan cockatoo, repeatedly says “I love you” to visitors.

Gonzalez crouches down with Fat Albert, who escaped from his owner's home and was found roaming a hotel parking lot before being brought to the farm.

Gonzalez and Smith clean out animal pens.

Curator Jeanne Selander — or Farmer Jeanne as she’s known — runs the farm with the trustees.

For the inmates, it’s a way to make daily escapes from the jail in order to feed and clean the animals and build their trust. Selander came to the farm almost 10 years ago with a background in marine biology. She was working for the Key West Aquarium with veterinarian Dr. Doug Mader when the job opened up, and he encouraged her to apply. She had a love for animals, but she’d never stepped foot in a jail and was apprehensive about working alongside inmates.

Selander and Mo visit with a crowd during an open house at the farm.

After landing the job, Selander, still unsure, visited the site with Mader as he did his rounds. "I thought, 'What a neat little place' and how much more could be done with it. After I saw how the [previous] farmer interacted with the inmates and that it was a safe environment, I thought, 'Yeah, I could do this.'"

On Selander’s first day, 25 animals were roaming around. Most of them were farm animals, and most were of the petting-zoo variety.

Gonzalez shows Boots to visitors during an open house.

Bam Bam grazes in an enclosure. He is blind in one eye and was abandoned on the side of a canal with five other horses in Homestead, Florida.

Smith cradles Thumper, a flemish giant rabbit, as Fat Albert waddles over, looking for attention.

Today, Stock Island Detention Center is home to 150 animals, including Maggie, one of three sloths, and an alpaca named Snowflake.

Then there’s Peanut, a miniature horse found wandering in the Everglades after being abandoned by her owner.

The animals arrive at the farm through a network Selander builds with animal rescues throughout the country. The network focuses on finding homes for animals like Sherman, an African spurred tortoise, acquired during a raid on a crack house in Denver, Colorado. Or Ghost, a blind and elderly horse believed to be in his late 20s who arrived at the farm in 2008 as no more than skin and bone after being abandoned in a remote county of the state and who passed away last October.

Smith had known Ghost well. The horse would be spooked and stubborn at times. Some of the other inmates had a healthy fear of Ghost, but Smith made a connection.

"I just felt comfortable around him," he said. "And seeing that everyone else was uncomfortable around him, I knew that I had to do what I had to do to make sure he was taken care of right and not neglected. Doing something good when I was in a pretty bad situation myself, it really gave me peace," he said.

Smith brushes Ghost, a blind horse that frightens easily which has taught people who handle him to be patient, gentle, and build trust.

Some of the inmates "try to be the big burly guys with the attitude," Selander said. "And that always used to move me whenever I’d see them talking to the blind horse because that’s a bond they’re forming with an animal that needs them."

Twice a month, the farm invites the public in to fawn over the animals. Selander’s outreach into the community and the reputation of the farm­ means it’s not unusual for bi­-monthly Sunday open houses to draw in as many as 200 people. Many of them are greeted by Mo the sloth, who is regularly an ornament cradled in Selander’s arms as guests arrive.

"Everyone thinks he is hugging me, but really he just thinks I’m a tree," Selander said.

Signs directing visitors to the animal farm hang along the Monroe County Detention Center’s fence.

It’s the community support that allows for the farm to continue its work. The farm is completely funded by donations. No tax dollars go to fund the project.

"If I ever need anything, the community really steps up to help," said Selander.

Along with the inmates.

"A lot of the inmates maybe have never had anybody that cared about them," she said. "And to see that the animals need them ... it means something to them. And they really take good care of them and I have some of them say, 'You’re in jail just like me.'"

Gonzalez and Smith move animals from their pens to the courtyard to graze.

Today, Smith is finishing up treatment and has found work.

He is sober. But he fondly remembers his time on the farm with Misty the Moluccan cockatoo that he snuck orange slices to. The one that followed him around the farm cooing, "I love you."

"It kept me focused," Smith said. "Spiritually, it helped me a lot. I definitely won’t forget it; that’s for sure."

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This story was originally published on Medium and is reprinted here with permission.

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An artist created itty-bitty paintings every day for a year. Here are 15 of them.

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Teeny tiny things are totally fascinating.

Which is why Brooke Rothshank took an interest in miniatures 11 years ago after attending a doll house miniature show. Shortly after, she began creating highly detailed, fascinating itty bitty (totally not a technical term) paintings in oils and acrylics. She even received a scholarship to attend the International Guild of Miniature Artisans school.

As many couples do, Rothshank and her husband started a family and a few years ago, with a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old, she was having trouble completing any tiny drawings.

"I enjoy being with my kids and I love being a mom but making art is an integral part of living well for me," Rothshank told Upworthy.

And so with the support and help of her husband, her mom, and baby-sitters, she decided to make herself a promise.

Brooke Rothshank committed to creating one tiny painting every day for an entire year.

She was successful in her year-long endeavor and got back into the routine of making time for her passion. In fact, it went so well that she's going to commit to a weekly commissioned piece of work for the entire year in 2017.

The paintings are gorgeous and immaculate and tiny! Each one can take anywhere from half an hour to four hours to complete. The paintings are at 1/12th scale and super detailed.

So here are 15 of her amazing tiny paintings!

1. A perfect miniature unicorn.

All photos of paintings belong to Brooke Rothshank and are shared here with permission.

2. The ultimate single serving Sriracha.

3. An itty-bitty kitty cat.

4. A tiny violin.

5. A super small fish bowl.

6. A teeny baby elephant.

7. A pocket-sized goat.

8. A minuscule gummy bear.

9. A teeny turtle.

10. The smallest cheese spread ever.

11. A sweet sleeping fox.

12. A minuscule sprinkled donut.

13. A pint-sized boot.

14. Slight strawberries.

15. A teensy treat.

The paintings are fantastic, but equally important is the message Rothshank shared along with them.

"I have a personal need to create," she said. But as most parents know, it's not always easy to balance parenting young children with work and hobbies. And often, our personal interests are the first things we set aside. "[F]inding smaller ways to satisfy that need has been my solution," she said.

How does that work? For Rothshank, who gave birth to her third child seven weeks early in December, it means asking for help from family and using baby-sitters to ensure she has even small windows of time for her art.

"My advice is to make your passions a consistent priority," she said. "When you are parenting small children, devoting time to yourself each day simply for self-care can make a radical difference."

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Pretty cool drawings, right? If you want to see more or purchase her art, you can check out her website, Etsy store, and Instagram account. She's running an April Fools' Day sale on Etsy, so be sure to stop by!

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A girl was asked about BMI on a test. Her answer was mic-droppingly great.

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When an Indiana eighth-grader was asked about BMI in class, she took her teacher to school.

A few weeks before this student got a BMI assignment, every student in the class was weighed in front of their peers and made to calculate their BMI, or body mass index. According to the student's mother, her daughter came home in tears after the exercise. She's perfectly healthy, she eats well and she's active ... but according to her BMI, she was "obese."

Body mass index is known to be a pretty flawed system of measuring someone's weight in relation to their height. It often oversimplifies complex health issues by putting people into one of four categories — underweight, normal, overweight, or obese.

Which is why this student's frustration led her to do some extra writing on her class assignment about BMI.

Here's the question she had to answer:

She could have easily recited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition of BMI in her answer:

"Body Mass Index (BMI) is a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. A high BMI can be an indicator of high body fatness. BMI can be used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems but it is not diagnostic of the body fatness or health of an individual."

And she could have easily just typed her measurements into one of the many online BMI calculators.

But she didn't. Instead, she gave an amazing explanation of exactly why BMI is an outdated, inaccurate way of measuring overall health. Here. I'll let her explain:

"BMI is an outdated way of defining normal weight, under weight, over weight, and obesity by taking one person's height divided by their weight. One of the formula's obvious flaws, explains Alan Aragon, the Men's Health Weight Loss Coach and nutritionist in California, is that it has absolutely no way of discriminating fat and muscle. So, let's say there is a fairly athletic woman who maintains a decent diet, she's five feet, six inches, and she weighs 190 pounds, but 80% of her body is muscle. That doesn't matter when calculating BMI! This woman's BMI would be 30.7, and she would be labeled obese. Does that make sense to you? Because it sure doesn't make sense to me."

"How could someone who stays fit, eats healthy, and has a low metabolism be in danger of heart disease and diabetes? Oh, that's right, because she isn't in danger of obesity and heart disease. This woman is active and healthy and she is the furthest thing from obese. In conclusion, BMI is an outdated way of determining a person's body health, and it's a measurement that should not be used in a school setting where students are already self-conscious and lacking confidence in their unique bodies."

"Now, I'm not going to even open my laptop to calculate my BMI. And I'll tell you why. Ever since I can remember, I've been a "bigger girl" and I'm completely fine with that; I'm strong and powerful. When you put a softball or a bat in my hand, they are considered lethal weapons. But, at the beginning of the year, I started having very bad thoughts when my body was brought into a conversation. I would wear four bras to try and cover up my back fat, and I would try to wrap ace bandages around my stomach so I would look skinnier. So my lovely mother did what any parent would do when they noticed something wrong with her child, she took me to my doctor. My doctor and I talked about my diet and how active I am."

"He did a couple tests and told me I was fine. He said though I'm a bit overweight, he's not going to worry about me based on how healthy I am. So this is where I don't calculate my BMI because my doctor, a man who went to college for eight years studying children's health, told me my height and weight are right on track. I am just beginning to love my body, like I should, and I'm not going to let some outdated calculator and a middle school gym teacher tell me I'm obese, because I'm not. My BMI is none of your concern because my body and BMI are perfect and beautiful just the way they are."

Mic drop.

GIF from "The Colbert Report."

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Special thanks to James MacLeod for bringing this to our attention and helped obtain permission to use the photos.

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These women won the World Cup. They're still angry. You would be too.

The ugly side of the "beautiful game."

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The United States women's soccer team is, undeniably, the best in the world.

Their matches fill stadiums, their players are household names, and they've won three FIFA World Cups and four Olympic championships since 1991. Last year alone, this team generated $20 million more in revenue than the U.S. men's team did.

The U.S. women's soccer team celebrating during the 2012 Olympics. Image by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images.

So, naturally, they're only paid about 1/4 of what male players get. Yes, you read that correctly.

I understand if you need to take a minute to yell into your rage pillow. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Let it out, Marissa. GIF from "The O.C."

Because these women WIN for a living, they aren’t going to accept this unfair treatment.

This week, five members of the women's team — on behalf of all their fellow players — filed a wage-discrimination action with the national Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against their bosses at the U.S. Soccer Federation.

It’s not the first time the women’s team has gone up against their employers.

Back in January, the players submitted a new deal to their employers through their union — one that had, according to their lawyer Jeffrey Kessler, "equal pay for equal work as its guiding principle." U.S. Soccer disagreed on the timing, saying their current deal was binding until December 31, 2016. Now both parties are in court, with the U.S. Soccer Federation suing the players to abide by the past contract — the one that pays them about four times less than players on the men's team — until after the Rio Olympics.

Even if we look past the dispute on contract timing, it is hard to have much empathy for U.S. Soccer.

Women in the United States are already subject to unfair wage discrimination. On average among full-time workers, American women make just 79 cents for every dollar an American man makes. What women’s soccer players are facing is so much worse than that.

Let’s say that for every time Landon Donovan, a star player on the U.S. men’s team, scores a goal, he gets a dollar.

Congratulations on your dollar, Mr Donovan! Image by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images Sport.

The current wage rules would mean that when Megan Rapinoe, a star on the U.S. women’s team, scores, she only gets paid 25 cents.

Megan Rapinoe, earning the heck out of her 25 cents. Image by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.

In this scenario, for her to get close to the national average for women’s pay, she has to score three times. And to be paid equal to what a male player gets for one goal, she has to score four.

According to U.S. Soccer, it takes four Megan Rapinoes to equal one Landon Donovan. That's bananas. And just wrong. Image by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.

(FYI: It was exhausting just writing that out. Imagine what it’s like living it every single game.)

"I've been on this team for a decade and a half, and I've been through numerous CBA negotiations, and honestly, not much has changed," Hope Solo told "Today."

"We continue to be told we should be grateful just to have the opportunity to play professional soccer, to get paid for doing it."

"In this day and age, it's about equality. It's about equal rights. It's about equal pay. We're pushing for that. We believe now the time is right because we believe it's our responsibility for women's sports and specifically for women's soccer to do whatever it takes to push for equal pay and equal rights. And to be treated with respect."

Soccer is an intense physically demanding sport. The women who play it professionally have to be wickedly fit, quick-thinking team players who can run nonstop for hours without vomiting.

They deserve our admiration, our ticket dollars, and every trophy and accolade they earn. And if their employers still don't agree they deserve at least as much as men, then those employers deserve every bit of criticism these women kick their way.

Game on.

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Image by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images.

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Christian Louboutin's new definition of 'nude' is pretty great.

Christian Louboutin just released a new set of nude shoes.

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Next time you're at your local pharmacy, take a look down the makeup aisle and you might notice something: For every one color made to match the skin of people darker than sheets of notebook paper, there are half a dozen colors that cater to people who are variations of white.

In a lot of places — and especially in the fashion world — being white is considered the default. "Nude" is synonymous with "white." And that's what makes this trendsetter's new line so exciting.

Fashion designer Christian Louboutin is renowned for creating inspiring, iconic footwear — and his latest line is making news for a really interesting reason: It's accurate.

"Nude" no longer means "white" in the world of Louboutin shoes. Instead, it means seven shades ranging from "porcelain" to "deep chocolate." This is an increase beyond the brand's past color offerings, which were limited to just five shades. 

OK, but why does this matter? Because we really need to work to get the idea of "white as the normal" out of our heads.

The campaign's tagline is "A nude for every woman," and that's really what it's all about. By embracing diversity, we can understand a fuller, more well-rounded story of who we are as humanity. Nobody should feel excluded from something as simple as finding shoes that match on the basis of their skin tone.

White is the default only for as long as we make it that.

Most of us probably can't afford to go out and pick up a new pair of Loubouotin's at the drop of a hat, but here's where this decision extends beyond the brand: Others are sure to follow.

Maybe a pair of Louboutin shoes will always be out of your price range, but that's OK because, given the brand's influence on the fashion world, it's almost certain to inspire others to enact similar diversity-boosting changes as well.

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