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cientists are warning an Antarctic glacier could collapse and cause sea levels to raise at least a foot in the next decade. The scientists said Monday at the American Geophysical Union the Thwaites glacier, which is the size of Florida, could collapse in the next three to five years. The ice shelf holding the glacier in place is quickly developing cracks due to the warm water hitting it, according to the scientists. "There's going to be a dramatic change in the front of the glacier probably within less than a decade," Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the Cooperative...

One of the ever-looming threats of climate change is sea level rise, which already threatens to displace millions of people worldwide and force them to move inland by the end of the century. A big part of the rising water levels are hotter temperatures at the poles—home to giant glaciers and ice shelves that hold crucial quantities of frozen H2O. The Florida-sized Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, nicknamed the “doomsday glacier,” is already losing 50 billion tons of ice each year. That in itself accounts for around 4 percent of annual global sea level rise. But unpublished research shared at the...

A new study by researchers at the University of Texas, Austin found that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is collapsing due to geothermal heat, not man-made global warming.

Two teams of scientists say the long-feared collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun, kicking off what they say will be a centuries-long, "unstoppable" process that could raise sea levels by as much as 15 feet. "There's been a lot of speculation about the stability of marine ice sheets, and many scientists suspected that this kind of behavior is under way," Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a news release about one of the studies published Monday. "This study provides a more qualitative idea of the rates at which the collapse...

The wailing today is that the collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet has already begun. . .

On Monday, May 12, all three network evening newscasts hyped the dire consequences of a new NASA study which show that “large parts of the western Antarctica ice sheet appears to have collapsed.” ABC, CBS, and NBC hyperventilated over the report, and warned of rising sea levels in the immediate future. CBS News’ Elaine Quijano warned “A 10-foot rise in sea level would submerge tunnels and subways here in Manhattan and parts of Queens and Brooklyn. But, Scott, it would also put the entire city of Miami Beach and much of South Florida underwater.” NBC Nightly News and ABC World...

The Thwaites glacier is one of the most rapidly changing in Antarctica. It’s been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks, after scientists suggested that this sector of the huge West Antarctic Ice Sheet was already on route towards collapse due to warming ocean temperatures. A major collapse of this part of the ice sheet could have dire consequences worldwide, with a global sea level rise of potentially up to 1m. Some models suggest this could take place comparatively rapidly, within a few centuries. But hidden beneath the kilometres of ice in this rapidly changing part of the...

Researchers say a massive cavity the size of two-thirds of Manhattan was found under a glacier in Antarctica. The pocket is a sign of "rapid decay" and just one of "several disturbing discoveries" made recently regarding the glacier, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a news release Wednesday. "[The size of] a cavity under a glacier plays an important role in melting," said Pietro Milillo of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "As more heat and water get under the glacier, it melts faster." The growing cavity sits in West Antarctica at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier, which is about as big...

Deciphering Contradictory Antarctic Climate Patterns Antarctica is experiencing some of the fastest warming in the world. Antarctica is cooling. Some of its glaciers are thinning. Some are thickening. Ice shelves are disappearing. More sea ice is forming. Scientists have reported all this in recent months. It may all be true, even the contradictory parts. "Confusing, isn't it?" asked Dr. Eric Rignot, a glacier expert at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Dr. Peter T. Doran, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, agreed. "It's a mixed bag of signals." The...

A glacier in West Antarctica, known as "the world's most dangerous," could completely melt away and cause a rapid and "catastrophic" sea-level rise, a new study warns. The study, published in the scientific journal PNAS, notes that the Thwaites Glacier is at a proverbial "tipping point" that could cause a neverending flow of ice into the world's oceans. “If you trigger this instability, you don’t need to continue to force the ice sheet by cranking up temperatures. It will keep going by itself, and that’s the worry,” said the study's lead author and Georgia Tech professor Alex Robel, in a...

Thwaites Glacier — otherwise known as the “Doomsday glacier,” due to the fact it could raise the sea level by several feet — is allegedly hanging on “by its fingernails.” Scientists discovered that the glacier’s underwater base has been eroding due to the increase in the Earth’s temperature, according to a study published in Nature Geoscience. “Thwaites is really holding on today by its fingernails,” said Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist who co-authored the study. “And we should expect to see big changes over small timescales in the future — even from one year to the next — once the...

Some people love to be scared. Mary Shelley knew that when she wrote Frankenstein, and genres of fiction and film exist mining that desire for innocent fun and profit. But when politics enters the fray and fears are stoked to scare people into accepting costly and harmful policies, it is important to push back. Two articles from last week illustrate the panic-mongering and the responsible citation of fact. Breitbart highlights a prophet of doom from Rolling Stone magazine, home of the University of Virginia rape hoax story: The massive Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica could "fall apart overnight" and raise sea...