Free Republic

A single glacier sitting at the bottom of the world may be all that is holding back catastrophic amounts of sea level rise. As it melts away faster than ever, scientists are racing to get a better understanding of when it might fail. Unfortunately, they’ve recently found more bad news. This Antarctic bulwark known as Thwaites, or the “Doomsday Glacier,” is gargantuan – roughly the size of Florida – and holds enough ice to push the planet’s coastlines up two feet. But the edge of Thwaites also acts as a cork, holding up the rim of the West Antarctic ice...

Scientists are warning that the collapse of Antarctica’s massive “doomsday glacier” could eventually redraw large parts of America’s coastline, threatening major cities from Florida to California with severe flooding and rising seas. Researchers say the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is becoming increasingly unstable, raising fears that its eventual collapse could contribute to dramatic long-term sea level rise. While the glacier itself could add around 65 centimeters (roughly 2 feet) to global sea levels, some scientists worry it could destabilize much larger sections of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—potentially contributing to sea level rise approaching 3 meters (nearly 10 feet)...

Scientists have looked back in time to reconstruct the past life of Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier” — nicknamed because its collapse could cause catastrophic sea level rise. They have discovered it started retreating rapidly in the 1940s, according to a new study that provides an alarming insight into future melting. The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is the world’s widest and roughly the size of Florida. Scientists knew it had been losing ice at an accelerating rate since the 1970s, but because satellite data only goes back a few decades, they didn’t know exactly when significant melting began. Now there is...

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...