Thwaites glacier

Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier got its nickname the “Doomsday Glacier” for its potential to flood coastlines around the world if it collapsed. It is already contributing about 4% of annual sea-level rise as it loses ice, and one theory suggests the glacier could soon begin to collapse into the ocean like a row of dominoes. But is that kind of rapid collapse really as likely as feared? A new study of Thwaites Glacier’s susceptibility to what’s known as marine ice cliff instability offers some hope. But the findings don’t mean Thwaites is stable. Polar scientist Mathieu Morlighem, who led the study, explains the results. Why is the Thwaites Glacier so important? Thwaites Glacier drains a huge area of Antarctica’s ice sheet – about 74,000 square miles (192,000 square kilometers), an expanse bigger than Florida. If a snowflake falls within that drainage system, it will eventually end up as part of an iceberg in the ocean off Thwaites....

This episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast is about the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. Thwaites is among the largest glaciers on Earth and one of the single most important factors for future global sea level rise. We talk to three experts about what makes Thwaites so uniquely significant, why it’s melting and the creative techniques scientists are using to study it. Thanks to climate change, ice all over the world is melting. Greenland, the Arctic the Himalayas and Antarctica are all experiencing the fastest melting in recorded history. As ice that is currently sitting on land melts, it flows downhill and eventually reaches the ocean. If the ice melts faster than snow replenishes the glaciers, sea level rises. The Thwaites Glacier is one of many bodies of ice that are melting, but this massive, Antarctic glacier is uniquely important when it comes to sea level rise. “We’re talking about an area that’s the size of the island of Great Britain,&...