Is Thwaites still the ‘doomsday glacier’?

New understanding unraveling how fast the Antarctica glacier could melt away

- RAYMOND ZHONG

SCIENTISTS HAVE NEVER loved the scary nickname that journalists have given the glacier where the current Antarctic expedition is headed: the “Doomsday Glacier.”

Yes, the Thwaites Glacier is the size of Florida, and if it melted away completely, it would add two feet to global sea-level rise. The researchers aboard the icebreaker Araon are planning to study the ice of Thwaites and the seas around it to gauge how soon the glacier might collapse. But Thwaites isn’t doomed to suffer such a fate, scientists say. They emphasise that by cutting the carbon emissions that are driving climate change, we might still protect the glacier from oblivion.