Antarctic Thwaites Glacier will continue losing ice even if ocean temperatures drop

New Scientist reported that Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier will continue to lose ice for at least the next 150 years, even if ocean waters cool to extremely low levels. Ocean warming is currently driving the retreat of the world's widest glacier. Computer simulations indicate that future ice loss from the glacier is now unavoidable under all potential climate scenarios. [1]

Researchers evaluated the behavior of the mass of ice under a hypothetical scenario of unrealistically cold ocean temperatures. The computer models revealed that such extreme ocean cooling would still be insufficient to halt the retreat of the Thwaites Glacier. However, the same simulations suggested that a neighboring glacier might begin to grow under those conditions. [1]

The continent of Antarctica is situated atop the Antarctic Plate. Its vast ice shelves feature dynamic physical processes, and subglacial lakes exist beneath the surface. Ice cores retrieved from the continent provide historical paleoclimatic data that reveal atmospheric compositions over hundreds of thousands of years. [3]

The ongoing ice loss from the Thwaites Glacier carries critical implications for global sea-level rise. Because the glacier will continue retreating regardless of ocean cooling, future climate mitigation efforts will not prevent its ice loss over the next century and a half. [1]