Thwaites Glacier Retreat Continues Centuries Even If Oceans Cool to Unrealistic Levels
Computer experiments demonstrate that Thwaites Glacier’s retreat is already committed on multi-century timescales regardless of near-term ocean cooling. This locks in additional sea-level rise that will affect coastal populations worldwide. The work highlights the need for immediate emissions reductions to limit further commitment from neighboring glaciers.
The study used a coupled ice-sheet–ocean model run at 1 km horizontal resolution over the Amundsen Sea sector. Researchers imposed idealized cold-ocean boundary conditions that are physically implausible under current greenhouse-gas trajectories yet still produced continued grounding-line retreat at Thwaites because of self-sustaining marine ice-sheet instability once the bed deepens inland. Pine Island Glacier, by contrast, sits on a shallower sill and showed possible readvance when ocean thermal forcing was removed.
NASA Sea Level Change Team: Thwaites will contribute at least 4 cm to global mean sea level by 2100 even under the most aggressive ocean-cooling scenario tested.
Sources (2)
- [1]Primary Source(https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01980-0)
- [2]Supporting Source(https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01697-7)