The #Thwaites #glacier is a fortress larger than Florida,
a wall of ice that reaches nearly 4,000 feet above the bedrock of West Antarctica,
guarding the low-lying ice sheet behind it.
But a strong, warm ocean current is weakening its foundations and accelerating its slide into the Amundsen Sea.
Scientists fear the waters could topple the walls in the coming decades,
kick-starting a runaway process that would crack up the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
That would mark the start of a global climate disaster.
The glacier itself holds enough ice to raise ocean levels by more than two feet, which could flood coastlines and force tens of millions of people living in low-lying areas to abandon their homes.
The loss of the entire ice sheet
—which could still take centuries to unfold
—would push up sea levels by 11 feet and redraw the contours of the continents.
This is why Thwaites is known as the #doomsday #glacier
—and why scientists are eager to understand just how likely such a collapse is, when it could happen, and if we have the power to stop it. 

Scientists at MIT and Dartmouth College founded Arête Glacier Initiative last year in the hope of providing clearer answers to these questions.
The nonprofit research organization will officially unveil itself, launch its website, and post requests for research proposals today, March 21, timed to coincide with the UN’s inaugural "World Day for Glaciers"
Arête will also announce it is issuing its first grants, each for around $200,000 over two years, to a pair of glacier researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

One of the organization’s main goals is to study the possibility of preventing the loss of giant glaciers,
Thwaites in particular,
by refreezing them to the bedrock.
It would represent a radical intervention into the natural world, requiring a massive, expensive engineering project in a remote, treacherous environment. 

But the hope is that such a mega-adaptation project could minimize the mass relocation of climate refugees,
prevent much of the suffering and violence that would almost certainly accompany it,
and help nations preserve trillions of dollars invested in high-rises, roads, homes, ports, and airports around the globe.

“About a million people are displaced per centimeter of sea-level rise,”
says Brent Minchew, an associate professor of geophysics at MIT, who cofounded Arête Glacier Initiative and will serve as its chief scientist.
“If we’re able to bring that down, even by a few centimeters, then we would safeguard the homes of millions.”
But some scientists believe the idea is an implausible, wildly expensive distraction,
drawing money, expertise, time, and resources away from more essential polar research efforts. 
“Sometimes we can get a little over-optimistic about what engineering can do,” says Twila Moon, deputy lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/21/1113396/inside-a-new-quest-to-save-the-doomsday-glacier/