Doomsday Glacier won’t collapse in coming decades, but outlook remains ‘grim’: report

Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Get our free Climate email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy While Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier” is still headed for catastrophe as the Earth warms, scientists said this week that some expected worst-case scenarios could be unlikely this century. Dr Robert Larter, who is a British Antarctic Survey marine geophysicist, told Science on Thursday that the possibility the front of the Thwaites Glacier could collapse is “not the huge monster it might have been 10 years ago.” Larter is one of 100 members of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a group that monitors and probes the ice. “There is a consensus that Thwaites Glacier retreat will accelerate sometime within the next century,” Larter said in a statement. “However, there is also concern that additional processes revealed by recent studies, which are not yet well enough studied to be incorporated into large scale models, could cause retreat to accelerate sooner.” open image in gallery An area of the Thwaites Glacier, around two-thirds the size of New York City’s Manhattan borough, is lost.