The Antarctic Ice Sheet Has Started to Collapse and Nothing Can Stop It
For years, scientists have feared the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet—a vast swath of ice that could unleash a slow but unstoppable 10-foot rise in sea levels if it melted. So here is today's terrible news: we now know the ice sheet is melting. And there's pretty much nothing we can do to about it.
The accelerating collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is reported by two different teams of scientists, in the journals Science and Geophysical Research Letters. Its collapse has been predicted for decades, most prominently by glaciologist John Mercer, but this is the first tangible evidence that it's actually now happening. Warmer waters are most likely responsible for the melting.
