Scientists who drilled deep into 'Doomsday Glacier' startled by what they found beneath: 'It’s concerning'

In April 2022, PBS reported that residents of many waterfront houses in Miami were planning to relocate. The reason was frequent flooding. Although at that time, scientists said it was very unlikely for Miami to become the victim of sea level rise, now it seems the residents may have to carry out their original plan. One of the main culprits of sea level rise is the “Thwaites Glacier” in West Antarctica, which lies only about 7,000 miles away from Miami. In a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) held in September 2024, a group of US-UK scientists who were studying the glacier found something in it that left them highly alarmed. 

The researchers reported that the glacier is on the verge of total and irreversible collapse, and it may pose a real catastrophe for the world. It is melting so rapidly that scientists have projected that the Antarctic Ice Sheet could completely melt away in the next 200 years. Dubbed “Doomsday Glacier,” Thwaites is one of the largest and fastest-changing glaciers in the world. However, it is also the riskiest, whose melting could send the sea levels to rise by 65 centimeters and perhaps even up to a few meters, leading to a deadly scenario for surrounding cities, probably for the entire world.

Speaking to PBS, glaciologist Kiya Riverman, who has been actively studying Doomsday Glacier for years, said that glaciers usually respond to climate change over a timeframe of a couple of years. This is particularly true in the case of glaciers that are especially weak and vulnerable, and the Doomsday Glacier is one of them. Riverman explained that the ice sheet floating in the ocean acts “like a dam” that holds the bulk volume of water within it. But when this ice experiences cracking and melting, it becomes sensitive and unable to hold that much water, leading to rapid flooding.

Given that the glacier poses a major concern, researchers have been investigating it since 2018 as part of a project called “International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC).” In 2019, a team of researchers, including Riverman, used a robot called Icefin to drill a 2,000 feet (600-meter) hole in Thwaites ice, so they could collect images of what was going on beneath the glacial ice. The instrument was supposed to reach at a point where ice met the ocean water. What they found was nothing short of horror.

Lurking beneath a hundred-mile-long patch of cracked glacial ice and glassy pieces was a thermal reservoir that threatened the surrounding ice. Adding to this, they discovered a whole new landscape encapsulated under ice. Cracks and crevasses ran down in stairlike formations, piercing deep into the ice sheet. Peter Davis, a researcher, told CNN in 2023 that their study revealed “a very nuanced and complex picture.” However, the rate at which the ice was melting wasn’t that much a figure of concern.

But the latest revelation has changed all the previous proportions and made the “Doomsday Glacier” a source of worry. “Thwaites has been retreating for more than 80 years, accelerating considerably over the past 30 years, and our findings indicate it is set to retreat further and faster,” Rob Larter from the Science Coordination of the ITGC and a marine geophysicist at BAS, said.

According to BAS, the accelerating melting of this glacier could put hundreds of millions of people on coasts from Bangladesh to low-lying Pacific islands, from New York to London, in danger. “It’s concerning that the latest computer models predict continuing ice loss that will accelerate through the 22nd century and could lead to a widespread collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the 23rd,” said Ted Scambos, US science coordinator of the ITGC.