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Even if the world immediately halted the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change and warm the waters below the ice sheet, that would do nothing to thicken and re-stabilize the critical pillar, Thwaites says. John Moore, a glaciologist and professor at the University of Lapland Arctic Center in Finland.

“So the only way to prevent collapse is to physically stabilize the ice sheets,” he says.

This will require what is variously defined as active protection, radical adaptationor glacial geoengineering.

Moore and others have suggested potential ways humans can intervene to protect important glaciers. Some of the plans include constructing artificial supports through polar megaprojects or installing other structures to poke nature to restore existing ones. The basic idea is that a handful of engineering efforts at the root of the problem can significantly reduce the risks of property damage and flooding that basically every coastal city and low-island nation will face, as well as the costs of the adaptation projects required. minimize them.

The researchers say that if it works, it could potentially protect significant ice sheets for several more centuries and buy time to reduce emissions and stabilize the climate.

But there will be major logistical, engineering, legal and financial challenges. It is not yet clear how effective the interventions will be or whether they will be done before some of the biggest glaciers disappear.

Directing the heating waters

In article and papers Published in 2018, Moore, Princeton’s Michael Wolovick, and others outlined the possibility of protecting critical glaciers, including Thwaites, through massive earthmoving projects. These will include shipping or dredging large quantities of material to create embankments or artificial islands around or below major glaciers. The structures would support glaciers and ice shelves, blocking layers of hot, dense water at the bottom of the ocean that melted them from below, or both.

More recently, they and researchers Companies affiliated with the University of British Columbia have discovered a more technical concept: building what they call “”.seabed iron curtains“These will be floating flexible sheets made of geotextile that can trap and divert hot water.

The hope is that this proposal will be less expensive than its predecessors and that these curtains can withstand iceberg collisions and be removed if adverse side effects occur. The researchers modeled the use of these structures around three glaciers in Greenland, as well as the Thwaites and nearby Pine Island glaciers.