The radical intervention that might save the “doomsday” glacier

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John Moore, a professor at the Arctic Centre, says that even if the world stopped greenhouse-gas emissions immediately, it wouldn't do anything to help the Thwaites.

He says the only way to prevent the collapse is by stabilizing the ice sheets.

That will require something called active conservativism, radical adaptation, or glacier engineering.

Several ways that people could intervene to preserve key glaciers have been laid out by Moore and others. Artificial braces are one of the schemes that involve building through polar megaprojects. The basic idea is that a few engineering efforts at the source of the problem could significantly reduce the property damage and flooding dangers that every coastal city and low-lying island nation will face, as well as the costs of the adaptation projects required to minimize them.

If it works, it could potentially preserve crucial ice sheets for a few more centuries, buying time to cut emissions and stabilizing the climate.

Logistical, engineering, legal, and financial challenges would be involved. It is not known how effective the interventions would be, or if they could be done before some of the largest glaciers are lost.

Warming waters are being directed.

Moore and others wrote about the possibility of preserving critical glaciers, including the Thwaites, through massive earth- moving projects. The berms or artificial islands would be built by shipping in large amounts of material. The structures would block the warm, dense water layers at the bottom of the ocean that are melting glaciers and ice shelves.

They and researchers affiliated with the University of British Columbia have explored a more technical concept: constructing what they call "seabed anchored curtains." These sheets are made from a material that can hold back warm water.

The hope is that this proposal would be cheaper than the earlier ones, and that the curtains would be able to be removed if there were negative side effects. The researchers have modeled the use of these structures around several glaciers.