A 'Doomsday Glacier' that could flood New York and Miami is melting - experts have a radical plan to stop it

Scientists person projected extremist program to halt a monolithic Antarctic glacier from melting that would cause catastrophic flooding on the US East Coast.

They suggested installing a giant underwater curtain, artificially thickening glaciers with seawater oregon cooling the bedrock they descent implicit to mitigate lukewarm waters from reaching the Thwaites Glacier, besides known arsenic the 'Doomsday Glacier.'

The Thwaites Glacier is melting astatine an expanding complaint owed to climate change and would rise planetary oversea levels by 10 feet, flooding coastal cities similar New York, Charleston, Atlantic City and Miami. 

To debar this, researchers led by the Climate Systems Engineering Initiative astatine the University of Chicago published a study calling for a 'major initiative' successful the adjacent decades to probe which, if any, interventions could and should beryllium used.

Douglas MacAyeal, a prof of geophysical sciences co-author of the achromatic paper, said: 'Our statement is that we should commencement backing this probe now, truthful that we aren't making panicked decisions down the roadworthy erstwhile the h2o is already lapping astatine our ankles.' 

One connection successful the caller study would pump seawater onto the aboveground of the Doomsday Glacier, wherever acold aerial temperatures would origin it to frost successful spot and frankincense thicken the glacier.

But the thought comes with risks and costs, the authors warned. 

The salinity of the seawater mightiness harm the structural integrity of the ice, and the vigor needed to pump ample volumes of seawater poses unsolved problems. 

A UK startup called Real Ice is has been moving connected this solution since 2019. Field trials conducted earlier this twelvemonth successful Canada showed promising results, but deploying it astatine standard would outgo astir $6 cardinal per twelvemonth and necessitate tremendous vigor input.

This and different interventions discussed successful the study are examples of geoengineering solutions. They intentionally change the planetary situation successful bid to counteract the affects of human-driven clime change. 

Some experts person called the ideas 'radical,' saying geoengineering 'would beryllium hard oregon intolerable to execute and gully absorption distant from the much necessary conversation of reducing c emissions.'

Gernot Wagner, a clime economist astatine the Columbia Climate School, said: 'When we speech astir glacial geoengineering, we request to archer the truth, which is that it's not a solution to clime alteration - astatine best, it's a painkiller.'

The Doomsday Glacier spans 74,000 quadrate miles and is losing astir 50 cardinal tons of crystal each year, which accounts for astir 4 percent of planetary oversea level rise. 

It besides acts arsenic a earthy dam that prevents the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) - which covers 760,000 quadrate miles - from collapsing.

This 'vigorous melting' is mostly driven by lukewarm tidal currents that pump beneath the glacier, according to a May survey published successful the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The achromatic paper, published in July, included results of recent conferences astatine the University of Chicago and Stanford University connected geoengineering.

Another projected involution would beryllium to halt lukewarm currents from impacting the glacier would beryllium to erect a elephantine underwater 'curtain' successful beforehand of it. 

This thought was designed and projected by glaciologist John Moore of Lapland University, who co-authored the achromatic paper.

The curtain would agelong 62 miles agelong and could outgo up to $50 cardinal to build.

It would anchor to the bottommost of the Amundsen Sea, blocking lukewarm undersea currents from hitting the underside of Thwaites Glacier.

Held up by a buoyant apical borderline and anchored astatine the bottom, the curtain would interval astatine the bottommost of the ocean, invisible from the water's surface.

Pulling this disconnected would necessitate a feat of engineering and construction, not to notation a monolithic fiscal investment. 

It besides comes with risks. The achromatic insubstantial points retired that blocking vigor from the sub-ice cavities could person effects each on the Amundsen Sea Coast.

'For example, if the circulation of lukewarm circumpolar heavy h2o shifts west, it could impact different crystal shelves, perchance reducing their stability, portion changing section ecology successful uncertain ways,' the study reads.  

But Moore is moving up with his plan. He antecedently told DailyMail.com that helium and his colleagues were moving connected machine simulations to get the plan right, arsenic good arsenic 'some tiny standard vessel tests, fundamentally with food tanks.' 

Other experts judge they tin trim glacial melting by cooling the bedrock that glaciers dilatory descent over.

Glaciers are perpetually moving toward the sea, and arsenic they bash so, their bottommost surfaces scrape implicit the underlying bedrock, generating friction and frankincense vigor that causes them to melt from below.

Michael Wolovick, a glaciologist astatine Princeton University, thinks that helium could dilatory this melting by drilling tunnels into the bedrock and pumping acold h2o done them.

This would combat the vigor generated by glacial question and frankincense trim melting astatine the bottommost of the glacier.

This thought would outgo tens of billions of dollars, and the imaginable risks progressive - particularly to section ecosystems - necessitate further investigation. 

As researchers dependable the alarm connected the Doomsday Glacier's rapidly accelerating melt rate, much scientists are urging enactment for geoengineering projects.

'It volition instrumentality 15 to 30 years for america to recognize capable to urge oregon regularisation retired immoderate of these interventions,' Moore said successful a statement.

The achromatic insubstantial came connected the heels of the May PNAS study, which used high-resolution outer images and hydrological information to place areas wherever lukewarm tidal currents are flowing nether the Doomsday Glacier and causing it to melt faster. 

This accelerated melt complaint could mean that planetary oversea level emergence predictions request to beryllium reassessed, arsenic catastrophic levels get sooner than experts antecedently thought, the researchers concluded. 

The nonaccomplishment of the Doomsday Glacier would besides lead to the illness of the WAIS - the continental crystal expanse that covers West Antarctica. 

The WAIS is fundamentally a vessel of crystal 3 times the size of Texas sitting successful a basin that's below-sea-level successful Western Antarctica.  

The Thwaites Glacier is 1 of a enactment of glaciers sitting on the marine-facing rim of the WAIS. 

These glaciers are the lone happening blocking the water from filling the WAIS basin and melting oregon dislodging its ice. 

If some the Thwaites and the WAIS collapsed, it would origin irreversible, utmost oversea level emergence that would endanger millions of radical and accelerate melting of different glaciers astir the world. 

Climate scientists classify this imaginable catastrophe arsenic a 'tipping point,' oregon the crossing of a captious threshold that leads to major, unstoppable changes successful the clime system. 

'We were hoping it would instrumentality a hundred, 500 years to suffer that ice. A large interest close present is if it happens overmuch faster than that,' Christine Dow, survey co-author and associate prof of glaciology astatine the University of Waterloo, told Scientific American.