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Even if the world immediately stops the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change and warming under the ice shelf, it will do nothing to thicken and restabilize the critical support of Thwaites, says John Moore, a glaciologist and professor at the Arctic Center at the University of Lapland in Finland.
“So the only way to prevent it from collapsing … is to physically stabilize the ice sheets,” he said.
This will require what is described differently as active conservation, radical adaptation or geoengineering of the glacier.
Moore and others suggested potential ways in which people could intervene to preserve key glaciers. Some of the schemes include building artificial braces through polar megaprojects or installing other structures that would encourage nature to restore existing ones. The basic idea is that a handful of engineering efforts at the source of the problem could significantly reduce property damage and flood hazards that will hit virtually every coastal city and low-lying island nation, as well as the cost of adaptation projects needed to minimize them.
If it works, it could potentially preserve important ice sheets for several more centuries, buying time to reduce emissions and stabilize the climate, researchers say.
But there will be huge logistical, engineering, legal and financial challenges. And it is not yet clear how effective the interventions would be or whether they could be carried out before some of the largest glaciers are lost.
Redirection of warming waters
In articles and articles published in 2018, Moore, Michael Volovik of Princeton and others outline the possibility of preserving critical glaciers, including the Tweets, through massive earthquake projects. This will include transporting or dredging large quantities of berm or artificial island building material around or under key glaciers. The structures will support glaciers and ice shelves, block the warm, dense layers of water at the bottom of the ocean that melt them from below, or both.
Most recently, they and researchers at the University of British Columbia explored a more technical concept: the construction of what they called “anchored curtains on the seabed.” These will be floating flexible sheets made of geotextile that can hold and divert hot water.
The hope is that this proposal will be cheaper than the earlier ones and that these curtains will withstand collisions with the iceberg and could be removed if there are negative side effects. Researchers have modeled the use of these structures around three glaciers in Greenland, as well as the Thwaites Glaciers and nearby Pine Island.