How to stop sea level rise

Greenland and Antarctica, where the ice is up to two kilometres deep, have about 70,000 kilometres of coastline, but the total length where the ice-streams reach the sea is only 200 kilometres or less. Stop the accelerated melt there, and the human race might win an extra century or two to cope with all the other challenges posed by global warming without having to wage a continuous struggle to protect itself from rapidly rising sea levels at the same time.

The Thwaites Ice Shelf, pictured Oct. 16, 2012, as seen from the NASA DC-8. 'At Thwaites, the most vulnerable ice shelf on the planet, the major inflow of warm water is through a channel four kilometres across. And we initially thought, as stupid scientists, that we would just block that (four-kilometre channel) with rubble or dirt, you know, make a dam,' British glaciologist John Moore recalled. Photograph courtesy of Flickr/NASA ICE/James Yungel

Opinion

BY Gwynne Dyer

June 2, 2022

LONDON, U.K.—“Ninety per cent of ice flowing to the sea from the Antarctic ice sheet, and about half of that lost from Greenland, travels in narrow, fast ice streams measuring tens of kilometres or less across. Stemming the largest flows would allow the ice sheets to thicken, slowing or even rev...

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