Caroline Needell

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Antarctic ice cliffs collapse faster than predicted, then stabilize

Studying at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

For ten years, a scary scenario dominated Antarctic ice-sheet science: tall ice cliffs, once exposed, would collapse in a self-sustaining cascade and rapidly raise global sea levels. A new satellite study in Science challenges that fear. Researchers at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution tracked 15,330 ice cliffs from 2019 to 2023 and found that while the tallest cliffs fall faster than models predict, the retreat quickly stabilizes instead of running away.

Updated 1 hour ago

Notable Quotes

We found that when the cliffs were retreating, they were doing so faster than what has been modeled, which would mean more ice loss and higher contributions of sea level rise. But because we found that the retreat was short-lived, and all the glaciers eventually stabilized, that would suggest that things won't be so bad.

from Antarctic ice cliffs collapse faster than predicted, then stabilize · Updated 1 hour ago