Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, nicknamed the “Doomsday Glacier,” may keep losing ice for generations even if the ocean waters melting it cool dramatically. New research also suggests its contribution to sea-level rise by 2100 could be roughly twice as large as some models previously estimated.
The findings highlight two related challenges. Past changes have pushed the glacier into a retreat that may be difficult to reverse, while new modeling suggests scientists may have underestimated how warm seawater reaches beneath it.
Why Thwaites Glacier matters
Located in West Antarctica, Thwaites is one of the region’s largest contributors to ice loss. Its complete collapse could eventually raise global sea levels by an estimated 65 centimeters (about 26 inches), although that is a long-term risk rather than a forecast for this century.
The glacier’s vulnerability lies partly in the way it meets the ocean. Much of its ice rests on bedrock below sea level, while its floating ice shelves help regulate how quickly ice flows toward the sea.
Relatively warm ocean water can melt the underside of these floating shelves. As the shelves thin, they provide less resistance to the ice behind them, allowing the glacier to retreat inland and contribute more water to the ocean.
A study published in Nature Communications on October 12, 2026, examined how seawater penetrates the broad transition zone where grounded ice begins floating. The researchers found that representing this zone as several kilometers wide, rather than as a narrow boundary, helped their model reproduce the observed retreat and thinning from 1996 to 2023.
Under a constant-climate scenario, the model projected up to 30 millimeters (1.2 inches) of global sea-level rise from Thwaites by 2100, about twice the average of earlier projections used for comparison. The study also found that the glacier could detach from a stabilizing underwater ridge as early as 2038 in some simulations.
Why cooling the ocean may not be enough
A separate study led by the British Antarctic Survey, published in Geophysical Research Letters, explored a stark hypothetical scenario: what if ocean-driven melting beneath the ice shelves stopped entirely?
Researchers ran three independent ice-sheet models over 150 years. In the simulations, neighboring Pine Island Glacier began thickening and advancing, but Thwaites continued losing ice throughout the period, albeit at a declining rate.
The result suggests that Thwaites is still responding to past environmental changes. Its retreat has altered the glacier’s geometry and relationship with the seafloor, meaning that simply reducing ocean melting may not restore its earlier state on century-long timescales.
Importantly, the zero-melting scenario is an extreme modeling experiment, not a realistic prediction. The study does not establish that every future change is irreversible or that Thwaites must accelerate toward total collapse.
Can we stop the Doomsday Glacier from melting?
There is no proven technology that can restore Thwaites Glacier to its historical condition. The latest findings instead point to two priorities. Reducing the warming that drives ocean melting and preparing for sea-level rise that may now be difficult to avoid.
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions remains important because continued ocean warming could intensify ice loss beyond the changes already set in motion. The British Antarctic Survey researchers emphasize that future losses could be exacerbated if emissions are not reduced.
Scientists have also explored more direct interventions, including seabed curtains intended to restrict warm water from reaching vulnerable ice shelves and other proposals to stabilize glaciers. For coastal communities, the implications extend beyond Antarctica. Sea-level rise increases the risk of flooding, erosion, and storm-surge damage, making adaptation planning increasingly important even if emissions fall.
The Doomsday Glacier is not a countdown to a single catastrophic event. It is a warning that changes to Earth’s largest ice sheets can continue long after the conditions that triggered them begin to improve. Scientists may not be able to reverse all the ice loss already set in motion, but limiting further warming can still influence how much more ice is lost, and how much the seas ultimately rise.