A groundbreaking international research project, known as the Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to Two Degrees of Warming (SWAIS2C), has shed light on the preventability of the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Recent ice sheet modeling conducted by a group of esteemed scientists and researchers indicates that the WAIS, which is projected to lose mass due to climate change and global ocean warming, is still salvageable.
Analyses will help to reveal how far the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated in the past — and what it might do in the future.
Scientists have just got their hands on a 228-metre (748-foot) core sample from the muddy bedrock beneath West Antarctica’s chunky ice sheets. Inside the record-breaking sample, they discovered fossils of marine organisms that date from a time when this area was an open, ice-free ocean.