The Daily Mail (DM) claims in “Antarctica ‘Doomsday Glacier’ COLLAPSE by 2067” that the Thwaites Glacier is on track for catastrophic failure within decades. This misleading framing gives a false impression of what science actually says about the issue. Observational data show ongoing ice loss and instability, but they do not establish an inevitable post-mid-century collapse. Further, the ice loss quantities cited are very small relative to the glacier’s total mass.
The DM article leans heavily on projections suggesting that by 2067, Thwaites could lose on the order of 200 gigatons of ice annually. That number sounds dramatic by itself; it is not in the larger context.
The Thwaites Glacier is estimated to contain roughly 600,000 gigatons of ice. Even 200 gigatons represents a tiny fraction of the total mass – just 0.033 percent. As summarized in the Climate at a Glance review of Antarctic ice trends at Climate at a Glance – Antarctic Ice Melt, Antarctica holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by nearly 200 feet. However, while parts of West Antarctica are losing mass, total Antarctic ice trends are complex and vary regionally, with much of the continent experiencing net ice gain. A projected loss of 200 gigatons in a given year does not equate to imminent collapse of the Thwaites Glacier, much less the continent as a whole.
Precision matters. Percentages matter.
The DM article also implies that atmospheric warming via climate change is directly driving the glacier toward collapse. But direct field measurements tell a more nuanced story.
The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) deployed instruments beneath the ice shelf and directly measured intrusions of Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) — relatively warm ocean water roughly 1°C above freezing — flowing beneath the glacier and melting it from below. That mechanism is oceanographic, not atmospheric. It involves shifting currents delivering subsurface heat under the ice shelf, not surface air temperature melting the glacier from above.
That distinction is important. The Thwaites Glacier sits in a region where ocean circulation patterns play a dominant role in basal melt rates. The delivery of warmer CDW onto the continental shelf is influenced by complex wind patterns, bathymetry, and ocean dynamics. Conflating that process with generalized “air temperature warming” confuses the physics.
None of this is to deny that the Thwaites Glacier is changing. Measurements show ongoing retreat, thinning, and acceleration in parts of the glacier system; something all glaciers do on occasion. Basal melting is occurring and satellite imagery shows some fracturing. Those are real observations. But the big leap from “instability is present” to “collapse by 2067” doesn’t pencil out unless questionable models are employed.
The measurements establish cause for attention. They do not, by themselves, prove inevitable collapse on any specific timetable. Ice-sheet systems are nonlinear and can reorganize. Whether retreat becomes self-sustaining and irreversible on human timescales depends on thresholds that remain uncertain. That is precisely why modeling studies differ in their projections.
It is also important to remember that sea-level rise is already incorporated into coastal planning frameworks based on measured trends. Global mean sea level has been rising at roughly three millimeters per year over recent decades. Even under high-end projections, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) describes recent rise in terms of feet, not dozens of feet, and emphasizes deep uncertainty regarding dynamic ice-sheet contributions.
The article’s framing suggests a dramatic mid-century tipping point, but science describes an evolving system with significant uncertainty.
Context also matters historically. Ice sheets, including Thwaites, have advanced and retreated repeatedly over geological time due to orbital cycles and ocean circulation changes. Over the past million years, glacial–interglacial cycles have followed a dominant natural pattern of roughly 100,000 years. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has likely collapsed and reformed in past warm periods — all before “climate change” became the universal boogeyman for anything that we see as abnormal. That does not trivialize current changes, but it underscores that these systems respond over centuries and millennia.
Finally, scale matters again. If the Thwaites Glacier contains roughly 600,000 gigatons of ice, a 200-gigaton annual loss represents about 0.033 percent of its mass per year. Even sustained at that rate — which is speculative — complete disintegration would take centuries, not decades. Careful tracking of the Thwaites Glacier and the ocean currents that drive its loss and expansion are merited, but the alarmingly misleading headlines such as the one posted by DM suggesting near-term collapse are not.
There is a pattern here. The Daily Mail has long demonstrated a preference for dramatic, attention-grabbing headlines that far oversell the actual story. Climate Realism has debunked its false, hyperbolic disaster scenario claims dozens of times. “Doomsday Glacier collapse by 2067” fits that formula perfectly — a bold date, a catastrophic label, and minimal context. That may drive clicks, but it does not accurately reflect the measured data or the scientific uncertainty involved.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Originally posted at ClimateREALISM
The Guardian, along with the BBC and a number of other British rags, has earned the reputation of pulling out all the stops to promote climate alarmism. This is a typical example of their distortions, exaggerations, and inaccuracies plus predictions of occurrences well into the future. Note a couple of key words here: “could shed” and “by 2067” Another way of putting it might be: “mightn’t be affected at all during the next half-century”. And given the hot & (mainly) cold records of the doomsday forecasters, nothing will happen to the Antarctic glaciers beyond their usual fluctuations.
Any of the glacier that’s floating, it can melt with zero effect on sea levels. Obviously some of it’s floating when they’re looking at ocean currents under the glacier.
Same for any of the ice that’s grounded on land and below sea level. Melt that ice and it will have a net negative effect on sea level.
Only non-floating ice above sea level can contribute to sea level increase when melted.
There are a few problems with Antarctic ice speculations.
When Antarctica returns to its previous verdant state, world peace breaks out, and a cure is found for the common cold, it might be time to worry.
Now, not so much.
“relieving the crust of the weight of some kilometers depth of ice will result in isostatic rebound, with a consequent decrease in sea level.”
No, the global sea level won’t change much, but the local apparent sea level will fall as the land rises.
The northern part of what is now the island of Great Britain was under a very thick ice-sheet 20 000 years ago which compressed the land down under it and caused land to the South to pivot upward.
For some time the island has been tipping up in the North, approx 10mm per century, and sinking in the South, approx 5mm per century due to post-glacial rebound.
Sea levels are “rising” in the South.
The compression effect of ice on the land seems to be overlooked with respect to mass displacement, when sounding the doom over melting ice and rising sea levels.
And if the sea rises a few metres, the coastline in East Sussex and Kent will be back where it was in Roman times.
You mean the coastline that didn’t exist until about 8000 years ago when all that ice melted and flooded Doggerland creating ‘the island of Great Britain’?
Geothermal activity beneath the grounded glacier is also a factor, maybe the major factor because Argo circum-Antarctic ocean temperatures at depths to 1900m show no overall trend.
The DM article does acknowledge ‘underlying geology’ in only one sentence:
“While human–caused climate change is warming the Amundsen Sea and causing more melting, this suggests that Thwaites’ recent acceleration might have more to do with underlying geology” but then goes on and on with the familiar refrain about human emissions 🤔 .
Learned here on WUWT a few years back that West Antarctica has a bunch of active volcanos underneath it. Wikipedia: “In 2014, the area underneath Thwaites Glacier was found to have heat flow from geothermal activity nearly twice the global average, and about 3.5 times larger in hotspots. By 2017, scientists have mapped 138 volcanoes beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with 91 of them previously unknown. Marie Byrd Land, the location of Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers, was found to harbor around one volcano per every 11,200 km2 (4,300 sq mi) of area.”
I’d be sweating bullets if I had active volcanos underneath me. Maybe we power a year-round base station there by drilling into the geo-thermals that are apparently directly under the ice – call it “renewable” or “green” energy; A.K.A: can’t win for losing energy -OR- just loser energy.
Betteridge’s law of headlines is an adage that states: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”
And any year of prediction will be moved further away(usually by half) once you reach half-time.
In this case the doom-carrot will be postponed in 2046 to a 2087 collapse.
According to coastal tide gauges when corrected for land elevation changes, global sea level has been rising at a rate of 1-2 mm/yr for at least 150 years, not 3 mm/yr. According to coastal peat bog and river sediment measurements, sea level has been rising at a rate of 1-2 mm/yr for the past 6,000 years. Your 3 mm/yr statement comes from satellite measurements where the altitude of the satellite is known to within a few yards.
and those measurements resolve to centimeters, not mm.
I stopped at the first “could”.
Is an “ice shelf ” a glacier on the ground or berg in the sea?
The cryosphere is all the solid water, i.e. ice and snow, on the terrestrial surface.
There are three basic types:
Ice CAPS sitting on solid ground.
GLACIER ice (ice CAPS in motion)
SEA ice (floating in the sea, duh.)
Antarctica covers 14.2 E6 km^2 (NBS equivalents: 20 * Texas, 2,768 * Delaware or 163,218 * Manhattan) with an average ICE CAP thickness of 1.9 km for a volume of 2.698 E7 km^3.
Ice has a density of 9.2 E11kg/km^3.
The Antarctic ICE CAP (NOT sea ice!) contains 24.82 E6 Gt.
Between 2002 and 2012 the Antarctic ICE CAP supposedly “lost” about 1,200 Gt or a decrease of 0.0048%, 48 ppm, per decade.
At that rate the ICE CAP will be all gone in 206,850 years.
I don’t plan on waiting around.
You?
Every year the SEA ICE swings from around 3E6 km^2 during summer to 14E6 km^2 (doubling the polar coverage) during winter.
A recent paper on this subject:Recent Observations of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica Are Consistent With High Rates of Loss in Next 50 Years
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL118823
1 Introduction
Mass loss from Antarctica has increased threefold over the satellite era (Shepherd et al., 2018), dominated by the glaciers of the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (Rignot et al., 2019). A large component of this loss is from Thwaites Glacier (Shepherd et al., 2019). Thwaites has been subject to strong change over the last several decades: the rate of ice discharge increased more than 30% between the 1979–1989 and 2009–2017 periods (Mouginot et al., 2014; Rignot et al., 2019), while dynamically-driven mass loss rates increased more than fivefold between the 1992–1997 and 2012–2017 half-decades (Shepherd et al., 2019). The rate at which the grounding line—the location at which the ice sheet goes afloat—retreated nearly doubled between the 1996–2011 and 2011–2017 periods (Milillo et al., 2019). From a sea-level perspective, Thwaites is of particular concern because of its inland-deepening bed and widening flow catchment (Morlighem et al., 2020; Rignot et al., 2011), making it potentially susceptible to irreversible retreat, generally referred to as Marine Ice Sheet Instability (MISI; Weertman, 1974; Schoof, 2007b; Joughin et al., 2014).