Overview
- Peer-reviewed research in Nature Geoscience led by Yusuke Suganuma identifies a cascading feedback that can drive widespread Antarctic retreat.
- Sediment records from Lützow-Holm Bay show an ice-shelf collapse about 9,000 years ago with inland thinning up to roughly 400 meters.
- A companion study in JGR: Earth Surface led by Debangshu Banerjee documents a four-stage rift-driven failure of the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf from 2002 to 2022.
- The Thwaites work finds a positive feedback between rift damage and upstream acceleration after the shelf lost a stabilizing fixpoint.
- Satellite observations indicate warm Circumpolar Deep Water is already reaching major West Antarctic shelves, raising concern that modern change may progress faster under human-driven warming.