Thwaites Glacier and Climate Change

The rhetoric over climate change involves disagreements on both the amount and the causes. One of the main issues in this discussion is data on Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier. That glacier is roughly the size of Florida and up to 6500 feet thick. According to the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), if it were to collapse completely, it would raise worldwide sea levels by 65 cm (more than two feet).

The ITGC is an organization of scientists from the UK and the US that gather data on the Thwaites Glacier. Dr. Ted Scambos, who is a glaciologist at the University of Colorado working with this group, says, “It’s concerning that the latest computer models predict continuing ice loss that will accelerate through the 22nd century and could lead to a widespread collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the 23rd.” In the last 30 years, the melting rate of the Thwaites Glacier has been speeding up and has recently risen sharply. Whatever people think about the cause of this, we must do whatever we can to prevent the melting of the Thwaites Glacier.

However, the Thwaites Glacier is not the only melting ice sheet in the world. Many glaciers are melting worldwide, and only a handful are stable or gaining ice. Human action is most certainly not the only cause of climate change, but God’s instructions to care for the creation include controlling the collateral damage from these changes.

— John N. Clayton © 2024
References: Thwaitesglacier.org and wikipedia.org