"80-Year-Old El Niño Triggered Retreat of Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier', New Research Confirms"

A new study suggests that the retreat of Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier, also known as the 'Doomsday Glacier', began as early as the 1940s due to an extreme El Niño climate pattern that warmed the waters of the west Antarctic. The research, led by the University of Houston, collected sedimentary rock cores to determine the history of the glacier's retreat, finding that once an ice sheet begins to shrink, melting can continue for decades even if the initial triggers are no longer present. The findings have significant implications for understanding ice melt and modeling future problems related to sea-level rise and destabilization of ice in West Antarctica.