Podcasts about west antarctic ice sheet

Brent Minchew is Co-Founder, Executive Director, and Chief Scientist at Arête Glacier Initiative, a new nonprofit launched to close the gap between frontier glaciology research and actionable sea-level forecasts—and to probe whether “brake-tapping” inside Antarctic glaciers can slow their slide into the sea. Brent explains why current models still span 1–6 feet of rise by 2100—even if Paris targets are met—and how melting glaciers, especially Antarctica's so-called “Doomsday Glacier,” drive that uncertainty. He details why glaciology remains drastically underfunded, how sea-level changes already threaten coastal economies via insurance markets, and where Arête's first $5 million in philanthropic capital is going. He also walks through early-stage solutions—from thermo-siphons that passively refreeze ice to pumping sub-glacial water—that could “hit the brakes” on glacier flow and buy humanity time for deep decarbonization.In this episode, we cover: [03:45] Launching Arête to bridge glacier science and solutions[05:38] Inside the “doomsday glacier” and its global risk[07:18] Why Thwaites may collapse even if we hit climate goals[09:51] Sea level rise: Millions displaced per inch[12:41] The silent crisis of glacial melt[13:28] Economic ripple effects of rising seas[15:53] What Larsen B's collapse taught us[20:04] Arête's model: Philanthropy + global research[22:51] Advancing glacier tech through TRL stages[25:45] How Antarctica is governed[35:28] Refreezing glaciers with thermo-siphons[45:00] Drilling costs vs. seawalls: Where's the value?Episode recorded on May 14, 2025 (Published on June 2, 2025) Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.Connect with MCJ:Cody Simms on LinkedInVisit mcj.vcSubscribe to the MCJ Newsletter*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

New methane seeps are being discovered in Antarctica, some now appearing in areas that researchers have been monitoring for years. These are areas on the seafloor where methane gas escapes out from under the ground through fissures or cracks. What is the extent of the seeps? How large is the gas reservoir they are being fed from? How much methane is escaping from the sea into the air? Why now? And does this have implications for further warming the planet? A team of NIWA scientists are racing to find answers.Guests:Dr Sarah Seabrook, NIWADr Leigh Tait, NIWALearn more:You can find all the papers referenced this episode in the write-up that accompanies it. Claire spoke to Sarah about her initial work on seeps and the microbes that are attracted to them in 2022There's currently a massive project underway to investigate whether the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt under 2oC of warming. Veronika Meduna joined them on the ice last year.Listen to our recent episode about life on the seafloor under the ice, including mysterious giant glass sponges.Sign up to the Our Changing World monthly newsletter for episode backstories, science analysis and more.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

New research from Victoria University suggests even building a giant wall in the sea wouldn't be enough to stop sea level rise from two crucial Antarctic glaciers. Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers are melting, and, if they collapse, it could destabilise the huge West Antarctic Ice Sheet and cause catastrophic sea level rise. Eloise Gibson reports.

How fast - and how completely - could Antarctica's smaller western ice sheet melt in a warming world? An international science team, led by Aotearoa New Zealand, set out to investigate whether two degrees of warming could already be a tipping point for the frozen continent.

fWotD Episode 2468: Mount Berlin Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.The featured article for Tuesday, 6 February 2024 is Mount Berlin.Mount Berlin is a glacier-covered volcano in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the Amundsen Sea. It is a roughly 20-kilometre-wide (12 mi) mountain with parasitic vents that consists of two coalesced volcanoes: Berlin proper with the 2-kilometre-wide (1.2 mi) Berlin Crater and Merrem Peak with a 2.5-by-1-kilometre-wide (1.55 mi × 0.62 mi) crater, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) away from Berlin. The summit of the volcano is 3,478 metres (11,411 ft) above sea level. It has a volume of 200 cubic kilometres (48 cu mi) and rises from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is part of the Marie Byrd Land Volcanic Province. Trachyte is the dominant volcanic rock and occurs in the form of lava flows and pyroclastic rocks. The volcano began erupting during the Pliocene and was active into the late Pleistocene and the Holocene. Several tephra layers encountered in ice cores all over Antarctica – but in particular at Mount Moulton – have been linked to Mount Berlin, which is the most important source of such tephras in the region. The tephra layers were formed by explosive eruptions that generated high eruption columns. Presently, fumarolic activity occurs at Mount Berlin and forms ice towers from freezing steam.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:06 UTC on Tuesday, 6 February 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Mount Berlin on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Emma Neural.

Scientists involved in an ambitious attempt to drill deep into the rock below the West Antarctic Ice Sheet say their efforts got "tantalising close", and they will try again in November. The international team of experts melted a hole through the 580-metre-thick Ross Ice Shelf in a bid to retrieve ancient sediment from the last time Earth was at hot as it will become in the next few decades. They say this will reveal clues about how the ice sheet behaved then, and how quickly it might disintegrate now. But they fell just short of their goal, drilling for sediment samples 200 metres below the ocean floor. Richard Levy of GNS Science and Victoria University led the team on the ice. Levy spoke to Corin Dann.

*** How history's largest ape met its end *** For nearly two million years, a gigantic ape, three meters tall and weighing a quarter of a tonne, lived in what is now southern China, before mysteriously disappearing. Exactly why the Gigantopithecus Blacki went extinct has been a huge mystery for paleontologists, especially because other apes were able to thrive at the time. Now a massive study, co-led by geochronologist Kira Westaway of Macquarie University, reveals their size was a disadvantage, and left them unable to adapt to a changing climate. The research was published in the journal Nature. *** People with PTSD process their trauma as if it's happening in the present *** Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts that cause people to relive their trauma. In a new study in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists have figured out that this is reflected in brain activity. Daniela Schiller, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, said their brains respond differently with traumatic memories than with ordinary memories, causing the traumatic memories to feel as if they are happening in the present, rather than the past. *** Paleontologists identify animal skin 4½ times older than the last dinosaurs *** A fossilised skin sample discovered in an Oklahoma cave is the oldest skin sample ever identified. It belonged to a reptile species that lived nearly 300 million years ago. Ethan Mooney, a paleontology masters student at the University of Toronto, said this skin fossil gives insight into how the first vertebrate animals adapted to a more protective with the critical transition from ocean to land. Their research was published in the journal Current Biology. *** How an octopus told us the West Antarctic ice sheet collapsed *** Scientists are trying to learn when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet last collapsed, in order to learn when it might happen again. In a new study, published in the journal Science, Sally Lau at James Cook University analyzed the DNA of Turquet's octopuses, which have been scuttling around the Antarctic sea floor for millions of years. These octopuses are today separated by massive ice sheets, but by looking at when different populations were able to breed throughout history, they could see when the ice wasn't there. *** Geologic Hydrogen could be clean, green and plentiful *** More than a century ago we discovered that there were rich deposits of energy buried deep in Earth, and so oil and gas became the foundation of our industrial civilization. Now history might be repeating itself as scientists think there could be massive amounts of clean, green hydrogen hiding underground as well. Quirks producer Jim Lebans spoke with Geochemist Barbara Sherwood Lollar from the University of Toronto, and geologist Geoffrey Ellis from the United States Geological Survey to understand where this hydrogen has come from, how much there is, and what its potential could be as an energy resource.

On the cusp of the COP28 climate talks, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited frozen-but-rapidly melting Antarctica on Nov. 23 and said intense action must be taken at the conference where countries will address their commitments to lowering emissions of planet-warming gases. “We are witnessing an acceleration that is absolutely devastating,” Guterres said about the rate of ice melt in Antarctica, which is considered to be a “sleeping giant.” “The Antarctic is waking up and the world must wake up,” he added. Guterres is in a three-day official visit to Antarctica and Chile's President Gabriel Boric joined him on an official visit to Chile's Eduardo Frei Air Force Base at King George Island on the continent. Guterres also was scheduled to visit the Collins and Nelson glaciers by boat. He said that COP28 is an opportunity for nations to “decide the phase-out of fossil fuels in an adequate time frame” in order to prevent the world from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures. He said it also creates the opportunity for nations to commit to more renewable energy projects and improve energy efficiency of existing grids and technologies. Warming air and ocean temperatures are causing Antarctic ice to melt. The frozen continent plays a significant role in regulating Earth's climate because it reflects sunlight away and drives major ocean currents. For years, scientists and environmentalists have kept an eye on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet as an important indicator of global warming. A study published in Nature Climate Change in October said warming has increased to the point that the ice sheet will now experience “unavoidable” melting regardless of how much the world reduces emissions of planet-warming gases like carbon dioxide. The study's lead author, Kaitlin Naughten, estimated that melting ice in Antarctica's most at-risk areas could raise global sea levels by about 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) over the next few centuries. Another study published in Science Advances reported that nearly 50 Antarctic ice shelves have shrunk by at least 30% since 1997 and 28 of those have lost more than half their ice in that short period of time. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A new study says that no matter how much the world cuts back on carbon emissions, a large and important part of Antarctica is expected to disappear. 一项新的研究表明，无论世界减少多少碳排放，南极洲的大部分重要地区都将消失。 Researchers used computer models to predict the future melting of protective ice around Antarctica's Amundsen Sea in western Antarctica. They said the “unavoidable” melting will take hundreds of years. It will slowly add nearly 1.8 meters to sea levels. And it will be enough to reshape where and how people live in the future. 研究人员利用计算机模型预测了南极洲西部阿蒙森海周围保护性冰的未来融化情况。他们表示，“不可避免”的融化将需要数百年的时间。海平面将缓慢上升近1.8米。这足以重塑人们未来的居住地点和生活方式。 The study was published recently in Nature Climate Change. It found that even if future warming was limited to just a few tenths of a degree more, it would have “limited power to prevent ocean warming that could lead to the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.” 该研究最近发表在《自然·气候变化》杂志上。研究发现，即使未来的变暖幅度仅限于零点几度，“防止海洋变暖导致西南极冰盖崩塌的能力也有限”。 Many scientists say the goal of just a few tenths of a degree of warming is unlikely to be met. 许多科学家表示，将气温升高零点几度的目标不太可能实现。“Our main question here was: How much control do we still have over ice shelf melting? How much melting can still be prevented by reducing emissions?” said study lead writer Kaitlin Naughten. She is an expert on oceans at the British Antarctic Survey. “我们的主要问题是：我们对冰架融化还有多少控制力？通过减少排放还可以防止多少融化？” 研究主要作者凯特琳·诺顿说。她是英国南极调查局的海洋专家。 She said their research suggests that Earth is set on the path to a quick increase in the rate of ocean warming and ice shelf melting over the rest of the century. 她说，他们的研究表明，在本世纪剩余时间内，地球将走上海洋变暖和冰架融化速度迅速加快的道路。 While past studies have talked about how serious the situation is, Naughten was the first to use computer modeling to study how warm water from below will melt the ice. 虽然过去的研究已经讨论了情况的严重性，但诺顿是第一个使用计算机模型来研究来自下面的温水如何融化冰的人。 The study looked at four different cases in how much carbon emissions the world produces. In each case, ocean warming was just too much for this area of the ice to survive, the study found. 该研究考察了世界碳排放量的四种不同情况。研究发现，在每种情况下，海洋变暖都导致该区域的冰无法生存。 Naughten looked at melting, floating areas of ice that hold back glaciers. Once these areas of ice melt, there is nothing to stop the glaciers behind them from flowing into the sea. 诺顿观察了正在融化、漂浮的冰块，这些冰块阻碍了冰川的形成。一旦这些区域的冰融化，就没有什么可以阻止它们后面的冰川流入大海。 The study also looked at what would happen if future warming was limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius over mid-19th century levels: the international goal. They found the runaway melting process in this case as well. 该研究还研究了如果未来气温升高限制在 19 世纪中叶水平的 1.5 摄氏度之内会发生什么：国际目标。他们在这种情况下也发现了失控的熔化过程。 The world has already warmed about 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times and much of this summer went past the 1.5 degrees mark. 自前工业化时代以来，全球气温已经升高了约 1.2 摄氏度，今年夏天的大部分时间都超过了 1.5 摄氏度。 Naughten's study looked at the part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that is most at risk from melting from below, near the Amundsen Sea. It includes the very large Thwaites ice shelf that is melting so fast it is called “the Doomsday Glacier.”诺顿的研究着眼于西南极冰盖中阿蒙森海附近最有可能从下方融化的部分。它包括非常大的思韦茨冰架，该冰架融化速度如此之快，被称为“世界末日冰川”。 That part of Antarctica “is doomed,” said University of California Irvine ice scientist ice scientist Eric Rignot. He was not part of the study. He added, “The damage has already been done.” 加州大学欧文分校的冰科学家埃里克·里格诺特（Eric Rignot）表示，南极洲的这一部分“注定要灭亡”。他没有参与这项研究。他补充说：“损害已经造成了。” Naughten does not like to use the word “doomed,” because she said 100 years from now, the world might not just stop but drive back carbon levels in the air and climate change. But she said what is happening now on the ground is a slow collapse that cannot be stopped, at least not in this century. 诺顿不喜欢使用“注定”这个词，因为她说，100年后，世界可能不仅会停止，还会降低空气中的碳水平和气候变化。但她表示，目前正在发生的事情正在缓慢崩溃，无法阻止，至少在本世纪无法阻止。

Facts & Spins for October 25, 2023 Top Stories: Turkey's Erdoğan submits Sweden's NATO bid to parliament, China's foreign minister schedules a visit to Washington, Israel amps up its bombardment of Gaza as two Israeli hostages are freed, the US seeks the forfeiture of a sanctioned Russian businessman's $300M yacht, several Republicans call for Ukraine-Israel aid to be separated, Iceland's prime minister joins the largest women's strike in decades, Georgia upholds a six-week abortion ban, an off-duty US pilot is accused of trying to tamper with a plane mid-flight, three Chinese drugmakers are accused of using endangered animals in their products, and the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is found to be 'unavoidable.' Sources: https://www.verity.news/

Madeleine Finlay hears from environment editor Damian Carrington about a new study by the British Antarctic Survey, which shows Antarctic ice may be melting even faster than we thought. He also reflects on the life and career of former environment editor John Vidal, whose death was announced last week. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

Rising sea levels threaten Florida property values and its economy; 'Superfog' triggers massive, deadly vehicle pileup in Louisiana; New study confirms hurricanes really are undergoing rapid intensification more frequently, due to global warming; PLUS: Melting of the huge West Antarctic Ice Sheet may have already passed the point of no return... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

When it goes, nothing will stop the glaciers going to the sea & raising sea level 2 m.

Tara Sweeney is a United States Air Force Academy graduate, a Space Camp Hall of Fame inductee, a corporate leader in advanced technology test and evaluation events, a former crew member on parabolic research flights, a private pilot, and a graduate of SpaceKind training. She has been instrumental in establishing and executing the Cosmic Odyssey Scholarship as a mentor to Niko Blanks. In addition to being a proven leader, entrepreneur, and STEM mentor to many organizations, individuals, and students, Tara is a field geologist who recently returned from a 102-day Antarctic science expedition to McMurdo Station, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, Thwaites Glacier, and the McMurdo Dry Valleys. She is currently working on PhD research related to rocket seismology, impact cratering, and field techniques and technology in preparation for extravehicular activity on the lunar surface.  As a matter of fact, Tara Sweeny and her team laid out the largest number of seismometers in the history of Antarctic exploration and scientific achievement (deploying 457 seismometers)! Why is this important to Tara? In her current research as a Ph. D candidate, she's investigating using a similar seismic array on the Moon, on Mars, to understand the human influences of our presence on other planetary bodies and here at home. We discuss how seismometers work, Antarctica adventures, Moonquakes, Earthquakes, and Marsquakes, milkshakes and being wicked awesome!    Where to find Tara  On Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sweeneytl  On LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/taralsweeney/  More Wicked Awesomeness about Tara Tara Sweeney has been inspiring children and adults to see the wonder of space exploration and the importance of the STEM fields that make it possible for nearly four decades. She has served as CEO, President, Interim Executive Director, COO, CSO, and Vice President, of technology test and evaluation organizations focused on operations in austere and hazardous environments for national defense, homeland security, and intelligence community projects. Tara is a retired United States Air Force Special Operations Command Officer. She has engaged in both military and civilian aviation activities, including as a single-engine aircraft pilot, a glider student pilot, a helicopter maintenance officer, a parabolic flight coach, and a parabolic flight attendant. Tara has accumulated approximately five hours in microgravity while conducting space-based research experiments and training participants how to experience reduced gravity. She previously served as the leader of the world-renowned STEM education program, Space Camp, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and was inducted into the Space Camp Hall of Fame in 2018. Tara holds degrees from the United States Air Force Academy, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Regis University. She is currently pursuing her doctorate at the University of Texas at El Paso. Tara is from Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and has twice been inducted into the Fitchburg High School Athletic Hall of Fame as an Individual Inductee and as a Team Inductee. She presently lives in El Paso, Texas, with her wife, Dr. Jennifer Bishop, and their dog, Sylvia.  

“The World Is Passing Away and So Is Its Desire” is part of a soundtrack to the end-of-the-world horror film we are currently living in. In this scene, the polar ice shelves are stalked and devoured by a terrible beast, the embodiment of the human consumption driving climate change. "I had two sources of inspiration for my piece, the first being the general fear surrounding the disintegration of polar ice, the effect on coastal areas and sea waters, along with the loss of human and animal life. In particular, I had recently been reading about the Thwaites Glacier and its Ice Shelf, which is part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is likely to collapse within the next decade due to climate change and when it does, sea levels will rise dramatically. It is hanging on by a thread, but is only part of the larger problem.  "The second is the Native American mythology of the wendigo, which are monsters formed by gluttony, greed, selfishness and cannibalism. The wendigo is an emaciated, skeletal creature, making whistling sounds, and mimics human voices. It consumes and is never satisfied. The human that it once was is frozen inside where the heart should be-and the only way to free them is to kill them. It speaks to the darkest parts of humanity, and feels like what we have inadvertently become. "In the theatre of my mind, I imagined a giant wendigo, created by collective greed, selfishness and denial, chewing up everything in its path- here, the ice of the poles. Our humanity, goodness and best intentions are frozen inside this monster of consumption, that is endless and unstoppable. The ice cries as the monster approaches, and its heartbeat stops as it is torn apart with only the wind remaining. The base sample (024 collapsing shelf ice) is utilised as both the sound of the heartbeat and as it is consumed at the end.  "I would also like to mention that the sound of cries in the piece were made by the howls of wolves recorded from the Wolf Conservation Center in New York, which cares for Mexican grey wolves and red wolves, both on the brink of extinction by human hands. There are 186 and 8 remaining in the wild, respectively.  "The title comes from the Bible verse John 2:17, which talks about the end of the world- as do the accompanying lines in the piece itself from “The End of the World” by American poet Archibald MacLeish- two different views of the end of things brought into the context of this piece." Collapsing shelf ice reimagined by Gabriel Edvy. Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

by Marissa Grunes • It's the world's most vulnerable glacier and key to the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, yet we're only now getting to know Thwaites Glacier. What took us so long? The original story, along with photos and video, can be found on hakaimagazine.com.

The effects of our changing climate extend from main street to the ends of the Earth. Warmer air and oceans are melting the ice cap at the north pole, for example. And a recent study says the same thing is happening in the Antarctic.In recent decades, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been melting at an increasing pace. It contains about six million cubic miles of ice. But glaciers on its edge are getting smaller. Scientists have suspected that global climate change is playing a role. But natural changes in the Pacific Ocean also change the rate at which the glaciers melt.A recent study tried to separate the natural variations from those caused by humans. Researchers looked at Antarctic ice records compiled by satellites over the last 40 years. They also looked at records of changes in the Pacific Ocean going back a century. Those changes have a direct influence on conditions in the Antarctic. The researchers then used climate models to simulate what’s going on.They found that warmer air is changing the winds across West Antarctica. Instead of blowing mainly from the east, the easterly and westerly winds balance out. That’s allowing warmer waters to flow past the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The warmer water melts some of the ice.On average, the glaciers are losing enough ice to increase global sea level by a couple of inches over the next century. As the air gets even warmer, though, that rate should increase – adding more water to the oceans at the bottom of the world.

The effects of our changing climate extend from main street to the ends of the Earth. Warmer air and oceans are melting the ice cap at the north pole, for example. And a recent study says the same thing is happening in the Antarctic.In recent decades, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been melting at an increasing pace. It contains about six million cubic miles of ice. But glaciers on its edge are getting smaller. Scientists have suspected that global climate change is playing a role. But natural changes in the Pacific Ocean also change the rate at which the glaciers melt.A recent study tried to separate the natural variations from those caused by humans. Researchers looked at Antarctic ice records compiled by satellites over the last 40 years. They also looked at records of changes in the Pacific Ocean going back a century. Those changes have a direct influence on conditions in the Antarctic. The researchers then used climate models to simulate what’s going on.They found that warmer air is changing the winds across West Antarctica. Instead of blowing mainly from the east, the easterly and westerly winds balance out. That’s allowing warmer waters to flow past the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The warmer water melts some of the ice.On average, the glaciers are losing enough ice to increase global sea level by a couple of inches over the next century. As the air gets even warmer, though, that rate should increase – adding more water to the oceans at the bottom of the world.

We speak to Helen Amanda Fricker about Lake Whillans beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and how the WISSARD project obtained the first ever uncontaminated sample from an Antarctic sub-glacial lake, after drilling down into its icy depths.

Ricarda Winkelmann Colder, windier, drier than anywhere else on the globe - Antarctica is a continent of superlatives. It is covered by a massive ice-sheet, storing water equivalent to more than 50 meters of global sea-level rise. The ice is constantly moving, flowing from the continent's interior towards the ocean - forming, melting, re-freezing, breaking. To this day, these complex dynamics of the Antarctic Ice Sheet are the key challenge for projections of future sea-level rise under climate change. Recent observations show that part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is rapidly retreating, and that this retreat is likely irreversible on human timescales. Other regions are currently protected by so-called ice plugs, small volumes of ice which hinder the onset of a dynamic instability. However, man-made climate change increases the risk of triggering persistent ice discharge from the adjacent basins into the ocean. We will review the processes behind these dynamic (in)stabilities and explore the implications for future sea-level rise. Burning all of the world's available fossil-fuel resources could eventually result in the complete melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and cause long-term global sea-level rise unprecedented in human history.

An expedition to east Antarctica's Totten glacier returns with evidence suggesting that east Antarctica may not be as resistant to melting as once thought.

An expedition to east Antarctica's Totten glacier returns with evidence suggesting that east Antarctica may not be as resistant to melting as once thought.

A big chunk of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is collapsing. Scientists announced in May that it's now inevitable -- though it will take decades or even centuries to happen. The collapse will cause a big rise in sea level. Eric Rignot is the lead author of one of the studies that reached that conclusion, and he's a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and at UC-Irvine. He talked with Alex Chadwick.

In this edition, we see a 25 km long crack in the largest glacier of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, how hikers and walkers could be unwittingly changing the landscape by spreading alien species; what it's like to work as a marine biologist in the Arctic in temperatures of minus 40C; and exactly how stable is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, how hikers and walkers could be unwittingly changing the landscape by spreading alien species; what it's like to work as a marine biologist in the Arctic in temperatures of minus 40C; and exactly how stable is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

This week in the Planet Earth Podcast, how hikers and walkers could be unwittingly changing the landscape by spreading alien species; what it's like to work as a marine biologist in the Arctic in temperatures of minus 40C; and exactly how stable is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet?

In this latest watery-themed Planet Earth Podcast, Richard Hollingham hears how the underwater world isn't the soundless place you might imagine. From chirping, gurgling and snapping sounds from busy coral reefs to clicking sperm whales, scientists are finding that all sorts of marine life use sounds to find a suitable home, to find a mate, to avoid being eaten or to communicate. First up, we hear from a marine biologist from the University of Bristol who explains how manmade noise might not affect just whales and dolphins, but also much smaller creatures that live in and around coral reefs.... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

In this latest watery-themed Planet Earth Podcast, Richard Hollingham hears how the underwater world isn't the soundless place you might imagine. From chirping, gurgling and snapping sounds from busy coral reefs to clicking sperm whales, scientists are finding that all sorts of marine life use sounds to find a suitable home, to find a mate, to avoid being eaten or to communicate. First up, we hear from a marine biologist from the University of Bristol who explains how manmade noise might not affect just whales and dolphins, but also much smaller creatures that live in and around coral reefs. Later, Richard meets a British Antarctic Survey scientist to find out how fossils of tiny marine creatures called bryozoans give us clues about when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet last collapsed. We also hear the strange clicking sounds sperm whales use to communicate with each other, and find out how very far leatherback turtles can swim.

In this latest watery-themed Planet Earth Podcast, Richard Hollingham hears how the underwater world isn't the soundless place you might imagine. From chirping, gurgling and snapping sounds from busy coral reefs to clicking sperm whales, scientists are finding that all sorts of marine life use sounds to find a suitable home, to find a mate, to avoid being eaten or to communicate. First up, we hear from a marine biologist from the University of Bristol who explains how manmade noise might not affect just whales and dolphins, but also much smaller creatures that live in and around coral reefs.... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists