Could octopus DNA reveal the secrets of west Antarctica’s ice sheet collapse?

Understanding what happened to the ice sheet will be key to knowing what the future holds for global sea levelsThere are a lot of scientific eyes on west Antarctica right now, for some pretty obvious reasons.The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) holds a lot of water – enough to push up sea levels around the world by 3m or so.The future of the planet is tied up in that ice.I think the timing for this is right. We now have the genetic tools more refined than ever before and we are moving into the era of interdisciplinary scientific research. There’s a lot of eyes on Antarctica right now and a lot of scientists want to know what’s going to happen.It is worth noting that historical science, including paleoclimatic research and other research into Earth’s past and life’s evolution, does indeed generate hypotheses and do new experiments, just as in other branches of science – our ‘historical science’ really is science.We are limited to studying the materials left behind from past times but other branches of science do face limitations as well and, like them, we work hard to find the ways to use the possible to answer key questions. We’re not even close to exhausting the possibilities, and may never be, so there is still much to learn. I hope that this new idea is similarly tested.We could be committing the world to these higher sea levels this century, depending on our emissions. In addition to what emission and climate trajectories we will choose, the question is how quickly these multimetre sea-level rises could occur. One of the major issues in refining estimates of rates of future sea level rise is the future of the WAIS and other marine ice sheet areas in Antarctica. Continue reading...