Thwaites Glacier could rival entire Antarctic ice loss

 Models warn Thwaites Glacier may match all Antarctic ice loss by 2067

New research warns Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica could lose 180–200 gigatonnes of ice annually by 2067, rivaling the continent’s current total ice loss. The projection, based on satellite-calibrated models, underscores the glacier’s accelerating instability and its potential to sharply raise global sea levels. Scientists stress improved observation and model calibration are critical to refining future predictions. Thwaites Glacier is currently losing ice five times faster than in the 1990s. The future of one of Antarctica's most iconic glaciers could be far more dramatic than scientists previously thought. Using satellite calibrated ice sheet models, a team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh revealed this. This would represent a stunning acceleration in ice loss from a single glacier and underlines urgent concerns about future contributions to sea level rise. Thwaites Glacier is already one of the fastest changing and most closely watched glaciers on Earth. It drains a huge area of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and outlets into the Amundsen Sea. In recent decades, observations from satellites have shown that it has been thinning and accelerating, losing more ice to the ocean than it gains from snowfall. This imbalance is what drives its contribution to global sea level rise.

Understanding how much ice could be lost in the coming decades is not just a matter of measuring what's happening now. Scientists rely on computer models which simulate the physics of ice flow, ocean melting, and changing surface conditions, but those models need to be calibrated against real observations, in this case, data on how fast the glacier surface is lowering and how the ice is moving. The findings show that model calibration choices, especially using surface elevation change data, strongly influence future loss projections. Why does this matter to people far from the poles? Because ice that melts into the ocean raises global sea levels. Even if Thwaites Glacier were to continue shedding ice at "only" current rates, tens of billions of metric tons/year, it contributes measurably to rising sea levels. If the rate climbs toward the 180–200 gigatonne range, the glacier's contribution could accelerate faster than many global projections assume. For context, the Antarctic ice sheet has been losing roughly 135–150 gigatonnes of ice/year over the past two decades. Sea level rise may seem abstract, but its impacts are concrete. Even a few tens of centimeters of additional sea level rise can worsen coastal flooding, intensify storm surges and alter shoreline ecosystems. Scientists estimate that Thwaites Glacier alone holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by about 65 cm if it were to fully collapse, an amount that could reshape coastlines and threaten low-lying cities if spread over coming centuries.

Scientists report Antarctica is undergoing 'Greenlandification,' with rapid surface melt, ice shelf loss, and grounding line retreat resembling Greenland's patterns. West Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea Embayment, home to Thwaites, has seen ice flow accelerate by 50% since the 1990s. Loss of ice shelves removes vital buttressing, exposing outlet glaciers to faster retreat, amplifying the risk of large-scale ice loss. The new findings do not mean that Thwaites Glacier will hit a catastrophic loss rate exactly by 2067 as models represent a range of possibilities, and future climate conditions and ocean warming will shape actual outcomes. But they do show that if current trends continue and specific model assumptions hold, the glacier's mass loss could accelerate sharply within a few decades. Scientists emphasize that getting the model calibration right matters, because it helps ensure projections of future sea level rise are grounded in what the ice sheet is actually doing now. One of the key findings of the new study is that the way models are "trained" against observations strongly influences their long-term predictions. Models that were constrained using satellite measurements of surface elevation change (how the height of the glacier is decreasing over time) projected the largest future mass losses. Those projections suggest that by 2067, the rate of ice loss from Thwaites Glacier could equal what the entire Antarctic ice sheet currently contributes to sea level rise each year.

By contrast, calibrating models using only ice velocity data (how fast ice is moving toward the ocean) produced lower and more stable future loss rates. This discrepancy shows that what data scientists choose to emphasize when calibrating models can dramatically change the future picture scientists paint for Thwaites Glacier. While both approaches capture important behaviors, the models incorporating surface elevation changes appear to match the recent observed patterns of thinning most consistently. Even at current loss rates, Thwaites Glacier measurably contributes to sea level rise; at projected rates, impacts could outpace many global forecasts. Scientists warn that marine ice sheet instability and focused inland thinning along deep troughs could accelerate retreat. Another important detail from the research is where the thinning is happening. The models show focused patterns of ice thinning spreading inland along deep troughs beneath the glacier, potentially indicating areas which are particularly vulnerable to continued melt and retreat. These deep troughs are a hallmark of what scientists call marine ice sheet instability, a process where a glacier resting on a bed which slopes downward inland can become harder to slow once melt and retreat begin.

A British Antarctic Survey and Korea Polar Research Institute team drilled deep into Thwaites Glacier, capturing striking images of layered ice and subglacial caves. The attempt, hindered by shifting ice and severe weather, aimed to deploy instruments to study warm water melting the glacier from below. Although the mission was cut short, researchers say the site is crucial for understanding ice-ocean interactions driving ice loss. One of the lessons from this study is that better observations lead to better models. As satellites continue to collect data on surface elevation, ice flow speed and grounding line retreat (the point where grounded ice lifts off the bed and begins to float), scientists will be able to refine models and reduce uncertainties. Grounding lines are particularly important because changes there can herald rapid phases of retreat. Researchers also stress the need to understand how the ocean interacts with the ice from below, warm water circulating beneath the floating ice shelves can melt ice from the underside and weaken the glacier's grip on the bedrock. This ocean-ice interaction is a key driver of current changes in the Amundsen Sea sector, where Thwaites Glacier sits. Observations of water properties and ice-ocean contact zones are already helping to improve model physics.

In the years to come, sea level rise projections will likely continue to evolve as models incorporate more detailed physics and more comprehensive observational constraints. But the central message from the new study is clear: Thwaites Glacier's future could be more dynamic and impactful than previously thought, and the way scientists calibrate models matters for understanding that future. Researchers stress that better observations of surface elevation, ice velocity, grounding lines and sub-ice ocean conditions are essential to improve accuracy. Ocean-ice interactions, including warm water melting from below and hydrofracturing from above, remain difficult to model yet critical to understanding future ice loss. Enhanced data will help reduce uncertainties and guide policy responses to rising sea levels of the world.

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What to Expect from coming 6G?

6G is the Next Generation of Cellular Tech  

It feels like 5G just came yesterday, but we're already looking ahead to 6G. Here's everything you need to know about it. After a long 5G rollout, we're finally at the point where flagship phones and networks no longer need to advertise the current cellular technology as a feature, it's the standard. To that end, we're seeing 5G coverage improve nationwide, and new form factors like smartwatches are starting to support the network, too. You may have just gotten used to using 5G instead of 4G LTE, but 6G is much closer than you think. When it succeeds 5G in 2030, the next-gen mobile network will focus on upload speeds, AI and radar-like “sensing” of vehicles, devices and people. 5G came with many promises. Remote surgery, where surgeons operate thousands of miles away from patients; driverless cars talking to each other and autonomously navigating highways; new killer apps which would change the world as Uber did. But the cellular technology which succeeded 4G LTE didn't live up to the hype. The networking tech brought real benefits to the world, from improved latency, reducing the time it takes for data to travel from one point to another, to broader and faster coverage in dense urban areas. But most people likely won't point to 5G delivering a meaningful change in their lives like many carriers suggested as they tried to justify mass spending on their infrastructure build-outs.

At MWC 2026, industry leaders like Qualcomm and Nvidia shared their visions for the upcoming 6G mobile network, with a boatload of corporate partners in tow. For the average user, the buildout of 6G infrastructure and companies working together isn't exciting. You want to know what you'll actually be able to do with 6G. We now have that answer, and it's pretty exciting. Right now, 6G is currently in development and in the research and study phase. It will continue into 2027 and 2028, when pre-commercial devices will be tested. Then, the commercialization of 6G will happen the following year. This means you'll be able to start using 6G at the end of this decade, with the mobile network likely going mainstream in the 2030s. It sounds far away, but it'll come sooner than you think, bringing new AI and XR experiences with it. Well, get ready to hear that aspirational, forward-looking, and sometimes maybe deluded language again, this time in the lead-up to 6G, which is being paired with “AI” to create a marketing bingo bonanza. Even if the tech won't deliver a night-and-day difference to average folks like us, the industry is moving the goalposts. At Barcelona, key players like Qualcomm, Ericsson, and Nokia kicked off the hype about the next G of mobile networks. Everything goes back to artificial intelligence these days, and 6G is no exception. However, there are signs that the AI-connected world we're building will demand more from our mobile networks, and that's where 6G comes in. Specifically, global wide area network (WAN) traffic is expected to jump by between three and seven times by 2034, compared to 2023 traffic data. AI is also going to account for roughly 30% of all network traffic, according to current projections.

The AI takeover will demand faster, lower-latency connections, hence the need to deploy 6G, but it's about more than just raw traffic spikes. Industry leaders see a future where AI agents become the centerpiece of mobile ecosystems. Right now, your phone is the heart of your technology portfolio, and it connects with earbuds, smartwatches, tablets, laptops and more. In the future, AI agents might be orchestrating these hardware categories, connecting them all with streamlined software. This sounds pretty interesting, but if AI agents are working across multiple wireless devices at once, they need fast connections. That's why 6G is being built to address these traffic and speed needs. We're expecting 6G to offer a five times greater traffic capacity than 5G, and 50% higher spectral efficiency for uplink and downlink connectivity. In simple terms, this means your AI devices will be able to connect with each other and cloud servers faster than ever before. 6G will deliver connected experiences that aren't currently possible due to latency limitations. Mobile networking technology evolves every 10 or so years. We can expect 6G to be deployed globally by 2030, though some carriers could launch it in specific regions a year or two earlier. Technical discussions are already underway by industry leaders, including the mobile broadband standards body, the 3GPP. As blueprints take shape, the official requirements for 6G performance will be set by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), which will be called International Mobile Telecommunications-2030, or IMT-2030. (Following the decade-long upgrade cycle, 5G was IMT-2020, 4G was IMT-2010, and 3G was IMT-2000.)

6G will elevate public infrastructure in the next decade. 6G will also enable a sensory network which can use RF signals and drones to map out environments, powering new kinds of infrastructure, like self-driving car networks. As self-driving car systems like Waymo become mainstream, you'll need a fast, low-latency network to connect cars to control centers. You'll also need to be able to process data from sensors like cameras, radar, or LiDAR, in a near instant, and 6G will make that possible. The rollout will start with new radios on cell towers and buildings and the build-out of the computer core that orchestrates interactions between the network and the public internet. Naturally, devices will need to support 6G, so you'll eventually have to upgrade to a 6G phone the same way you needed a 5G phone. Every generation of cellular attempts to do two things at a very broad level. It attempts to overcome the limitations of the previous generation, and it attempts to add new functionality which is considered to be important. If your goal was simply to have your phone perform better and get faster speeds, then 5G is a success because your phone now is typically getting in the range of 100 to 200 megabits of downlink. That's why it's pretty easy to load up a YouTube video when you're out and about today. But where 5G had to cut corners was the uplink, and this will be a big focus of improvement with 6G. The goal is to make upload speeds symmetrical with download speeds. Even so, you can expect the usual improvements in download speed as 6G may tap into the Terahertz (THz) spectrum, higher than mm wave used in 5G, though with even shorter range, and, like with every new generation, the number of devices served by a cell tower will also go up.

Robotics is another emerging technology that's not too far away, with companies like Tesla going all-in on humanoid robots which could be controlled remotely. Just like with self-driving cars, robots need a fast and efficient network to work properly. 6G's biggest feature might be its capacity upgrade, as new uses for mobile networks like AI, self-driving cars, and robotics will increase congestion. 5G isn't fast enough, nor does it have enough capacity for the expected traffic spikes. 6G aims to solve both of those problems, and you can expect to see advances in autonomous vehicles, robotics, AI, and spatial computing coincide with the upgraded mobile network when it's ready for a commercial release. Another big feature you'll hear around 6G is “sensing,” also called joint communications and sensing, or JCAS. Think of a network functioning as a radar system, where it can infer the presence of objects and people as high-frequency radio signals bounce back to towers. This could allow operators to know precise locations of objects, their shape and size, how fast they're moving, and what kind of materials they may be made of. “There's a lot of discussion around using the 6G infrastructure when it's deployed to detect the presence of drones flying through the air, vehicles on the ground,” says Richard Burbidge, principal technologist at the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions. “I wouldn't say everyone is convinced of the business at the end of the day, but some operators see there's going to be business in offering that kind of sensing information to third parties for whatever applications it could be used for.” Naturally, there are significant privacy implications for a network that can precisely detect people, objects and movement without the need for a camera, a similar parallel we've seen with Google's Soli technology, which can detect human movements using radar alone. There's plenty more on the horizon for 6G, whether that's improving power efficiency so that the cell network doesn't consume a large chunk of the global electrical grid or more deliberate integrations with satellites to plug the coverage gaps in terrestrial networks. 

6G will make XR and spatial computing mainstream. Speaking of connected experiences, 6G will go a long way in making mixed-reality XR experiences mainstream. Currently, devices like Meta Ray-Ban Display or Samsung Galaxy XR are bottlenecked by how much data can be transferred to deliver high-quality video, AI processing, and gaming performance. Then it arrives, 6G will improve these experiences by providing higher uplink speeds capable of supporting multiple 4K or 8K video streams. 4G LTE is still in use today in conjunction with 5G, so don't expect 5G to disappear once 6G starts rolling out. Carriers have made it clear that they want 6G to stand on its own two legs, without the kind of previous-gen dependence that we saw with 5G. Uplink is the data you send to the network. Demand for faster upload speeds has been growing for a few years, especially after remote work became the norm during the pandemic and we all came to rely on videoconferencing. Today, increasingly large files are being sent to cloud servers for AI processing, from security camera footage to generative AI photo and video editing. The demand for faster uploads will continue to grow as companies trot out new kinds of mobile devices, like smart glasses, smartwatches, AI wearables, and earbuds, that plug into the cloud. We are uploading a lot more to the network now because of AI. We're shoving unparsed, unanalyzed raw data to a cloud and hoping that AI will figure it out. If you think about it in a mobile context, then you have a problem of how much is being uploaded to the network. 5G also expanded Fixed Wireless Access, with carriers providing 5G home internet instead of fiber optic or cable connections. This will expand with 6G; it's another reason why upload speeds will become a main focus.

Outside of uploads, you'll likely hear a lot more about AI being “integrated into the network.” It's not the same as AI managing the 6G network itself, though that's a separate talking point. Take streaming a movie as an example. You're typically not receiving that stream from your streaming provider's servers, like Netflix. Instead, it comes from a content distribution node, hosted by your internet service provider. ISPs have public distribution nodes all over the network. When you're talking to your AI chatbot, usually your request is sent through your provider to your chatbot company's data centers far away, then it comes back to you, likely with a bit of a delay. With 6G, we may see “AI nodes” in the cellular network, which serve specific regions, distributing the load so that there's not one data center handling millions of requests, a process called edge compute. If we ever get to the point where we have, say, self-driving 18-wheelers, the smart thing to do would be to put the 6G network along the major highways so that at any given time, the self-driving truck is only talking to an edge device that is along the highway. They don't have to clock out into the network; it cuts down on load, and the network can speed up response time. Since most XR glasses and headsets rely heavily on streaming, tethering, or cloud processing to provide features, a high-speed and low-latency mobile network like 6G could make use cases like game streaming or remote desktop control actually usable. It's all about cutting down the time you have to wait for your devices to talk with your phone and the cloud to return a response. So, when you look at something and ask a question while wearing camera-equipped smart glasses, the response will feel nearly instant when 6G arrives.

With 6G already an early focus at events like Mobile World Congress, we're seeing companies hyping it up just like they did 5G. Qualcomm's 6G blog says 6G “represents new paradigms” and suggests new use cases, such as “hologram telepresence, collaborative robots, human augmentation and deeper immersion to the digital and virtual worlds.” There are a lot of lessons learned from the marketing hype of 5G and that a big part of 6G will be a focus on the practical, not the fabulous. We see that with every generation. Especially the earlier in the process, the more hype there is, because the world is our oyster. We'll build a network that can do everything: flying cars, remote tele-surgery. We're also likely to see yet another wave of unfounded health fears surrounding 6G. Every decade, when carriers apply for permits to build towers, there are objections to the process from communities who believe that cellular technology is dangerous, even if there's plenty of evidence that it's safe. 

Muhammad (Peace be upon him) Name