Satellite view of icebergs breaking away from a glacier in West Antarctica into the Amundsen Sea
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin/Landsat 8
The melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet isn’t necessarily permanent, as bedrock cores show that some of its ice grew back after a more severe thaw thousands of years ago. The evidence suggests that Earth’s crust rebounding from under the diminishing ice, like a memory foam mattress, could slow glacial melt and sea level rise.
The ice sheet, which holds enough ice to raise oceans more than 3 metres, sits mostly below sea level. …