Melting glaciers: Collapse or catastrophe?

IN 1973 a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research asked, "Is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Disintegrating?" Scientists have been fretting about the possibility ever since. Two papers published this week suggest the answer may be yes.The studies examine six glaciers which, were they to melt entirely, would raise the sea level by as much as 1.2 metres--more than double what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects to happen anyway by 2100. The papers do not predict quite such a dr...