Sea levels are rising faster than at any point in human history, and for every foot that waters rise, 100 million people lose their homes. At current projections, that means about 300 million people will be forced to move in the decades to come, along with the social and political conflict as people migrate inland. Despite this looming crisis, the world still lacks specific, reliable forecasts for when and where the seas will rise – and we have invested almost nothing in understanding whether and how we can slow it down.

Societies must continue to focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s increasingly clear that the world needs to do more: we need to predict the future of the world’s ice with precision, and to explore safe, science-backed methods to keep it from melting away.

What does that look like? A growing group of scientists at universities and non-profits are testing a new approach, one that treats ice not as a distant, untouchable force, but as a system we can understand, anticipate and conserve.

The challenge is vast. The largest drivers of sea-level rise are ocean-bound glaciers whose loss is largely driven by warm ocean currents melting their undersides, a deep ocean process that will continue even as we reduce emissions. Like enormous ice cubes dumped into a glass of water, collapsing glaciers can raise sea levels precipitously.

Most concerning is the Florida-sized Thwaites glacier in west Antarctica, called the “doomsday glacier” because it is the keystone holding back the much larger west........

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