The Glacier That Could Change Everything: What Thwaites Teaches Us About Leadership, Urgency and Action with Dr Ted Scambos

About this episode:

Deep beneath the frozen frontier of Antarctica, a massive glacier the size of the UK is sliding toward the sea. Thwaites — known as the "Doomsday Glacier" — could raise global sea levels by more than two feet and trigger the collapse of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, reshaping coastlines and economies worldwide.

In this eye-opening conversation, Dr. Ted Scambos, Senior Research Scientist at the University of Colorado, joins Chris Cooper to reveal what satellite data and 24 Antarctic expeditions have taught him about climate tipping points, resilience, and human ingenuity. Together they explore how science, technology, and leadership intersect — and why the same qualities that help scientists survive in Antarctica are exactly what businesses need to navigate a warming, uncertain world.

From the race to decarbonise and the promise of clean energy to the rise of AI and data-driven climate solutions, this episode asks: What can leaders, innovators, and organisations for good learn from the planet's most extreme experiment? How can business step up where politics falters to create hope, not heat?

Because what happens in Antarctica affects every boardroom, every market, and every coastline — and the time for good leadership is now.

 

More about Dr Ted Scambos:

Dr. Ted Scambos is a Senior Research Scientist at the Earth Science and Observation Center, a part of CIRES at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He has specialised in using satellite data of the polar ice caps to map these regions in new ways, and study the effects of climate change in Antarctica.

Among his research interests are climate change impacts on the polar regions, Antarctic history, geochemistry and planetary science. He has studied the collapse of ice shelf areas and glacier acceleration in the Antarctic Peninsula, ice streams of the Ross Ice Shelf, and wind-snow interactions on the East Antarctic Plateau. A recent study used satellite thermal data to identify the coldest locations in Antarctica, and the processes that set the minimum winter temperatures. A major focus of his work now is developing instrumentation to monitor Antarctic climate and ocean circulation in areas of major change.

He holds a Masters degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Colorado at Boulder (1991). Dr. Scambos served as Lead Scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center for 14 years, and has mentored 6 Ph.D. and M.S. students. He has been on twenty-four expeditions to Antarctica, and has been a lecturer on two National Geographic cruises to the continent.

He is the author or co-author of more than 150 scientific articles, with funding from NASA, NSF, and USGS. He lives with his wife Kari in Lafayette, Colorado, and has two adult sons, Alex and Ben.