One of Antarctica’s most important glaciers is in a very precarious position as warming temperatures around the globe threaten to cause further deterioration. If the glacier reduces much further it may destabilise the glaciers over the entire region.
The Thwaites glacier, located in the Amundsen Sea in western Antarctica, is among the fastest-changing glaciers in the region, according to scientists. Along with Pine Island, also located in the Amundsen Sea, the two structures are responsible for the largest contribution of sea level rise out of Antarctica.
The Thwaites glacier is known by another name with its rate of melting being faster than ever — the “Doomsday Glacier.” As dense deep water delivers heat to the present-day ice-shelf cavity, it’s been melting the Doomsday Glacier’s ice shelves from below at a fast rate.
Thwaites is estimated in Nature Geoscience’s latest report to be about the size of Florida. Recently, the British Antarctic Survey mapped a critical area of the seafloor in front of the glacier that could contribute to faster melting in the future.
Satellite imagery released in 2020 by NASA of Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers (located side by side) have shown highly crevassed areas with open fractures. This is a sign that the “shear sides” on the glaciers (where the ice shelf is thin) had weakened structurally substantially over the past decade.
A glacier grows wherever snow accumulates faster than it melts. It retreats — that is, its terminal edge, the end of the glacial tongue, ends at progressively higher elevations — whenever melting exceeds accumulation. Scientists have now discovered (according to Nature Geoscience) that the retreat from of the Thwaites glacier is closer to more than 2.1 kilometers per year. Importantly, 2.1 kilometers a year is twice the rate observed by satellite imagery between 2011 and 2019.
Large calving events, when a large piece breaks off, occurred on Thwaites in October 2018 and February 2020, when an unprecedented retreat of the ice shelf occurred. The feedback process, likely triggered by new damage to the ice shelf, resulted in ice shelves being preconditioned for further disintegration and large calving events.
The Glacier Aerial View(Photo credit:iStockPhoto.com)
This makes the ice shelves on Thwaites and Pine Island more sensitive to extreme climate change in the ocean, atmosphere and sea ice.
If Thwaites melted entirely, it could cause sea levels to rise around 10 feet alone — having disastrous affects the world over. Even worse, If Thwaites and Pine Island were to destabilise, several of the neighbouring areas would also fall apart, causing a widespread collapse.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com