A sheet of ice in West Antarctica known as the “doomsday glacier” is “hanging by its nails,” according to a recent study. The melting and collapse of Thwaites Glacier larger than the state of Florida in the United States is virtually certain and the bill can be laid on climate change.
Scientists point out that rising temperatures are allowing warm ocean currents to flow through the base of the large ice floe, destabilizing it and causing it to pull away from shore.
Thwaite’s Glacier Doomsday 4
Scientists point out that the constant rise in temperature is allowing warm ocean currents to flow through the base of Thwaites Glacier, destabilizing it and causing it to break away from the shore. Nasa/Disclosure
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Thwaite’s Glacier Doomsday 2
Thwaite’s Glacier Doomsday 1
Scientists say Thwaites Glacier is ‘hanging by the nails’ and collapse is expected to have serious environmental consequences amid climate chaos NASA/OIB/Jeremy Harbeck
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The big problem: The melt has to be enough to raise the sea level by up to three meters. The destruction of coastal communities would be one of the main consequences.
Hence the nicknames “Doomsday Glacier”, “End of the World Glacier” or “Apocalypse Glacier”, which indicate the high risk of collapse and the threat to global sea levels.
Thwaites is one of the widest glaciers in the world. It is almost 129 kilometers wide and has been the focus of concern among experts for years. A 2019 study published by the US Space Agency (NASA) describes a huge cavity at the base of Thwaites Glacier, about 59 km² in size and nearly 300 meters high. It was undoubtedly a harbinger of the glacier’s eventual fate.
According to NASA, the gallery could represent a fraction of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels by as much as 4.8 meters. As the climate crisis progresses, the region has become a worrying problem due to its rapid melting and capacity for largescale coastal destruction.
fragile base
Thwaites is no ordinary glacier. It contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by nearly a meter, posing a threat to about 40% of the human population living in nearsea regions.
Its existence is of the utmost importance as a pivot and blocking point for the ice floes behind it. When they slide into the sea, these can lift the water of the ocean by about eight feet.
The study, published in Nature Geoscience, shows how quickly the situation is deteriorating as the block is increasingly at risk of falling as the planet continues to warm.
“Thwaites is really holding up today,” Robert Larter, coauthor of the study and marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey, said in a press release. “We should expect large changes on small timescales in the future even from one year to the next as the glacier retreats over a flat ridge in its bed.”
Scientists say Thwaites Glacier is “holding by its nails” and its collapse is expected to have severe environmental consequences amid climate chaos
Just one kick to fall apart
Research suggests the recent rate of doomsday glacier retreat is slower than in recent years. While this may seem like a good thing, it’s actually a bad sign. “Our results suggest that very rapid recoil pulses have been occurring in Thwaites Glacier for the last two centuries and possibly as late as the mid20th century,” explained Alastair Graham of the College of Marine Sciences at the University of South Florida and lead author of the study.
It turns out that as the glacier shrinks, the time span before another rapid melting event decreases. The study predicted the likelihood of another event occurring “in the next few decades.” “Just a little kick against Thwaites can result in a big reaction,” Graham said.
Apocalypse Glacier has troubled scientists for decades. In 1973, scientists analyzed whether she was at high risk of collapsing. Almost a decade later, it was discovered that warm ocean currents can melt the ice floe from below, making it unstable because it rests on the sea floor.
For this reason, scientists began to refer to the region around Thwaites as the “Weak Point of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet”.