The 'doomsday' glacier melts faster than ever

Warm water is impacting on all sides of the Thwaites Glacier, making the scenario where the entire ice shelf split and then empties into the ocean.

Antarctica's Thwaites glacier has been dubbed the 'doomsday glacier' because of its high risk of collapse and the threat to global sea levels. It holds enough water to raise the sea level by 3 m.

Scientists say the area of ​​this glacier will shrink very quickly in the coming years. This raises many concerns about extreme sea level rise, accompanied by the possibility of glacier collapse, according to CNN.

The world's fastest melting glaciers through satellite images 30 years apart.

The underwater edge of the glacier is being eroded by global warming. In a study published September 5 in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists mapped the glacier's shrinking process, hoping to figure out the future state of the glacier.

Research shows that at some point in the past two centuries, the bottom of the glacier has been dislodged from the seabed and deepened at a rate of 2.1km per year. This number is double what scientists have observed in recent times.

3D rendering of the bottom of the Thwaites Glacier.

Huge impact

'That rapid disintegration likely occurred as recently as the mid-twentieth century,' Alastair Graham, the study's lead author and marine geophysicist at the University of South Florida, said in a news release. solstice.

The parameters suggest that Thwaites is likely to disintegrate rapidly in the near future, especially as it separates from an undersea ridge that helps control the glacier's bottom.

'Thwaites really had to hold out. We're going to see big changes over a short period of time, even years, once the bottom of the glacier separates from the ridge,' said Robert Larter, marine geophysicist and co-author of the study from British Antarctic Survey, comment.

Thwaites Glacier located in West Antarctica is one of the widest glaciers on Earth, larger than the US state of Florida. According to NASA, this glacier is part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. This area contains enough ice to raise the sea level up to 5m.

US Antarctic Program research vessel near Thwaites Glacier.

As the climate crisis accelerates, the region has been closely watched for its rapid thaw and potential for widespread coastal destruction.

The Thwaites Glacier itself has worried scientists for decades. As early as 1973, researchers questioned whether it had a high risk of collapse.

Nearly a decade later, scientists discovered that the glacier was grounded on the seafloor instead of dry land on the shore. As a result, warm ocean currents can melt ice from the glacier's bottom, destabilizing it from below.

It was because of this study that scientists began calling the area around Thwaites the 'vulnerable part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet'.

The largest glacier in the Alps may disappear by 2100.

Melts faster than expected

In the twenty-first century, scientists began documenting the rapid thaw of the Thwaites Glacier with an alarming series of studies.

In 2001, satellite data showed that the glacier's ground line was receding about 1 km per year. In 2020, scientists found evidence of warm water flowing through the bottom of the glacier, melting the ice from below.

Then in 2021, a study showed that the Thwaites ice shelf could collapse within the next five years. Ice shelves help stabilize glaciers and keep ice from flowing freely into the ocean.

'From satellite data we see these large cracks spreading across the surface of the ice shelf, weakening the texture of the ice. It's like a crack in the windshield," Peter Davis, an oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey, told CNN in 2021.

The findings on September 5 suggest that Thwaites are likely to thaw at a much faster rate than previously thought.

Cockroaches, autonomous underwater vehicles, near Thwaites Glacier after 20 hours of mapping the sea floor.

The study's press release says the scientists collected the data during a 20-hour mission with extreme weather conditions. The mapped underwater area is the size of the city of Houston.

'This research is truly a once-in-a-lifetime mission,' Graham said.

The team hopes to be able to return soon to collect samples from the seafloor to determine when the previous thaws occurred. This could help scientists predict future changes to the 'doomsday' glacier.

Scientists previously thought that the Thwaites Glacier would change very slowly, but Graham insists this study will disprove those views.

'Just a small impact on Thwaites can lead to big impacts,' he said.

Thwaites Glacier is one of Antarctica's fastest melting glaciers. Since the 1980s, the glacier has lost about 595 billion tons of ice. The collapse of the Thwaites Glacier could cause the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to be swept into the ocean.