Antarctica’s so-called “end of the world glacier” – dubbed because of its high risk of collapse and threat to global sea levels – has the potential to rapidly retreat in the coming years, scientists say, amplifying concerns about the extreme level. of the rising sea that would accompany its potential demise.
The Thwaites Glacier, capable of raising sea levels by several meters, is eroding along its undersea base as the planet warms. In a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists mapped the glacier’s historic retreat, hoping to learn from its past what the glacier is likely to do in the future.
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They found that at some point in the last two centuries, the glacier’s base shifted from the seafloor and retreated at a rate of 2.1 kilometers per year. That’s double the rate scientists have observed over the past decade.
This rapid disintegration possibly occurred “up to the mid-20th century,” Alastair Graham, lead author of the study and a marine geophysicist at the University of South Florida, said in a press release.
This suggests that the Thwaites have the ability to undergo rapid retreat in the near future once they retreat beyond a ridge on the seafloor that is helping to keep it in check.
“Thwaites is really holding on today, and we should expect big changes on small timescales in the future – even from one year to the next – when the glacier retreats beyond a shallow ridge in its bed,” said geophysicist Robert Larter. marine and one of the study’s co-authors from the British Antarctic Survey, said in the statement.
The Thwaites Glacier, located in West Antarctica, is one of the widest on Earth and is larger than the state of Florida in the United States. But it’s only a fraction of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels by up to 5 meters, according to NASA.
As the climate crisis has accelerated, this region has been closely monitored because of its rapid melting and its capacity for widespread coastal destruction.
In the 21st century, researchers began documenting the Thwaites’ rapid retreat in an alarming series of studies. In 2001, satellite data showed that the ground line was receding by about 1 kilometer per year. In 2020, scientists found evidence that warm water was actually flowing through the base of the glacier, melting it from below.
And then, in 2021, a study showed that the Thwaites Ice Shelf, which helps stabilize the glacier and prevent ice from flowing freely into the ocean, could break within five years.
Monday’s findings, which suggest that Thwaites is capable of retreating at a much faster rate than recently thought, were documented in a 20-hour mission in extreme conditions that mapped an underwater area the size of Houston from according to a press release.
Graham said this survey “was truly a once-in-a-lifetime mission,” but that the team hopes to return soon to collect seafloor samples so they can determine when the previous rapid retreats occurred. This could help scientists predict future changes to the “doomsday glacier,” which scientists had previously assumed would take time to change — something Graham said this study refutes.
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