Scientists call it the Doomsday Glacier.
That’s partly because Britain-sized glacier whites in West Antarctica are melting at an alarming rate: retreating by about half a mile (2,625 feet) each year. Scientists estimate that glaciers will lose their ice in about 200 to 600 years. When that happens, it will raise the sea level by about 1.6-2 feet (0.5 m).
But sea-level rise will not stop there. The nickname of Thwits comes mostly from what happens after it melts.
Right now, glaciers act as a buffer between warming seas and other glaciers. Its collapse could bring down neighboring ice masses in West Antarctica with it. In addition, the process will raise sea levels by about 10 feet, permanently submerging many coastal areas, including New York City, Miami and the Netherlands.
“It’s a big change, a rewriting of the coast,” David Holland, a professor of atmospheric science at New York University who contributes to research in the International Thaiwatts Glacier collaboration, told PBS Newshour in February.
These moths, two new studies have added detail to the worrying picture. Research published last week in the journal Cryosphere Found that warm ocean currents eat away at the interior of the Thaits Glacier.
In a study published Monday, satellite imagery was used to show that sections of the Thwits and its neighboring Pine Island glaciers are collapsing faster than previously thought. That work was published Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The images below reveal what may happen in the future with what is happening to the Thwaites and nearby glaciers.
The melting of the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers is a 5% increase in global sea-level.
(Larmit et al., P.N.A.S., 2020)
Above: Satellite imagery between October 2014 and May 2019 shows extensive damage to the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers.
It’s not just Thaits: Antarctic ice sheets are melting six times faster than in the 1980s. It will unload 252 billion tonnes annually, up from 40 billion tonnes per year 40 years ago.
If the entire Antarctic ice sheet melts, scientists estimate the sea level will rise by 200 feet (60 meters).
Before and after images taken from space show the Thwits Glacier merging into the ocean.
Ted Scambos, a senior scientist at the University of Colorado, told NASA in February that what the satellite shows us is that a glacier is erupting at the seam.
This rapid melting is happening in part as natural buffers are breaking down, replacing thuites and pine glaciers, according to new research.
(Ian Jaffin / University of Washington)
Above: Craves near the grounding line of the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica.
Cravosas in the image of the aforementioned Pine Island Glacier near the scissor margins of glaciers: places where fast-moving glacial ice meets slow-moving ice or rock, which contains it.
New P.N.A.S. The study found that shear margins on the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers are weakening and breaking, causing ice to spread into the ocean.
The loss of the Thaitus Glacier is so worrying that the US and UK created an international agency to study it.
Called the International Thwits Glacier Cooperation, the organization studies glaciers through icebreaker vessels that can break up thick ice sheets.
In February, researchers discovered a cavity about the size of Manhattan on the underside of the Thweats.
(NASA / OIB / Jeremy Herbeck)
Above: At the bottom of the Thaits Glacier in West Antarctica there is a cavity growing at an altitude of about 1000 feet tall.
The cavity discovered by NASA scientists using ice-penetrating radar in 2019 could contain up to 14 billion tons of ice.
The figure below shows how a stream of hot water moves down the glacier, slowly melting it from bottom to top.
(International Thwits Glacier Collaboration)
Above: A 3D diagram of the Thaits Glacier depicts coastal channels that can carry and melt hot water at the bottom of the glacier.
When ice sheets melt from below, they can lose their structure, causing them to melt more quickly and cause them to disperse into the ocean, as thwits are doing.
Researchers have calculated that the Pine Island Glacier has lost the size of Los Angeles in the last six years.
“These are the first signs that we saw the Pine Island Ice Shelf disappear,” P.N.A.S. Study, said Washington Post.
“It’s hard to heal.”
The 2018 report states that by 2050, sea level rise could affect 800 million people.
(Climate Central)
Above: Estimates of what New York City’s sea level will look like with a 10-foot sea-level rise.
A report by the C40 Cities Climate Network found that rising sea levels could threaten the power supply of 470 million people and regularly expel 1.6 billion people at extreme temperatures.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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