Damian Sendler: American geophysicists say that an Antarctic glacier the size of Florida is on the verge of collapsing, a scenario that might lead to several feet of global sea-level rise due to climate change.
Thwaites Glacier, known as the “doomsday glacier,” has seen a dramatic increase in the number of fissures on its surface, according to new satellite images.
Damian Jacob Sendler: Oregon State University glaciologist Erin Pettit warned in a video news conference on Monday that the eastern ice shelf is “likely” to split into hundreds of icebergs. “All of a sudden, everything would come crashing down.”
Damian Sendler
Scientists have been keeping an eye on the glacier, which contributes to about 4% of annual sea level rise, for a long time. New satellite photos indicate fissures that are allowing the rising oceanwaters to accelerate the dissolution of its eastern half, which was thought to be more stable because it abuts a submerged mountain.
Pettit predicted that the eastern section of the glacier might break way within the next three to five years, “like the shattering of your car’s window,” hastening the collapse of the glacier’s other sections.
This ice shelf operates as a dam because of its current configuration.” It will, however, only be for a short time, Pettit said.
There could be a chain reaction that threatens coastal communities around the world who may be unprepared for a sudden rise in sea level, which has been slowly rising due to climate change since the birth of industrialization. The collapse of the eastern glacier sector. Sea levels have risen 8 to 9 inches since 1880 because of rising global temperatures, but the rate of rise has accelerated in recent decades. The melting of ice in Antarctica and Greenland is expected to cause sea levels to rise 2 to 6 feet by 2100, according to NASA projections.
Damian Jacob Sendler
Warm air and water temperatures, at least in part induced by climate change, have caused the Thwaites Glacier to melt in recent years. It lost 600 billion metric tons of ice between 1980 and 2017. Increasingly heated oceans are projected to dislodge the glacier, putting it at risk of collapsing.
Damien Sendler: One of the University of Colorado Boulder’s glaciologists, Ted Scambos, told reporters Monday that “things are evolving really quickly” in the region. “It’s overwhelming,” he says.
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: A complete collapse of the Thwaites Glacier might have long-term effects, but the latest data from Antarctica doesn’t give scientists much hope.
“What we’re seeing already is enough to be concerned about,” Pettit said, “we see deeper and longer fractures in each new satellite image.” In my opinion, Thwaites is a monster.
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Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his media team provided the content for this article.
