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The Thwaites Glacier, an ice formation the size of Florida, can change the world. And the latest research shows that some of its most vulnerable spots are in greater danger than previously thought ...
The Thwaites Ice Shelf is one of the biggest ice shelves in West Antarctica, though it is highly unstable and disintegrating rapidly. [2] [3] Since the 1980s, the Thwaites Glacier, nicknamed the "Doomsday glacier", [4] has had a net loss of over 600 billion tons of ice, though pinning of the Thwaites Ice Shelf has served to slow the process. [5]
At 120 km (75 mi) in width, [2] Thwaites Glacier is the single widest glacier in the world, and it has an area of 192,000 km 2 (74,000 sq mi). This makes it larger than the American state of Florida (170,000 km 2 (66,000 sq mi)), and a little smaller than the entire island of Great Britain (209,000 square kilometres (81,000 square miles)).
Although the glacier is replenished through snowfall, and glaciers generally accumulate more snow than they lose, the Thwaites Glacier is losing around 50 billion tons more ice than it is ...
Scientists using ice-breaking ships and underwater robots have found the Thwaites Glacier is melting at an accelerating rate and could be on an irreversible path to collapse.
A proposed "underwater sill" blocking 50% of warm water flows heading for the glacier could have the potential to delay its collapse and the resultant sea level rise by many centuries. [103] Some engineering interventions have been proposed for Thwaites Glacier and the nearby Pine Island Glacier to physically stabilize its ice or to preserve it ...
An Antarctic glacier the size of Florida is on the verge of collapse, scientists with the American Geophysical Union warned Monday, a nightmare scenario made worse by climate change that could ...
[25] [26] Due to global warming, the ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate, adding almost 1 mm to global sea levels every year. [27] Around half of the ice loss occurs via surface melting, and the remainder occurs at the base of the ice sheet where it touches the sea, by calving (breaking off) icebergs from its margins.