Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
On this map, arrows mark warm water currents, which are the main factor in the projected demise of the Thwaites Glacier. [23] Between 1992 and 2017, Thwaites Glacier retreated at between 0.3 km (0.19 mi) and 0.8 km (0.50 mi) annually, depending on the sector, [42] and experienced a net loss of over 600 billion tons of ice as the result. [48]
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]
The new findings from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration add to a vast body of research on how the deterioration of glaciers worldwide could contribute to sea level rise.
A glacier with a sustained negative balance loses equilibrium and retreats. A sustained positive balance is also out of equilibrium and will advance to reestablish equilibrium. Currently, nearly all glaciers have a negative mass balance and are retreating. [13] Glacier retreat results in the loss of the low-elevation region of the glacier.
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.
Larter is one of 100 members of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), a group that monitors and probes the ice. The ITGC gathered in England this week for its final meeting.
Its most vulnerable parts like Thwaites Glacier, which holds about 65 cm (25 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) of sea level rise equivalent, are believed to require "centuries" to collapse entirely. [53] Thwaites' ice loss over the next 30 years would likely be around 5 mm of sea level rise between 2018 and 2050, and between 14 and 42 mm over 100 years. [40]
Scientists have looked back in time to reconstruct the past life of Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier.” Their findings give an alarming insight into future melting.