Doomsday Glacier As Big As UK May Melt Faster In Antarctica, Flood World's Coasts

With climate change and rise of temperature in regions where its normally freezing, our world is experiencing phenomena like never before. Whether it¡¯s the Arctic wildfires or warm temperatures in the otherwise freezing Siberia, the list goes on.

Reuters

However, one glacier in West Antarctica is known to be the most vulnerable, with respect to rising of sea levels and flooding of coastal areas -- the Thwaites Glacier, and scientists claim that its existence is hanging in a balance.

Thwaites -- which is as big as the United Kingdom -- is also referred to as the ¡®Doomsday Glacier¡¯ because if it ever collapsed, global sea levels would rise by more than half a metre on its own. This could cause a domino effect causing other ice bodies to join in, raising the water levels by a whopping 2-3 metres, while causing catastrophic damage to coastal areas around the world.

Thwaites glacier melt in Antarctica

To understand the intensity of the melting of the Thwaites glacier, researchers inserted Icefin -- a really long yellow robot designed to find alien life on Jupiter¡¯s moon Europa.

The long device was slid 600 metres deep into the Thwaites glacier through a narrow hole and had a bunch of sensors and sonar cameras. These devices on the Icefin discovered that the Doomsday Glacier, in fact, is suffering from the ocean that¡¯s warming up more than the air, causing most of its ice to melt. The ocean is absorbing most of this rising heat.

Doomsday glacier melting is a worry

Researchers observing the glacier spotted the presence of warm water at a crucial spot beneath the glacier, that answers its gradually decreasing trait.

Paul Cutler, programme director for Antarctic glaciology at America¡¯s National Science Foundation told the Financial Times, ¡°The big question is how quickly it becomes unstable. It seems to be teetering at the edge. It is a keystone for the other glaciers around it in West Antarctica,¡± he said. ¡°If you remove it, other ice will potentially start draining into the ocean too.¡±

Reuters

David Vaughan, director of science at the British Antarctic Survey explained, ¡°That doesn¡¯t sound like much, but it is. It is not about the sea coming up the beach slowly over 100 years ¡ª it is about one morning you wake up, and an area that has never been flooded in history is flooded.¡±

This warning comes right after a crazy heat wave that¡¯s being experienced in the Arctic, on the other side of our planet, where the wildfires have caused record-breaking pollution.