Science and Technology Daily News (intern reporter Zhang Jiaxin) One of the largest glaciers in the world is "at risk".
According to a study published today in Nature Geoscience, scientists have found that as warm deep water intensively transports heat to today's ice shelf caverns and melts the ice shelves from below, the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica Thwaites Glacier (also known as the "doomsday glacier") is melting faster than previously thought and could cause global sea levels to rise by 3 meters.
Thwaites Glacier is one of the fastest-changing glaciers in Antarctica, and along with Pine Island Glacier, also in the Amundsen Sea, the two major glaciers contribute the most to Antarctica's sea-level rise, the researchers said.
Thwaites Glacier, the size of Florida, is rapidly collapsing.
The researchers have drawn a historical melting trajectory map for it, from which they can speculate on the future evolution of the glacier.
Satellite images of Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers released in 2020 show the two glaciers standing next to each other, with highly ruptured areas and open fractures.
Both signs suggest that the shear zones on the two glaciers with the thinner ice shelves have weakened structurally over the past decade.
Based on the study, scientists have now found that Thwaites Glacier is retreating from the stranding zone at a rate of nearly 2.1 kilometers per year, twice the fastest rate observed on satellite imagery from 2011-2019.
The researchers recorded more than 160 parallel ridges that formed as the front of the glacier retreated and fluctuated up and down with the daily tides.
In addition, they analyzed the ribs about half a mile underwater and determined that each new rib likely formed in a single day.
In October 2018 and February 2020, the Thwaites Glacier experienced massive calving events, when an unprecedented retreat of the ice shelf occurred.
This makes the ice shelves on Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers more sensitive to extreme climate changes in the ocean, atmosphere and sea ice.
The researchers believe that if Thwaites and Pine Island were unrest, several adjacent areas would also be torn apart, leading to widespread collapse.
Thwaites Glacier alone could contribute about 10 feet (about 3 meters) of sea level rise.
In December, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder predicted that Thwaites Glacier would collapse within a few years of "survival".
British Antarctic Survey marine geophysicist Robert Larter, co-author of the study, said: "Thwaites Glacier is really holding up there today by its 'nails', which should be expected, Once the glacier retreats to a shallow ridge on the seabed, we could see dramatic changes in the short term, even within the next year."