Scientists studying Antarctica’s vast Thwaites Glacier nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier say warm water is seeping into its weak spots and exacerbating melting caused by rising temperatures, two papers published in the journal Nature showed Wednesday.
Thwaites, which is roughly the size of Florida, represents more than half a meter (1.6 feet) of global sea-level rise potential and could destabilize neighboring glaciers, which have the potential to cause another three-meter rise.
As part of the international collaboration on the Thwaites Glacier – the largest field campaign ever attempted in Antarctica – a team of 13 American and British scientists spent about six weeks on the glacier in late 2019 and early 2020.
Using an underwater robotic vehicle known as Icefin, data from moorings and sensors, they monitored the glacier’s grounding line, where the ice slides off the glacier and first meets the ocean.
In one of the papers, led by Cornell University scientist Britney Schmidt, scientists found that warmer water is forcing its way into cracks and other openings known as terraces, causing lateral melting of 30 meters (98 feet) or more per year.
“Warm water gets into the weakest parts of the glacier and makes it worse, this is something we should all be very concerned about ” Schmidt
The findings of the second paper, which Schmidt also worked on, showed about five meters (16 feet) of melting per year near the glacier’s grounding line — less than previously predicted by the most aggressive thinning models. But she said the melt is still a serious concern. “If we’re seeing less melting … that doesn’t change the fact that it’s receding,” Schmidt said.
Scientists previously relied on satellite images to show the behavior of the ice, making it difficult to get detailed information. The documents represent the first time a team has reached the grounding line of a large glacier and provide a look right where “the action starts,” Schmidt said.
The findings will help develop climate change models, said Paul Cutler, Antarctic Sciences program director at the National Science Foundation. He reviewed the papers but was not involved in the research. “These things can now be taken into account in models that will predict future behaviour, and that was exactly the aim of this work,” he said.
