The “Doomsday glacier” in Antarctica is giving a dire warning. The melting of this glacier might significantly increase sea levels worldwide.
The Antarctica Doomsday glacier is melting quicker than anticipated. According to a recent study, the melting took place over the course of the previous six months.
This represents melting that is happening twice as fast as usual. “Thwaites glacier” is another name for this glacier. According to scientists, between 2011 and 2019, the doomsday glacier melted “at twice the rate measured by satellite at the fastest retreating region of the grounding zone.”
Doomsday is a floating ice shelf that functions as a dam to reduce the rate at which ice flows into the ocean from the continent.
According to a recent study, the Doomsday Glacier will speed up and boost its contribution to sea level rise by as much as 25% if this floating ice shelf breaks apart.
If and when the ice shelf breaches, it might result in the formation of hundreds of icebergs and ultimately collapse.
The global sea level may be seriously threatened if this glacier collapses. It might result in a three- to ten-foot rise in sea level. Melting of the ice in coastal locations and low-lying places. From West Antarctica, the glacier flows down the coast and into the Amundsen Sea.
What is the frequency of melting of the Doomsday Glacier?
It is vital to determine how quickly Doomsday is deteriorating. It’s difficult to avoid the mental image of the water rising all at once, like when you put a giant ice cube into a full glass, when a rapid glacial breakup will result in a mind-boggling amount of new water being quickly thrown into the ocean.
And while a catastrophic inundation that occurs overnight is possible, the evidence from this latest study suggests that even the “doomsday” scenario will last at least six months.
That’s terrifying, and there have been comparable changes in the movement of ocean water in the past, but fortunately, compared to the all-at-once scenario, six months is ample time for residents of low-lying coastal districts to leave.
Understanding Doomsday Glacier‘s recent history and the mechanisms governing its current retreat, according to a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, is essential for estimating Antarctic contributions to future sea-level rise.
According to the analysis, Thwaites is moving away from Earth at a rate of more than 2.1 kilometers per year, which is “double the rate reported by satellite at the fastest retreating region of the grounding zone between 2011 and 2019.”
“It’s as if you are looking at a tide gauge on the seafloor. It really blows my mind how beautiful the data is. Our results suggest that pulses of very rapid retreat have occurred at Doomsday Glacier in the last two centuries, and possibly as recently as the mid-20th Century,” said marine geophysicist Alastair Graham, the lead author of the paper.
The scientists went on to say that Thwaites is truly hanging on by a fingernail right now and that once the glacier retreats past a shallow ridge in its bed, some significant changes must occur over short durations, possibly even from one year to the next.
In order to more precisely date the ridge-like features, the team now plans to collect the sediments straight from the bottom.
“Exactly how big a threat there is unfortunately still difficult to answer — but the fact that we finally have a data point that the models can tie back to is an important part of the puzzle,” Wåhlin said.
The amount of snow and ice lost by glaciers each year has increased by 31% since 15 years ago.
Hugonnet added that rapidly melting glaciers can result in disastrous eruptions from glacial lakes in areas like India, where millions of people depend on seasonal glacial melt for daily water.
Sea level rise, though, poses the most danger. Warm water expands and melts ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which causes the world’s oceans to rise already.
However, the study found that glaciers account for a greater portion of sea level increase—21%—than ice sheets. The longer-term hazards to sea level rise are greater from the ice sheets.
As we progress through the twenty-first century, it is becoming more and more obvious that sea level rise will be a concern.
