"Doomsday" glacier threatens to break off Antarctica
As reported in The Guardian, Thwaites, a crucial gigantic glacier in Antarctica, holds our fate in its weight.
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Thwaites is about the size of England.
Twenty years ago, Larsen B, a 3,250 square-kilometers glacier broke off Antarctica, breaking and shattering into thousands of icebergs.
This event shocked many scientists and glaciologists, as they acknowledged that Larsen B was melting at a fast pace, but they did not expect the shelf to break off and collapse at such a speed.
This week, however, "something more alarming is brewing," says The Guardian. In West Antarctica, for many years, British and American scientists have been monitoring Thwaites, a glacier 100 times the size of Larsen B - that is the size of England. Thwaites is 300 meters in thickness.
Cracks and fissures were apparent on the giant Thwaites glacier, dubbed the "doomsday" glacier, both on it and under it.
Bad news from Antarctica: Ice shelf holding back keystone Antarctic glacier within years of failure | Science | AAAS #ClimateCrisis https://t.co/VataXRDDgZ pic.twitter.com/UOPQU1hNoL
— Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf 🌏 (@rahmstorf) December 15, 2021
Thwaites, on a yearly basis, contributes to about 4% of rising sea levels, and is the "most important glacier in the world"; today, it is melting at an alarming rate.
As the Southern Ocean increases in temperature, many glaciers in Antarctica are melting gradually - and, what is even more alarming is that Thwaites is the mega-glacier posing as a block, preventing the water from passing into the sea.
Scientists contend that if Thwaites falls apart, the conditions of the other glaciers will dramatically exacerbate, and the collective meltdown will only result in a global disaster as the sea level will rise many meters.
Storm severities will dramatically worsen, and scientists, in addition, posit that coastal cities will be destroyed.
A month after COP26 conference in Glasgow ended, warnings of Thwaites' meltdown were met with governmental silence, and the longer authorities take to act, the closer the planet is to a great disaster.
