ANTARCTICA —The Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf, which acts as a dam to slow the flow of ice off Antarctica into the ocean, has a series of fractures spanning almost the entire shelf that could break it up within five years.


The shelf sits at the front of one third of the massive Thwaites Glacier, forebodingly known as the ‘Doomsday Glacier’ for its capacity to release massive sea-level rises should it melt.


At the moment, though it is already thinning, the shelf’s leading edge is pinned in place by an underwater ridge, which means its ice flow speed is a third of that seen in the glacier’s western side.


However, a presentation at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union cited by the BBC explained that the shelf is likely to become uncoupled from the ridge very soon and even if that doesn’t occur, developing fractures in the ice shelf will almost certainly break it up, which will release large sections of the glacier behind it into the ocean.


Glaciologist Erin Pettit explained to Science Magazine that the shelf is like a windshield with a series of slowly opening cracks: “You’re like, I should get a new windshield. And one day, bang — there are a million other cracks there,” she said.


Science Magazine adds that the collapse of the entire Thwaites Glacier, which some researchers think is only centuries away, would raise global sea level by 65 centimeters. And because Thwaites occupies a deep basin into which neighboring glaciers would flow, this could eventually lead to the loss of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, causing 3.3 meters of global sea level rise.