Scientists Warn Critical Parts, of 'Doomsday Glacier', Melting Faster Than Expected.
Mashable reports that recent research suggests
that the Florida-sized Thwaites Glacier has
the potential to affect the entire world. .
The massive formation holds
a colossal amount of ice that could
raise global sea levels by over two feet. .
In addition to this, its collapse due to a warming
climate could unleash even more ice from neighboring
glaciers, triggering further sea level rise.
Since the 1990s, the Antarctic glacier
has retreated nearly nine miles as it
continues to destabilize.
The trajectory of its melting in the coming decades and
centuries has the potential to submerge coastal cities
and other populated areas around the world.
Thwaites is the one spot in Antarctica
that has the potential to dump an
enormous amount of water into
the ocean over the next decades, Sridhar Anandakrishnan, professor of glaciology
at Penn State University, via Mashable.
Mashable reports that , the Thwaites glacier has been dubbed , the "Doomsday Glacier.".
According to the latest 2023 research,
beneath the ice shelf lies critical points
which hold back many other colossal glaciers. .
The most recent research, published in 'Nature,'
found that Thwaites is melting faster than expected
in cracks directly below that floating ice shelf.
Scientists suggest that warmer water
seeping into natural cracks has amplified
the melting at these specific weak points.