Glaciers all finished Antarctica they have problems like ice there it melts quickly. There is no Antarctic glacier whose fate is more important to our future than the Thwaites Glacier, and new research shows that things do not look good on it.
Researchers do known that the Thwaites Glacier has problems due to the invasion of warm water, but so far they had not analyzed the data under the floating ice platform of the glacier. A new study published in Science Advances on Friday presents the first direct observations of what is happening under the famous ice shelf, including the temperature and salinity of the water flowing below, as well as the strength of the current.
What they found is quite troubling. The authors explain that the supply of warm water at the base of the glacier is greater than scientists previously believed, which means it’s even more unstable than we thought. Given that it’s often referred to as the “final judgment glacier,” this is particularly disastrous.
The Thwaites Glacier is a large, vast piece of ice that flows from the ice sheet of West Antarctica to Pine Island Bay, a part of the Amundsen Sea. The 119,300-square-mile (192,000-square-mile) ice shelf disappears faster than any other in the region, largely due to water flowing underneath and wearing down at its base. If it collapses completely, it could have a devastating effect on rising global sea levels.
The new study is based on field observations from 2019 when a team of two dozen scientists sent a freelancer orange submarine called He fell under Thwaites. For 13 hours, the underwater vehicle traversed two deep troughs under the glacier that led to the warm water toward it. Similarly, the vehicle captured data showing that warm water, warm to a glacier, up to 33.89 degrees Fahrenheit (1.05 degrees Celsius), swirls around crucial “fixing points”. from the glacier or from the points of contact where the ice shelf is located. it encounters the bedrock that holds it in place. This warm water melts these crucial dams, leaving room for cracks and ice troughs that can make the shelf even more unstable.
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“The concern is that this water comes into direct contact with the bottom of the ice shelf at the point where the ice tongue and the shallow seabed meet,” said Alastair Graham, associate professor of geological oceanography at the University of South Florida and the author, who was on the glacier research expedition, wrote in an email. “This is Thwaites’ last stronghold, and once it comes off the seabed right in front of it, there’s nothing else to hold the ice shelf on. This warm water is also likely to mix in and around the land line, at the depth of the cavity, and this means that the glacier is also being attacked at its feet, where it rests on solid rock. “
The discovery of warm water confirms the above concerns of a separate project, in which another group of 100 scientists drilled a hole 2,000 feet from the glacier.
“This study fills critical gaps in our knowledge in this area and will certainly allow for significant advances in the modeling of this system and therefore improves projections,” said David Holland, a glaciologist at New University. York who worked in the previous studio, but not the most recent, wrote in an email.
As the submarine moved around one of the troughs, it also captured data showing low-salinity water in the 1,044-meter (3,444-foot) area below the ice shelf. This level of salinity he showed coincides with that of neighboring Pine Island Bay. Scientists had previously thought that this part of the glacier was protected from the currents of the bay by a dense underwater ridge. But they seem to have been wrong: the findings indicate that it flows freely into the trough. This closely relates its fate to the bay of what climate models currently entail.
Nor should we worry only about the warm waters surrounding Pine Island Bay. Using submarine readings, the authors also traced the channels through which hot water is transported to the Thwaites Glacier. They found that there is more warm water gushing from the continental shelf.
“Thwaites are really being attacked by the ocean everywhere,” Graham said.
All this has very serious consequences for those living on the coast. The collapse of the Thwaites Glacier would raise sea levels by 0.5 to 0.9 meters and could lead to an even worse chain of events. because it could start the collapse of another threatened ice platform nearby, the Pine Island Glacier. Together, these shelves act as a braking mechanism on the ground ice that, if released into open water, it could push the seas up 10 feet (3.1 meters), overwhelming coastal cities around the world.
Over the past four decades, Graham explained, satellite data have shown that the glacier has flowed into the ocean much faster. Sure, it spreads out a bit when fresh snow falls and compacts into new ice, but that doesn’t happen fast enough to make up for its losses.
To learn more about this process, scientists are trying to learn as much as they can about the glacier. Sending a submarine below marks a big groundbreaking step. But there is still a lot of uncertainty about how quickly it is approaching collapse.
The study illustrates the importance of climate adaptation measures, including the weighting of the potential benefits of having communities. retreat from the coasts. This is especially true because Graham said it is not entirely clear whether the disappearance of the Thwaites can be prevented.
“We could (and I stress that, perhaps) have already reached and overcome a point where there really is no turning back for Thwaites, regardless of what we do as humans in our climate,” Graham said.
Graham knows the horror this is first hand as he lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida. But not all is lost.
“It simply came to our notice then they are physical mechanisms that we have yet to discover that can help Thwaites stabilize and that “the day of final judgment” will never come, ”he said.