An international team of scientists is ready to lower a robotic submarine into a dark, water-filled cavern in Antarctica, to try to find out why one of the continent's largest glaciers is melting so fast.
A NASA-funded study has found that Antarctica faces a tipping point where glacial melting will accelerate and become irreversible even if global heating eases.
By combining 25 years of ESA satellite data, scientists have discovered that warming ocean waters have caused the ice to thin so rapidly that 24 percent of the glacier ice in West Antarctica is now affected.
A massive cavity that is two-thirds the size of Manhattan and nearly the height of the Chrysler Building is growing at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica - a discovery that NASA scientists called “disturbing.”
The UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) are getting ready to deploy about 100 scientists to the Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica as part of a five-year study to find out how fast it is melting.
Irvine -
The rapidly melting West Antarctic Ice Sheet is in an irreversible state of decline according to the latest NASA study. As a result, the "ice-dam" preventing glaciers in the area melting into the sea will ultimately disappear.
A massive glacier system has started collapsing in West Antarctica due to global warming, and studies by two different teams of scientists claim the collapse will result in a significant rise in sea levels worldwide.
Pine Island Glacier (PIG) ice shelf is the floating extension of the Pine Island Glacier, one of the two largest outlet glaciers (Thwaites Glacier is the other) draining the West Antarctic ice sheet.
NASA Images
A massive cavity that is two-thirds the size of Manhattan and nearly the height of the Chrysler Building is growing at the bottom of the Thwaites Glacier, one of the world’s most dangerous glaciers.
NASA/OIB/Jeremy Harbeck
Thwaites Glacier's outer edge. As the glacier flows into the ocean, it becomes sea ice and drives up sea level. Thwaites Glacier ice is flowing particularly fast, and some researchers believe it may have already tipped into instability or be near that point, though this has not yet been established.
NASA/James Yungel
On January 8, BAS tweeted: "Breakthrough at 590 m for the first hot water drilled access hole near the grounding zone of #Thwaites Glacier."
British Antarctic Survey
The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica (photo by the National Science Foundation)
National Science Foundation
This image of the Thwaites glacier was taken in April 2019.
NASA / James Yungel
MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA) image map is a composite of 260 swaths comprised of both Terra and Aqua MODIS images acquired between November 20, 2003 and February 29, 2004 of the Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica.
NASA Visualization Studio - Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator Bob Bindschadler (NASA/GSFC): Sc
