A giant glacier in Antarctica can raise sea level by half a meter!
Cracks in the glaciers fuel fears. Possible separations could result in sea level rise of more than half a metre.
Twenty years ago, an ice field thought to weigh around 500 billion tons unexpectedly tore apart the Antarctic continent. As a result, thousands of icebergs formed in the Weddell Sea. According to the statement made by scientists, our world is now faced with a similar situation again.
Giant 'doomsday' glacier in Antarctica observed with concern
The 3,250 square kilometer Larsen B ice field in Antarctica was known to melt rapidly. But no one could have predicted that the 200-metre-thick giant would be completely disintegrated in just a month. Glacialists were shocked by the speed of the collapse as well as the scale. “This is surprising. It just fell apart. It fell like a wall and broke into hundreds of thousands of bricks.”
Ice scientists meeting in New Orleans this week warned of an even more alarming situation in a vast ice basin on the Antarctic peninsula. He explained that as a result of years of research by teams of British and American researchers, large cracks and fissures have been detected both above and below the Thwaites, one of the largest glaciers in the world.
Thwaites is said to be 30 times the size of Turkey. Therefore, the Larsen B glacier may only be as large as its icicle. It also contains enough water to raise sea levels around the world by more than half a meter in the event of a possible rupture. Satellite studies show that this glacier, called the doomsday, melted with a much greater acceleration compared to the 1990s, and even the entire glacier could collapse in five years or less.
Another reason why this situation is very worrying is that there are many large glaciers in Antarctica that retreat, thin and melt as the Southern Ocean warms. For most of these, Thwaites acts as a cork stopper. So if Thwaites dispersed, scientists believe others would accelerate, leading to the collapse of the entire ice sheet and a catastrophic global rise of several meters in global sea level.
There is no doubt that sea levels are rising rapidly. Between 2006 and 2015, the annual rate of increase increased from 1.4 mm to 3.6 mm. In other words, the melting rate is accelerating with an increase of more than two times. A few millimeters a year may not sound too alarming. But even the collapse of a small section of Thwaites will not only accelerate this process, but will likely increase the intensity of storm surges. In addition, it should not be forgotten that for cities established at sea level, an increase of more than half a meter in sea level may result in disaster.
The consensus of glaciologists was that it would take centuries of global warming for glaciers the size of Thwaites to break apart and collapse. But the loss of sea ice at the opposite end of the world in the Arctic has been rapid and unexpected. Especially as a result of the sudden loss of Larsen B, it is thought that it is possible for these events to occur faster than expected in Antarctica.
Ice losses in the Arctic hardly affect sea levels as glaciers already exist above the sea. But most of the glaciers on the Antarctic continent are on land. Therefore, each part of it that separates and melts directly has a negative effect on sea level rise. Of course, there is no definite data that Thwaites will suddenly disappear, as in Larsen B. But the concerns are certainly not unfounded.
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