Thwaites Glacier, also known as the "doomsday glacier", is reported to be melting quicker than previously thought - scientists are now trying to find out why. Copyright © 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers are two major West Antarctic ice streams which do not flow into a large ice shelf. The Thwaites Glacier is one of the epicenters of this rapid deterioration. [25], A 5-year international collaboration to study the Thwaites Glacier was established in 2018. (Brooke Medley/NASA) The collapse of this glacier alone would raise the sea level by about 65 centimetres (25 inches). Thwaites Glacier is roughly the size of UK (176 x10 3 km 2). Deep channels discovered under the Antarctic's so-called "Doomsday glacier" may be allowing warm ocean water to melt the underside of ice, according to … The glacier is big and disappearing faster than others in the region. [6] Along with the Pine Island Glacier, it has been described as part of the "weak underbelly" of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, due to its apparent vulnerability to significant retreat. The Thwaites Glacier Tongue, or Thwaites Ice Tongue (75°0′S 106°50′W / 75.000°S 106.833°W / -75.000; -106.833), is about 50 km wide and has progressively shortened due to ice calving, based on the observational record. When the ship finally reached Thwaites at the end of February, it traveled along the roughly 75-mile glacier face to map the previously uncharted seafloor at … Winberry, J. P., A. D. Huerta, S. Anandakrishnan, R. Aster, A. Nyblade, and D. A. Wiens (2020), Glacial Earthquakes and Precursory Seismicity Associated with Thwaites‐Glacier Calving, Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2019gl086178. The growing cavity sits in West Antarctica at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier, which is about as big as Florida and contains enough ice to contribute more than 2 feet to sea level … [14], Swamp-like canal areas and streams underlie the glacier. They are part of an area called the Amundsen Sea Embayment . This big blowout confirmed that there's very little actual ice shelf left in the western part of Thwaites Glacier. Enormous curved crevasses near the Pine Island Glacier shear margin. If completely liquified, Thwaites would raise sea levels by 1.5 to 3 feet. They confirm thawing of the Thwaites glacier contributes about four percent of global sea-level rise. It's a giant mass of more than 192,000 square kilometers (74,000 square miles) -- an … A file photo of the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica, known as the 'Doomsday Glacier'. Beach shorelines would be three feet shallower than they are now — and storm surges during severe weather events would reach farther and deeper inland than ever before. They wanted to understand how possible scenarios of future sea level rise might change over time as a result of marine ice sheet instability. The glacier terminus is nearly 120 km wide, and the bed of the glacier reaches to >1000 m below sea level. [15], A 2014 University of Washington study, using satellite measurements and computer models, predicted that the Thwaites Glacier will gradually melt, leading to an irreversible collapse over the next 200 to 1000 years.[16][17][18][19][20][21]. Scientists are racing to find out", "International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC)", "Scientists drill for first time on remote Antarctic Glacier", U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Thwaites Glacier, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thwaites_Glacier&oldid=991308807, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 29 November 2020, at 11:23. Thwaites Glacier is being melted by warm ocean waters that flow up to the glacier through deep channels in the seafloor now mapped by the THOR team. NASA scientists found the enormous cavern beneath Thwaites Glacier, the largest outflow channel of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It was initially delineated from aerial photographs collected during Operation Highjump in January 1947. [28], International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC). As of 2003, B-22 had broken into five pieces, with B-22A still in the vicinity of the tongue, while the other smaller pieces had drifted farther west. Thwaites -- which is as big as the United Kingdom -- is also referred to as the ‘Doomsday Glacier’ because if it ever collapsed, global sea levels would rise by more than half a metre on its own. Notice the size of the glacier’s main ice tongue in 2001, when the glacier was advancing by about 4 kilometers per year. It seems to not only be melting on the ocean edges, but also from underneath, and warmer ocean waters are infiltrating. Flowing off the west of the Antarctic continent, Thwaites is almost as big as Great Britain. Thwaites Glacier is one of the largest and most unstable ice streams in Antarctica. "[The size of] a cavity under a glacier plays an important role in melting," said Pietro Milillo of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. [11] The place where the glacier was in contact with the sea had been recorded as 2 degree Celsius above the freezing temperature. Its fastest flowing grounded ice is centred between 50 and 100 kilometres (31 and 62 mi) east of Mount Murphy. Find out how big they are and how much heat they carry! Due to this friction the glacier is considered stable in the short term. That's worrying news for coastal cities. Find out how big they are and how much heat they carry! The Thwaites Iceberg Tongue (74°0′S 108°30′W / 74.000°S 108.500°W / -74.000; -108.500) was a large iceberg tongue which was aground in the Amundsen Sea, about 32 km northeast of Bear Peninsula. The large rift across the glacier eventually spawned Iceberg B-22 in 2002. A total of 57 independent images taken over 12 months were blended into a short video by ESA. In any map of the Antarctic ice sheet, Thwaites Glacier is bound to be a prime concern. Thwaites has been difficult to study because it's far from U.S. bases in the Antarctic and also because the weather is "particularly bad," said Zoet. The pocket is a sign of "rapid decay" and just one of "several disturbing discoveries" made recently regarding the glacier, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a news release Wednesday. In 2001, a study of Thwaites Glacier using satellite radar interferometry data from the Earth Remote Sensing Satellite 1 and 2 revealed that the grounding line of Thwaites Glacier was retreating at 1 kilometer per year and that the glacier was significantly out of mass balance, hence confirming presumptions of collapse by Terence Hughes, University of Maine, in 1973. [12] The discovery was a part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a US-UK-based research firm. Total collapse of the glacier would raise global sea levels by 10 feet. [10], In 2020, scientists discovered warm water underneath the glacier for the first time. ... to bring relatively warm ocean waters to the edges of vulnerable Thwaites Glacier… In recent years, the flow of both of these glaciers has accelerated, their surfaces have lowered, and their grounding lines have retreated. In the past ten years, the tongue has continued to fracture and separate from the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf. CBS News climate and weather contributor Jeff Berardelli reports that the cavity is likely a significant finding because the West Antarctic ice sheet is considered one of the most unstable and vulnerable. Physics. Mapping deep channels under Thwaites Glacier. [2] Its surface speeds exceed 2 kilometres per year (1.2 miles per year) near its grounding line. Visiting the most vulnerable place on Earth: the 'doomsday glacier', International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, Antarctica melting: Climate change and the journey to the 'doomsday glacier', "Thwaites Glacier: Antarctica, name, geographic coordinates, description, map", "Time 'Thwaites' for no one: the story behind Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica", "The Race to Understand Antarctica's Most Terrifying Glacier", "Scientists Predict Faster Retreat for Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier - The Earth Institute - Columbia University", "This Antarctic glacier is the biggest threat for rising sea levels. That fear has driven a big push by international teams of researchers to understand what’s going on at Thwaites and nearby Pine Island Glacier. It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names[3] in 1967 after Fredrik T. Thwaites (1883–1961), a glacial geologist, geomorphologist and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Researchers say a massive cavity the size of two-thirds of Manhattan was found under a glacier in Antarctica. It consisted of icebergs which had broken off from the Thwaites Ice Tongue and ran aground, and should not be confused with the latter, which is still attached to the grounded ice. About the size of Florida, Thwaites Glacier is currently responsible for approximately 4 percent of global sea level rise. January 31, 2019 / 12:23 PM [26][27], At the beginning of 2020, researchers from the ITGC took measurements to develop scenarios for the future of the glacier and to predict the time frame for a possible collapse: The erosion of the glacier by warmed ocean water seems to be stronger than expected. [9] In 2017, scientists discovered previously unknown volcanoes nearby. Thwaites Glacier is being melted by warm ocean waters that flow up to the glacier through deep channels in the seafloor now mapped by the THOR team. (NASA) "I think this is a big step towards helping understand that," he added. A radar image of Thwaites … Could people still be infectious after they're vaccinated for COVID-19? / CBS News. It holds enough ice to raise the world ocean a little over 2 feet (65 centimeters) and backstops neighboring glaciers that would raise sea levels an additional 8 feet (2.4 meters) if all the ice were lost. “The more this marine ice sheet instability occurs, the wider the range of possible future sea level rise becomes,” Robel says. "The findings highlight the need for detailed observations of Antarctic glaciers' undersides in calculating how fast global sea levels will rise in response to climate change," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. It is growing at an "explosive" rate that surprised researchers conducting a study the agency led on the glacier. FDA authorizes Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, SCOTUS rejects Texas bid to overturn election results in 4 states, Feds to buy additional 100 million doses of Moderna vaccine, Why some Black Americans are skeptical of a COVID-19 vaccine, Biden, Harris introduce team who will "deliver immediate relief", FKA twigs sues Shia LaBeouf over alleged sexual assault, Mayor slams U.S. © 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Its front end measures about 100 miles across, and its glacial basin—the thick … It reveals how a 120square mile (312 sq km) chunk of ice broke off from the glacier's main body. Why losing Arecibo is a big deal for astronomy By Maria Temming December 4, 2020. It was delineated by the USGS from aerial photographs collected during Operation Highjump and Operation Deepfreeze. Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier together account for 3% of grounded ice-sheet area, … The Thwaites Glacier, in West Antarctica, is one of the glaciers considered most at-risk for collapse over the next century, earning it the nickname “doomsday glacier.” That is one of the most important questions in the world today. “Not only that, b… Thwaites Glacier is closely watched for its potential to raise sea levels. The researchers noted with concern, that at the baseline of the glacier, the temperature of the water is already more than two degrees above freezing point. Thwaites Glacier (75°30′S 106°45′W / 75.500°S 106.750°W / -75.500; -106.750), sometimes referred to as the Doomsday Glacier,[1] is an unusually broad and vast Antarctic glacier flowing into the Pine Island Bay, part of the Amundsen Sea, east of Mount Murphy, on the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land. "As more heat and water get under the glacier, it melts faster.". Marshal for "uninformed" statement on shooting. Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers already contribute 5 percent of sea-level rise. In 2011, using geophysical data collected from flights over Thwaites Glacier (data collected under NASA's IceBridge campaign), a study by scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory showed a rock feature, a ridge 700 meters tall that helps anchor the glacier and helped slow the glacier's slide into the sea. [23][24], In January 2019, NASA discovered an underwater cavity underneath the glacier, with an area two-thirds the size of Manhattan. The Thwaites glacier is 74,000 square miles, roughly the size of the UK. In 2002, a team of scientists from Chile and NASA on board an Orion P3 from the Chilean Navy collected the first radar sounding and laser altimetry survey of the glacier to reveal extensive thinning and acceleration in thinning. The upstream swamp canals feed streams with dry areas between the streams which retard flow of the glacier. NASA said the hole is large enough to have held 14 billion tons of ice -- the majority of which has melted during the last three years. [13], Extensive calving at the marine terminus of Thwaites Glacier is monitored by remote sensing and seismological observations, with the largest events being seismically detectable at ranges up to 1600 km. The gigantic void is a thousand feet tall … The growing cavity sits in West Antarctica at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier, which is about as big as Florida and contains enough ice to contribute more than 2 feet to sea level rise, NASA said. Time: 11:00am UK GMT (aimed at students aged 10+) Register for Webinar Can shearing of Thwaites glacier slow or stop if humans control greenhouse gas emissions? Thwaites currently contributes roughly 4% to global sea level rise. [7] However, the glacier has been considered to be the biggest threat on relevant time scales, for rising seas, current studies aim to better quantify retreat and possible impacts. Time: 11:00am UK GMT (aimed at students aged 10+) Watch the Video A glacier is a huge sheet of slowly moving ice and the Thwaites Glacier is certainly huge - it covers 192,000 square kilometres (74,000 square miles… The study also confirmed the importance of seafloor topography in predicting how the glacier will behave in the near future. A new study led by NASA has found a giant cavity in the underside of the huge Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. Boston medical conference led to 300,000 COVID-19 cases, Biden facing pressure to pick Rep. Deb Haaland as Interior Secretary, Biden to nominate Tai for trade rep and McDonough for veterans affairs, Second gentleman to teach entertainment law at Georgetown, Biden introduces his pick to lead Defense Department, NAACP calls on Biden to appoint a racial equity adviser, Biden to nominate Marcia Fudge to lead HUD, Biden vows to distribute 100 million vaccine doses within first 100 days, Polar vortex may be linked to climate change, California Privacy/Information We Collect. The hole is 1,000 feet deep and about two-thirds the size of Manhattan, big enough to have once held 14 billion tons of now-melted ice, according to a study published Jan. 30 in the journal Science Advances. The cavity formed mostly in the previous three years and is nearly a thousand feet tall, likely speeding up the glacier's decay. [22] It was first noted in the 1930s, but finally detached from the ice tongue and broke up in the late 1980s. Some scientists fear that with an increased rate of 50 billion tons of ice lost a year in recent times, runaway instability of the glacier may already be underway. This discovery prompted an extensive airborne campaign in 2004 by the University of Texas, Austin, Texas, to be followed by subsequent airborne campaigns under NASA's IceBridge Campaign in 2009–2018. [8] Since the 1980s, the glacier had a net loss of over 600 billion tons of ice though 2017. On 15 March 2002, the National Ice Center reported that an iceberg named B-22 broke off from the ice tongue. By Peter Sinclair | Nov 20, 2020 Runaway sea-level rise resulting from retreat of Antarctica's Thwaites glacier depends on humans' substantially cutting GHG emissions. Mapping deep channels under Thwaites Glacier. This study has raised alarm regarding the glacier collapse, which can lead to nearly 3 ft (0.9 m) rise in the sea level. The race is on to understand it", "In Antarctica, Two Crucial Glaciers Accelerate Toward the Sea", "Scientists discover 91 volcanoes below Antarctic ice sheet", "Rising Seas: Record Warmth Found at 'Doomsday Glacier' Water Line - ExtremeTech", "Surprisingly warm water found on underside of Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier, "Scientists discover warm water beneath 'Doomsday Glacier' in Antarctica", "Scientists Image Vast Subglacial Water System Underpinning West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier", "Irreversible collapse of Antarctic glaciers has begun, studies say", "Changing climate: 10 years after An Inconvenient Truth", "Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet after local destabilization of the Amundsen Basin", "Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica, from 1992 to 2011", "Vintage film reveals Antarctic glacier melting", "Gigantic Cavity in Antarctica Glacier Is a Product of Rapid Melting, Study Finds", "Is Thwaites Glacier doomed? Glaciers are huge sheets of ice moving very slowly, and contain vast amounts of water. “Thwaites is a terrifying glacier,” Anandakrishnan says simply. The ice melt draining from Thwaites into the Amundsen Sea already accounts for 4 … Thwaites’ ice shelf stabilizes the whole glacier, acting like a cork in a wine bottle to slow the seaward flow of ice from the continent’s interior. This hypothesis is based on both theoretical studies of the stability of marine ice sheets and observations of large changes on these two glaciers. Over the last three decades, the Thwaites glacier has lost about 600 billion tons of ice. "Thwaites is the 800-pound gorilla, just because of how big and wide and deep into West Antarctica this particular outlet glacier goes,” says Chris Shuman, a … Thanks to this nearly Manhattan-size gap in the ice, the entire glacier along with the surrounding ice sheet will likely disappear much more quickly. Robel, along with scientists Helene Seroussi and Gerard Roe used mathematical analysis and computer models to make projections of sea levels in the future. First published on January 31, 2019 / 12:23 PM. Scientists say the glacier is responsible for about four percent of global sea level rise. [4] The historian Reuben Gold Thwaites was his father.[5]. The area surveyed had been hidden beneath part of the floating ice shelf extending from Thwaites Glacier, which broke off in 2002, and was then often inaccessible due to … The feature was about 112 km long and 32 km wide, and in January 1966 its southern extent was only 5 km north of Thwaites Glacier Tongue. It was initially delineated from aerial photographs collected during Operation Highjump in January 1947. Already, the glacier is responsible for about 4 percent of the world’s rising sea … This iceberg was about 85 km long by 65 km wide, with a total area of some 5,490 km². 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