MEXICO CITY, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Scientists studying Antarctica’s vast Thwaites Glacier – nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier – say warm water has seeped into its weakest parts, exacerbating melting as it rises. in temperature, two papers published in the Nature journal appeared on Wednesday.
Thwaites, which is roughly the size of Florida, represents more than half a meter (1.6 feet) of global sea level rise potential, and could destroy nearby glaciers with the potential to cause an additional three-meter (9.8-foot) rise.
As part of the International Thwaites Glacier collaboration – the largest field campaign ever attempted in Antarctica – a team of 13 US and British scientists spent about six weeks on the glacier in late 2019 and early 2020.
Using an underwater robot vehicle known as Icefin, mooring data and sensors, they monitored the grounding line of the glacier, where the ice flows from the glacier and meets the sea for the first time.
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In one of the papers, led by Cornell University-based scientist Britney Schmidt, researchers found that warmer water is moving into crevasses and other openings known as terraces, causing sideways melting of 30 meters (98 feet) or more per year.
“Warm water gets into the weakest parts of the glacier and makes it worse,” Schmidt told Reuters.
“That’s the kind of thing we should all be very concerned about,” he said of the findings highlighting how climate change is reaching remote Antarctica.
The findings of the other paper, which Schmidt also worked on, show about five meters (16 feet) per year is melting near the glacier’s ground line — much less than predicted by the most aggressive thinning models. .
But he said melting is still a major concern.
“If we observe less melting … that doesn’t change the fact that it’s retreating,” Schmidt said.
Scientists previously relied on satellite images to show the ice’s behavior, which made it difficult to capture granular details. The papers represent the first time a team has been to the grounding line of a major glacier, providing a look at where “the action starts,” Schmidt said.
The findings will help improve climate change models, said Paul Cutler, director of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Sciences program. He reviewed the papers, but was not involved in the research.
“These things can now be fed into models that will predict future behavior, and that’s exactly the goal of this work,” he said.
(This story has been refiled to change ‘censors’ to ‘sensors’ in paragraph 4)
Reporting by Cassandra Garrison Editing by Helen Popper
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