Arctic researchers recently sent underwater robots under Thwaites Glacier to check the progress of the melting iceberg dubbed the “Apocalyptic Glacier” — and the news wasn’t good.
During surveys since 2018, However, over the past six years, the rate of ice loss in the Antarctic Plug has continued to accelerate.
According to them, the Thwaites Glacier could collapse completely within two hundred years, which would radically change the world.
The iceberg holds enough water to raise the Earth’s oceans by two feet, but the formation is holding back the Antarctic ice fields, which, if triggered, could raise global sea levels by as much as 3 meters. A surge of that magnitude would already bury several major cities, including London, Miami and Bangladesh, as well as threaten several Pacific islands.
Researchers have long known that a Thwaites is in danger, but they didn’t know it was this bad until now. When an underwater drone called Icefin was sent to the point where the glacier breaks away from the ground and the ice begins to float, they noticed that relatively warm seawater was flowing onto the glacier through cracks and crevices in the ice. This is dramatically speeding up the melting process, so the formation could disappear entirely by the 23rd century.
While using satellites and GPS to monitor the tide cycle, they discovered that sea movement about 10 kilometers below the ice caps was also pushing warm seawater into the ocean. Under Thwaites, which also hastened its demise.
Scientists also fear that the melting is irreversible, even if we stop using fossil fuels globally. Although the possibilities are still being explored, the future is currently very uncertain, writes A CNN.
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