The new scientific briefing coming from the South Pole is not very comforting: some British and American scientists met to discuss the new observations about the largest and most glacier which is located in Antarctica called Thwaites which extends over an area as large as Great Britain or Florida and in some places is over two thousand metres thick but which in recent years is said to be melting more rapidly than in the past.
The results of the study
The project, called the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), studies the mechanisms that control the retreat of this enormous glacier, nicknamed “the Apocalypse” and considered among the largest and fastest-evolving in the world. To give you an idea, if it disappeared completely, sea levels would rise by 65 cm, an enormous amount. “Thwaites has been retreating for over 80 years, accelerating dramatically in the last 30 years, and our findings indicate that it is set to retreat further and faster.“, Rob Larter told the CNNmember of the scientific coordination of the Itgc and marine geophysicist. Their work consists in predicting the speed and magnitude of the current rise in sea levels around the world that could have important impacts on coastal cities starting from the islands of the lower Pacific to reach metropolises like New York and London.
What can happen?
“There is consensus that the retreat of Thwaites Glacier will accelerate over the next century. However, there is also concern that additional processes revealed by recent studies, which have not yet been studied well enough to be incorporated into large-scale models, could cause the retreat to accelerate sooner,” the researchers emphasize. These are, however, estimates, forecasts: nothing certain and incontrovertible but certainly an aspect on which to pay attention and continue to monitor to understand the actual future trend. The Thwaites Glacier is exceptionally vulnerable because its ice is located on a base located far below sea level that descends towards the heart of West Antarctica.
The role of underwater robots
For their analyses, scientists routinely use advanced technologies such as underwater robots that study the thickness of the ice and many other parameters, as well as new techniques for investigating ice fractures: although science has made important progress, there are still many things to understand about the future of this glacier. To understand how big this colossus is, just think that it is about 120 km wide and is considered a “cornerstone” of the West Antarctic ice sheet, much of which lies on a bed below sea level.
“It is worrying that the latest computer models predict continued ice loss that will accelerate during the 22nd century and could
lead to a widespread collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet in the 23rd century,” says Dr. Ted Scambos, ITGC U.S. science coordinator and a glaciologist at the University of Colorado.