Oops! New Data Show That Amount Of Warm Water Flowing Under Thwaites Glacier Bigger Than Thought

[hatrack]

EDIT

The ITGC’s $50m research drive has sent teams of scientists to the region to use the latest scientific tools to better understand the speed of the melting and the stability of the glacier. This month one of the ITCG’s teams, which had managed to get an uncrewed submarine under the front of Thwaites for the first time, published a study showing more relatively warm water was reaching the glacier than previously thought, triggering concerns of faster melting.

Anna Wahlin, a professor of oceanography at the University of Gothenburg who led the study, said the findings suggested that the fate of the glacier and the west Antarctic ice sheet would be sealed in the next two to five years. “The coming years will be crucial … they will determine what happens to this glacier,” she said.

Wahlin said the front of the Thwaites glacier was resting on a number of “pinning points” under the sea. But as relatively warm water from the deep ocean increased the melting, she said, these would be lost, breaking up the ice and allowing warm water further under the ice. This would speed up the flow of the glacier into the sea. “It could be that once that happens everything falls apart and this is just the beginning of some quite dramatic change … but if it doesn’t happen now I think we can be more confident that it is not going to happen as the worst-case scenarios,” Wahlin said.

EDIT

Last year, a team of British scientists discovered cavities half the size of the Grand Canyon under Thwaites that, like decay in a tooth, allow warm ocean water to erode the glacier, internally accelerating melting. And because a lot of the ground on which the glacier sits is below sea level, it is thought to be particularly vulnerable to melting as warmer water encroaches further under the ice inland. Larter said: “The bed gets deeper upstream and there is a glaciological theory that says this is potentially a very unstable situation … it is a very scary scenario when you first hear it, but there are various negative feedback scenarios that might counter it.”

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/30/antarctic-doomsday-glacier-may-be-melting-faster-than-was-thought

[Fullduplexxx]

1. Bigger than we though , faster than we expected, sooner than we anticipated

How many times have I heard these phrases .

[Random Boomer]

3. It's a constant refrain

Given just how long we've consistently underestimated the rate of climate change, you'd think by now this would factor into predictions: Timeline based on things we know x the Unknown Factors that always accelerate the results.

[getagrip_already]

2. about as many times as we hear from the deniers...

that this is a normal cycle, to be expected, nothing we are causing, etc.

Actually, I take that back. We hear far more of the latter.

(woops, this was supposed to be a reply to poster 1)