As the glacier melts, the fresh water therefore tends to flow upwards, drawing up the heavier warmer sea water behind it. A look at maps of the region's ice loss makes this clear, says Nick Holschuh, a geologist at Amherst College. Photographs by Jemma Cox and David Vaughan. But drilling a 30cm hole through almost half a mile of ice at the front of the most remote glacier in the world is not easy. "The deep Antarctic circumpolar water is only a handful of degrees warmer than the water above it - a degree or two above 0C - but that's warm enough to light this glacier up," says David Holland, an oceanographer with New York University and one of the lead scientists at the grounding zone camp. Images show massive Antarctic change in just 9 days, Greenland's ice sheet melted faster than ever before in 2019, study says. The so-called Thwaites 'doomsday glacier' in Western Antarctica is the size of Britain and is known to be melting at an alarming rate. The so-called 'doomsday glacier' could trigger 10 feet of sea-level rise if it melts. It blows huge drifts of snow into the camp, swamping the equipment, and all the work stops. Ever-increasing carbon dioxide levels are putting a lot more heat into the atmosphere and the oceans. Jordan said the next phase was to incorporate the data from the channels, some of them 2,600 feet (800 meters) deep, into simulations of how the ice sheet will respond into the future. Studies have shown it is melting at an increasingly rapid pace , with potentially catastrophic effects. It is not unusual to have hurricane force winds as well as very low temperatures. The ice in East Antarctica is thick - more than a mile thick on average - but it rests on high ground and only creeps sluggishly to the sea. Doing science of this scale in such an extreme environment is not just about flying a few scientists to a remote location. The scientists at the grounding zone camp plan to use hot water to drill their hole through the ice. The Thwaites Glacier is one of Antarctica's fastest melting glaciers. Scientists from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) collected data by flying over the glacier in a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Twin Otter aircraft and mapping the sea floor from the US Antarctic Program icebreaker RV Nathaniel B. Palmer. At one stage, the entire season's research is on the point of being cancelled because storms stop all flights to West Antarctica from McMurdo for 17 consecutive days. The surface water in Antarctica is very cold, just above -2C degrees, the freezing point of salt water. They are almost half way down through the ice. Glaciers everywhere might be melting, but only one has earned the most terrifying nickname: the Doomsday Glacier. Thwaites' size and melt rate have led to it being dubbed the "Doomsday Glacier" What's likely to happen in the near future? Here it becomes part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, flowing deep - a third of a mile (530m) - below a layer of much colder water. Before now, he said, the ITGC has not been able to precisely quantify sea-level rise in West Antarctica "because there was so much uncertainty about understanding the ice sheet processes and how the glaciers will over time respond.". Thwaites Glacier – what is it and why should we care? Story at a glance. ‘Teetering at the edge’: Scientists warn of rapid melting of Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday glacier’ Thwaites glacier is losing ice at an accelerating rate, threatening catastrophic sea-level rise. The team collected data from the glacier and adjoining Dotson and Crosson ice shelves from January to March 2019. If the glacier were to melt, it would drain a mass of water the size of Great Britain. It was tough going, the top speed was just 10mph. The find was made possible thanks to an underwater robot called Icefin, which headed more than 700 metres below the ice of the Thwaites Glacier. That's worrying news for coastal cities. At its deepest point, the base of the glacier is more than a mile below sea level and there is another mile of ice on top of that. As we fly out over the front of the glacier, I realise with a shock just how fragile a fingerhold it is. "I think this is a big step towards helping understand that," he added. The Thwaites Glacier, located in West Antarctica, has been called the ‘doomsday’ glacier and ‘the most important glacier’ in the world according to a group of scientists from the U.S. and UK. Only four people have ever been on the front of the glacier before and they were the advance party for this year's work. They will use the hole to get access to the sea water that is melting the glacier to find out where it is from and why it is attacking the glacier so vigorously. The scientists say the Pacific Ocean is warming up and that is shifting wind patterns off the coast of West Antarctica, allowing the warm deep water to well up over the continental shelf. The reason the scientists are so worried about Thwaites is because of that downward sloping submarine bed. Dr Kiya Riverman, a glaciologist at the University of Oregon, drills down with an ice auger - a large spiral stainless-steel drill bit - and sets small explosive charges. I camped on the ice for a month, some of the scientists will be out there for far longer, two months or more. Heat is energy, and energy drives the weather and ocean currents. "What we are seeing here in the Antarctic is just another huge system responding in its own way.". In other words, if Thwaites glacier melts, two feet is immediately added to the ocean’s sea levels. The deep warm circumpolar water travels all the way around the continent but has been increasingly encroaching on the icy edge of West Antarctica. Glaciers everywhere might be melting, but only one has earned the most terrifying nickname: the Doomsday Glacier. This water is salty, which makes it relatively heavy, but is still a degree or two above freezing. Glaciers everywhere might be melting, but only one has earned the most terrifying nickname: the Doomsday Glacier. It is massive - roughly the size of Britain. Two ice-hardened ships docked alongside an ice cliff at the foot of the Antarctic Peninsula during the last Antarctic summer. A metre of sea level rise may not sound much, particularly when you consider that in some places the tide can rise and fall by three or four metres every day. Officially called the Thwaites Glacier, this mass of ice nestled into the western edge of Antarctica is melting at an alarming rate. The approaching loss of the Thwaites Glacier is troubling to such an extent that the US and UK made a worldwide office to examine it. I've been in Antarctica five weeks before I finally board the red British Antarctic Survey Twin Otter that takes me to the front of the glacier. Exceptional sea-ice break up in early 2019 enabled the icebreaker to survey more than 2,000 square kilometers of sea floor at the glacier's ice front. Officially called the Thwaites Glacier, this mass of ice nestled into the western edge of Antarctica is melting at an alarming rate. We sit in the mess tent playing cards and drinking tea and the scientists discuss why the glacier is retreating so rapidly. The world took notice earlier this month when temperatures there hit nearly 70 degrees. The British Antarctic Survey's contribution was an epic overland journey that brought in hundreds of tonnes of fuel and cargo. The scale is staggering and explains why Thwaites is already such an important component of world sea level rise, but I am shocked to discover there is another process that could accelerate its retreat even more. Read about our approach to external linking. Glaciers everywhere might be melting, but only one has earned the most terrifying nickname: the Doomsday Glacier. A view of the sea ice from the Nathaniel B. Palmer icebreaker on the way to Thwaites Glacier. FOOD: What is your diet's carbon footprint? The ice is about -25C (-13F) so the hole is liable to freeze over and the whole process is dependent on the vagaries of the weather. They have confirmed that the deep circumpolar warm water is getting under the glacier and have collected huge amounts of data. And when it does collapse, it could trigger the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet also. … Antarctic storms can be very intense. This heavy salty water is carried by a deep ocean current called the Atlantic conveyor all the way down to the south Atlantic. By early January, the flubber is full and all the equipment is ready but then we get a warning that yet another storm is on its way. As the members of the drilling team set up their equipment, I help out with a seismic survey of the bed beneath the glacier. November 13, 2020 admin Science 0. "And also, we know that its bed dips down, and it gets deeper and deeper underneath the ice sheet, which means that, theoretically, you can get a process called marine ice sheet instability. The Icefin team, along with 40 or so other scientists, are part of the .css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link{color:#3F3F42;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{font-weight:bolder;border-bottom:1px solid #BABABA;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:focus,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:focus{border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:2px;color:#B80000;}@supports (text-underline-offset:0.25em){.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{border-bottom:none;-webkit-text-decoration:underline #BABABA;text-decoration:underline #BABABA;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-skip-ink:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;text-underline-offset:0.25em;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:focus,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:focus{-webkit-text-decoration-color:currentcolor;text-decoration-color:currentcolor;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:2px;text-decoration-thickness:2px;color:#B80000;}}International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a five-year, $50m (£38m) joint UK-US effort to understand why it is changing so rapidly. But worse more, Thwaites glacier is stopping four other glaciers from collapsing. Thwaites Glacier is one of Antarctica’s largest contributors to sea level rise from Antarctica. By Justin RowlattChief Environment correspondent. It's been described as the "Doomsday" glacier … Suddenly a shadow looms above, an overhanging cliff of dirt-encrusted ice. As the front of the glacier melts, the weight of the vast reservoir of ice behind it pushes forward. By then we have been joined by some of the scientists. Understanding why it’s retreating so quickly has been a challenge, but glaciologists have recently discovered that the glacier is now generating its own seismic activity when it calves (breaks off … In some places the great sheet of ice has broken up completely, collapsing into a jumble of massive icebergs which float in drunken chaos. The small plane takes us to the camp in the middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet but more bad weather means more delays and it is nine days before a Hercules comes to take us back to McMurdo. All the delays mean there are just a few weeks of the Antarctic summer left before the weather starts to get really bad. If it weren't for the ice, it would be deep ocean with a few islands. The front of the glacier is almost 100 miles wide (160km) and is collapsing into the sea at up to two miles (3km) a year. Additional research provided by Professor Andrew Shepherd, Leeds University. Glaciologists have described Thwaites as the "most important" glacier in the world, the "riskiest" glacier, even the "doomsday" glacier. A team of drivers in specialist snow vehicles then dragged it more than a thousand miles across the ice sheet through some of the most inhospitable terrain and weather on earth. And Thwaites sits like a keystone right in the centre of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet - a vast basin of ice that contains more than 3m of additional potential sea level rise. International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, A TO Z: Climate-related words and phrases explained. Once scientists can demonstrate the expected sea-level rise relating to West Antarctica, he said, they will have more evidence when calling for action to mitigate climate change. Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier has been called the "Doomsday Glacier." Jordan said that suggestions of geoengineering and blocking the channels is not logistically feasible at such a remote site. I will be camping with the team at what is known as the grounding zone. Degrees, the more `` smooshing '' the glacier by means of icebreaker that... Only one has earned the most southerly jacuzzi in the Antarctic is just another system... Of loss has doubled in the Antarctic summer left before the weather to. 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