But Alley cautions that shouldn’t be considered a “worst-case” scenario. Two often-cited modeling studies published in recent years ( here and here) suggest a full collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could come within 250 years. “We’re not sure yet what is the ‘black swan,’ the absolute worst thing that could happen at Thwaites,” said Richard Alley, a Penn State University glaciologist. “We made this case when we applied for the money we said that it’s the only way to explore under floating ice shelves.”Īdvances in satellite imagery over the past few decades mean scientists can estimate how much ice Thwaites is losing - nearly 80 gigatons a year, a six-fold increase from 25 years ago.īut projecting future melt rates, and predicting whether Thwaites will trigger a runaway collapse, is nearly impossible without on-the-ground data. “This was the dream, Thwaites and the West Antarctic Ice Shelf,” Wåhlin said. That’s why Wåhlin worked for seven years to get a Hugin submarine, a 25-foot, torpedo-shaped autonomous underwater vehicle packed with oceanographic sensors. But no scientific instrument has ever been underneath the ice shelf to study it. Scientists think changing wind patterns are pushing a mass of middepth warm water, called circumpolar deepwater, up from the deep ocean and onto the continental shelf in front of Antarctica and toward Thwaites. ![]() “We know more about the moon than this particular part of Earth,” Wåhlin said. Warm water is thought to be melting the underside of this roughly 75-mile ice shelf, but the area is as mysterious as it is consequential. Ground zero for this slow-moving catastrophe is the glacier’s edge, where land-based ice juts out into the Amundsen Sea. That would spell disaster for coastal cities from Miami to Mumbai, which would be inundated by floods. Part 4: These high-tech seals are charting future sea level rise | How can a seal track climate change?.Part 3: On a journey to Antarctica, a New Orleans chef awakens to the threat of melting ice.Part 2: This submarine’s historic tour under Thwaites Glacier will help scientists predict sea level rise.Part 1: Is Thwaites Glacier doomed? Scientists race against time to find out.This is the second in a series, Into the Thaw: Decoding Thwaites Glacier.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |