‘Doomsday glacier’ the size of Florida hanging on ‘by its fingernails’: Scientists

A glacier in Antarctica that is predicted to melt rapidly over the coming years has prompted widespread concerns among scientists who say its collapse would cause significant risks to global sea levels.

The Thwaites Glacier, nicknamed the “doomsday glacier” because of the risks it poses should it collapse, is capable of increasing the global sea level by several feet if it fully melted, a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience indicated. Scientists have tracked the glacier’s retreat for several years, worried about the damage the Florida-sized icecap could cause.

“Thwaites is really holding on today by its fingernails, and we should expect to see big changes over small timescales in the future — even from one year to the next — once the glacier retreats beyond a shallow ridge in its bed,” said Robert Larter, one of the study’s co-authors from the British Antarctic Survey, in a news release.

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(Robert Larter/British Antarctic Survey, ESA via AP)

Thwaites has long been a concern to scientists since 1973, when researchers first began questioning the consequences of its collapse. The doomsday glacier is one of the widest on Earth and is larger than the state of Florida. However, it’s just one section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that, if melted, would raise sea levels by up to 16 feet, according to NASA.

Over the last decade, scientists have recorded satellite observations that show the glacier’s “fast-flowing trunk has sped up, thinned and widened” since 2011. As a result, the glacier is likely to undergo rapid melting over the next few years once it retreats past the seabed ridge located under the icecap that is keeping it afloat.

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Because Thwaites is grounded to a seabed rather than dry land, it’s more susceptible to warm ocean currents that are melting the glacier from underneath — increasing the likelihood that the glacier could collapse. This fragile structure has been a concern of scientists for decades, earning it the nickname “the weak underbelly of the West Antarctic ice sheet.”

Researchers will return to the site to gather seabed samples to determine when previous rapid retreats occurred, hoping to predict future changes and prevent catastrophic sea level changes.