The Thwaites ice front in the sensitive West Antarctic sector is very wide (70 miles wide at the point where it meets the ocean) and is roughly the size of Florida. The glacier is the most feared because it is rapidly decaying and threatening coastal cities around the world. For all of West Antarctica, the cork in the bottle holds ten feet of sea level rise. Subsidence of a sea extension will not add to sea level rise because it is already floating. When it collapses, the cork is released and the dry ice slides freely into the Weddell Sea and the Amundsen Sea, raising sea levels.
All the damage to Thwaites’ consistency happens under the ice. The upwelling of warm ocean water softens and erodes the glacier’s soft white underbelly. Upwelling also lifts the ice, where warmer waters can flow up the ridges and beyond the grounding line, increasing the ice’s decay with faster flow, further breaking up and breaking up with the threat of collapse. Water can do this because the ice is no longer anchored to the rock.
The ocean in front of the glacier is still quite cold, about 34 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s above freezing, and if you think about your afternoon ice-filled cocktail, it’s like the warmth of ocean water eating on a glacier. As you sip your cocktail, you watch the ice melt, which is what’s happening on the underside of the massive marine extension of the Thwaites Glacier. The glacier itself rises two feet above sea level.
Geophysicists were able to map the seafloor front of the glacier. Like you and me, we have a history, So does Thwaites.
A recent study from the University of South Florida:
At some point in the last 200 years, in less than six months, the glacier front lost contact with the seafloor ridge and retreated more than 2.1 kilometers per year (1.3 miles per year)—twice. Rate documented using satellites between 2011 and 2019.
“Our results show that there have been pulses of very rapid retreat on Thwaites Glacier over the past two centuries and possibly into the middle of the 20th century,” Graham said.
“Thwaites is really holding on today, and we should expect to see big changes on small time scales in the future as the glacier retreats to the edge of the shallow ridge on its bed,” said marine geophysicist and study co-author Robert Larter of the British Antarctic Survey.
Thwaites tongue is fifty miles wide. Depending on its stability and whether it is anchored in the ridge, you can make a difference in the tongue. Although endangered, the western part of the language is still relatively stable. The eastern side is shedding chunks of ice like there’s no tomorrow, while the eastern side retains most of its dry ice. I don’t think it’s too late for chaos.
A significant iceberg called Iceberg for twenty-two years B22a In 2001, it broke off Thwaites’ tongue and stuck to its front, protecting the remaining ice from the open ocean. The iceberg was fifty-three miles long and forty miles wide. It is also exposed to warm waters and the berg becomes so thin that it is freed from the mountain it is stuck on. September 2022. This means that there will be a relentless attack on Thwaites from the ocean. An iceberg flotilla is expected from the front following the iceberg that exits the Amundsen Sea and enters the Weddell Sea. In case you didn’t know, West Antarctica passed its tipping point many years ago.
