August 23, 2024<\/p>\n
5 min read<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Antarctica\u2019s \u2018Doomsday Glacier\u2019 Isn’t as Vulnerable to Collapse as We Thought<\/p>\n
Antarctica\u2019s riskiest glacier is a disaster in slow motion. But in a rare bit of good news, the worst-case scenario for its collapse may be off the table<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
By Mathieu Morlighem<\/a> & The Conversation US<\/a><\/p>\n The calving front of Thwaites\u2019 ice shelf. The blue area is light reflecting off ice below the water.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n Antarctica\u2019s Thwaites Glacier got its nickname the \u201c<\/i>Doomsday Glacier<\/i><\/a>\u201d for its potential to flood coastlines around the world if it collapsed. It is already contributing about <\/i>4% of annual sea-level rise<\/i><\/a>as it loses ice, and one theory suggests the glacier could soon <\/i>begin to collapse into the ocean<\/i><\/a>like a row of dominoes.<\/i><\/p>\n But is that kind of rapid collapse really as likely as feared? A new study of Thwaites Glacier\u2019s susceptibility to what\u2019s known as <\/i>marine ice cliff instability<\/i><\/a>offers some hope. But <\/i>the findings<\/i><\/a>don\u2019t mean Thwaites is stable.<\/i><\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing<\/a>. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Polar scientist <\/i>Mathieu Morlighem<\/i><\/a>, who led the study, explains the results.<\/i><\/p>\n Thwaites Glacier drains a huge area of Antarctica\u2019s ice sheet \u2013 about 74,000 square miles<\/a>(192,000 square kilometers), an expanse bigger than Florida. If a snowflake falls within that drainage system, it will eventually end up as part of an iceberg in the ocean off Thwaites.<\/p>\n What we are seeing with Thwaites Glacier right now is a disaster in slow motion.<\/p>\n The bedrock under Thwaites Glacier sits below sea level and slopes downward going inland<\/a>, so the glacier gets deeper toward the interior of the ice sheet. Once the glacier begins losing more ice than it gains from new snowfall and starts to retreat, it\u2019s very hard to slow it down because of this slope. And Thwaites is already retreating at an accelerating rate<\/a> as the climate warms.<\/p>\n Thwaites Glacier holds enough ice to raise global sea level by more than 2 feet<\/a>(0.65 meters). Once Thwaites starts to destabilize, it also will destabilize neighboring glaciers<\/a>. So, what happens to Thwaites affects all of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and that affects sea-level rise along coastlines everywhere.<\/p>\n Marine ice cliff instability is a relatively new concept<\/a>proposed by scientists in the past decade.<\/p>\n Many of the glaciers around Antarctica have huge floating extensions called ice shelves<\/a>that buttress the glacier and slow its ice flow into the ocean. With the climate warming, we have seen some of these floating extensions collapse, sometimes very rapidly<\/a>, in the span of a few weeks or months.<\/p>\n If Thwaites\u2019 ice shelf were to collapse, it would expose a very tall ice cliff facing the ocean along its 75-mile (120-kilometer) front<\/a>. There is only so much force that ice can sustain, so if the cliff is too tall, it will collapse into the ocean.<\/p>\n Once that happens, a new ice cliff farther back would be exposed, and the new cliff would be even taller because it is farther inland. The theory of marine ice cliff instability suggests that if the cliffs collapse quickly enough, that could have a domino effect<\/a>of ever-higher ice cliffs collapsing one after the other.<\/p>\n However, no one has observed marine ice cliff instability in action. We don\u2019t know if it will happen, because a lot depends on how quickly the ice collapses.<\/p>\n When the theory of marine ice cliff instability<\/a>was first introduced, it used a rough approximation of how ice cliffs might collapse once the ice shelf was gone.<\/p>\n Studies since then have determined that ice cliffs won\u2019t fail systematically<\/a>until the ice is about 442 feet (135 meters) high. Even at that point, they would fail more slowly than projected until they became much taller.<\/p>\n We used three high-resolution models to explore what this new physical understanding of ice cliff instability would mean for Thwaites Glacier this century.<\/p>\n Our results show<\/a> that if Thwaites\u2019 entire ice shelf collapsed today, its ice front would not rapidly retreat inland due to marine ice cliff instability alone. Without the ice shelf, the glacier\u2019s ice would flow much faster toward the ocean, thinning the front of the glacier. As a result, the ice cliffs wouldn\u2019t be as high.<\/p>\n We found that Thwaites would remain fairly stable at least through 2100. We also simulated an ice shelf collapse in 50 years, when the glacier\u2019s grounding line<\/a>\u2013 where its grounded ice meets the ocean \u2013 would have retreated deeper inland. Even then, we found that marine ice cliff instability alone would not cause a rapid retreat.<\/p>\n The results call into question some recent estimates of just how fast Thwaites might collapse. That includes a worst-case scenario that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mentioned in its latest assessment report<\/a>but labeled as \u201clow likelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n Thwaites is the glacier everyone is worried about. If you model the entire ice sheet, this is where marine ice cliff instability starts and where it propagates far inland<\/a>. So, if Thwaites isn\u2019t as vulnerable to ice cliff failure as we thought, that\u2019s a good sign for the entire ice sheet.<\/p>\n But marine ice cliff instability is only one mechanism of ice loss. This finding doesn\u2019t mean Thwaites is stable.<\/p>\n There are many processes that make the Antarctic ice sheet unstable, some of them very well understood.<\/p>\n Ice-ocean interactions explain most of the recent ice mass loss<\/a>so far. Antarctica is a very cold place<\/a>, so atmospheric warming isn\u2019t having a large effect yet. But warm ocean currents are getting under the ice shelves, and they are thinning the ice from below<\/a>, which weakens the ice shelves. When that happens, the ice streams flow faster because there is less resistance.<\/p>\n Over the past few decades<\/a>, the Amundsen Sea sector, where Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers are located, has seen an intrusion of warm water from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which has been melting the ice from below<\/a>.<\/p>\n Antarctica can seem like a faraway place, but human activities that warm the planet<\/a>\u2013 such as burning fossil fuels \u2013 are having dramatic effects at the poles. Ice loss contributes to sea-level rise, affecting coastal regions<\/a>around the world.<\/p>\n People\u2019s choices today will determine how quickly the water rises.<\/p>\n This article was originally published on <\/i>The Conversation<\/i><\/a>. Read the <\/i>original article<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Calving](\"https:\/\/static.scientificamerican.com\/dam\/m\/7def62c3c1166d95\/original\/Thwaites-glacier-1.jpg?w=600\")
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The Conversation<\/a>, an online publication covering the latest research.<\/em><\/p>\nOn supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
Why is the Thwaites Glacier so important?<\/h2>\n
What is marine ice cliff instability?<\/h2>\n
What did you discover about the risk to Thwaites?<\/h2>\n
What else is causing glaciers to retreat at an accelerating rate?<\/h2>\n
What does climate change have to do with it?<\/h2>\n