Thwaites Glacier is one of the most remote part of the Antarctic ( which is saying a destiny ) and yet its fate is intimately tied with million of the great unwashed around the earth . The glacier is the seawall against trash stack away on West Antarctica . If it crumble , it could destabilize the region ’s ice and station sea levelsspiraling up to 10 feet higher .
Yet for all its grandness , very few people had ever set foot on its frigid articulatio humeri until this austral summer . A team be of 100 researchers from the U.S. and UK was deployed to the glacier in November , and they recently make out groundbreaking fieldwork , including a host of low gear include the first - ever ice centre and first - ever footage entrance under the ice . The trove of data they ’re bringing back could help reveal how imminent the risk of Thwaites ’ collapse is .
https://gizmodo.com/antarctica-is-losing-an-unfathomable-amount-of-ice-1826799202
Photo: David Vaughan, British Antarctic Survey
Thwaites Glacier is one of the horsemen of the climate apocalypse . It spill down from the heights of the West Antarctic ice sheet into the Amundsen Sea . The area where it meet the sea is where theapocalypse is playing out . It may look slow movement to the human eye but a snap of the fingers in geologic time .
“ Thwaites is a thruway delivering ice to the ocean , ” Robin Bell , an south-polar researcher at Lamont - Doherty Earth Observatory , told Earther .
The location where ocean ice and Antarctic bedrock sports meeting is live as the foundation dividing line , and what ’s happening there hold the key to unlocking the portion of the glacier as well as the ice behind it . There ’s a unique and unfortunate quirk to the bedrock Thwaites Glacier sits on before extending over the sea : It splosh downward . That has permit warming brine to swirl in under the glacier and carve out a progressively larger cavity , which in turn has made the remain glass cling over the water increasingly mentally ill and couldspeed its crash .
Hot water drilling requires the team to melt snow in large rubber tanks.Photo: David Vaughan, British Antarctic Survey
There ’s been modeling of what that process — dubbedmarine ice - drop instabilityif you wanna get nerdy about it — could look like and measuring have been taken using satellites and aircraft fit with ice - penetrating equipment . base on those mensuration , researchers are well aware thatAntarctica is lose ice at a quickening footstep , shedding three trillion tons over the retiring 25 years . Thwaites is at the epicentre of those losses , and getting a robot inside that cavity offered a heretofore unseen view of an unfolding crisis .
“ It ’s the first time anyone has done that or has ever even seen the foundation zone of a major glacier under the water , and that ’s the place where the neat level of melt and destabilization can pass , ” Britney Schmidt , an ITGC collaborator from Georgia Tech , said in a argument .
To get the project afoot was no easy labor . Thwaites Glacier baby-sit 1,000 naut mi from British Antarctic Survey ’s Rothera Research Station and U.S. Arctic Program ’s McMurdo Station , the principal home base of operations for Antarctic scientists from those several state . Scientists began the toilsome journey to Thwaites from those Stations of the Cross in November , following a daisy chain of research sites to establish new camps on the glacier in late December .
In addition to the 100 research worker ’ provision to cover their basic needs , they also work unique inquiry equipment with them to take a closer tone at the glacier . That admit a red-hot water drill to support clear through Thwaites Glacier down to the ocean beneath it as well as a robot vehicle they drop down the borehole to explore the amniotic fluid . The inquiry is part of a five - year collaboration known as the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration ( ITGC ) .
Both efforts are the first of their sort . The video recording is mesmerizing to watch on some level , with ice and water make a funhouse burden where it ’s unimaginable to tell where the ice finish and water begins . Pisces and other unearthly creatures float in the urine as the golem birr by . The footage feels otherworldly , which is fitting since Icefin ’s ultimate goal is to search the gelid oceans of other worlds in our solar system of rules one day . But it ’s very much Earth , and it ’s very much a huge leap for science and our understanding of human beings ’s fate .
“ Her [ Schmidt ’s ] video is like seeing the aerofoil of the moon for the first fourth dimension , ” Bell said . “ The picture gives me goosebumps . ”
While the underwater footage is the main attractiveness , the scientists also ping Thwaites ’ sparkler with seismal and microwave radar instruments and drill multiples trap as well . In one case , they took a deposit core from the seafloor below that will avail provide an even deeper look into the history of Thwaites Glacier and the border sea .
That history will cease up narrate us a pot about the future tense we look .
Antarcticaice ice maybe
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