Doomsday Glacier

Did you know that there is a Doomsday Glacier in Antarctica? In fact, it has nothing to do with the end of the world, it is just a pompous name invented for the media. Its real name is Thwaites Glacier. It is located in West Antarctica and is very gigantic. Its melting will cause the flooding of many areas of land around the world, which is why it has such an eloquent alternative name.

According to scientists' calculations, the melting of the Thwaites Glacier will cause the level of the world's oceans to rise by 3 m. But it will also cause the glaciers that cover this giant to melt, so the consequences could be even more serious.

I live at an altitude of 300 m above sea level, and if I don't like something, the Carpathian Mountains are nearby and I can climb even higher, so I am not afraid of these horror stories 😆. However, simulations of the state of our planet in the event that all the glaciers melt are undoubtedly interesting. Such predictions were shared by National Geographic.

This is what Europe will look like:

North America:

South America:

Africa:

Asia:

Australia:

Antarctica:

Previously, scientists believed that the Thwaites Glacier was retreating at a rate of 2 to 5.4 meters per year due to contact with warm ocean currents. It is difficult to call these calculations accurate, but, as often happens with complex systems, even they turned out to be wrong. Recently, researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) mapped the seafloor beneath the glacier using underwater drones, and found that its underwater glacial landscape turned out to be much more complex. Who would have thought?! 😉 Consequently, the underwater landscape of the glacier has strange staircase-like terraces and large cracks running through the entire ice shelf. It is here that melting occurs especially quickly due to the penetration of warm water into these areas.

What awaits us?

Here is this scientific paper stating that global mean sea level rise will reach approximately 5-6 cm by 2100 AD and between approx. 2.5-2.9 m before 2500 AD. I hope you have already packed your things, because time flies. You won't have time to blink an eye when the year 2500 comes 😁. _{You know, I love scientists, they have a sense of humor. In this case, I especially liked the clarification that the prediction refers to the year 2500} AD_{, otherwise everyone would definitely think that it is about the year 2500 BC, which is logical 😂.}

Are people to blame?

Interestingly, the researchers also found that such ice retreats historically occur regularly with a certain frequency. But this time, you and I put some effort into it.

Our results thus support the idea that glacier retreat in the Amundsen Sea was initiated by natural climate variability in the 1940s. That ice streams such as Thwaites Glacier and Pine Island Glacier have continued to retreat since then indicates that they were unable to recover after the exceptionally large El Niño event of the 1940s. This may reflect the increasing dominance of anthropogenic forcing since that time but implies that this involved large-scale, in additional to local, atmospheric and ocean circulation changes.

And while we're all afraid of flooding, the water level in my well is critically low again...

Sources:

• pnas.org
• nationalgeographic.com