THWAITES GLACIER

Feb. 1, 2019

NASA scientists have discovered a gigantic cavity, almost 300 metres tall, growing at the bottom of the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, indicating rapid decay of the ice sheet and acceleration in global sea levels due to climate change.

About:

Thwaites Glacier is an Antarctic glacier flowing into Pine Island Bay, part of the Amundsen Sea.
It is unusually broad and fast glacier with its surface speeds exceeding 2 km/yr near its grounding line.
Along with Pine Island Glacier, Thwaites Glacier has been described as part of the "weak underbelly" of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is predicted that it will gradually melt, leading to an irreversible collapse over the next 200 to 1000 years.
Significance: It holds enough ice to raise the world ocean a little over 65 centimetres and backstops neighbouring glaciers that would raise sea levels an additional 2.4 metres if all the ice were lost.

Recent Findings:

NASA scientists have discovered a 300 metres tall cavity, growing at the bottom of the Thwaites Glacier, indicating rapid decay of the ice sheet and acceleration in global sea levels.
The size and explosive growth rate of the newfound hole is surprising. It is big enough to have contained 14 billion tonnes of ice, and most of that ice melted over the last three years.
The cavity was revealed by ice-penetrating radar in NASA’s Operation IceBridge, and the findings were published in the journal Science Advances.

Source : The Hindu