The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Achilles Keel is Thwaites Glacier, or the so-called Doomsday Glacier. When it goes, global sea levels rise over half a meter (1.65 ft), and the rest of the WAIS then becomes vulnerable to collapse (4-5 meters global sea level rise).
Today (Feb 16, 2023) two extremely important peer reviewed scientific papers were published online that detail observations in the small sliver of water underneath the glacier and just above the seafloor near the Grounding Line (GL), which is the key terminus region where the glacier contacts the seafloor. A Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) was passed through a hole (diameter just larger than a basketball) passing through the 587 meter thick ice (drilled out with a hot water jet) into the 54 meter thick water sliver at the bottom of the ice.
This ROV measured ocean currents, temperature, salinity, etc. and passed the data and a real-time video feed through a fiber optic cable back to the scientists at the surface.
Key Findings:
The water temperature, about 2 C above freezing (theoretically capable of melting 30-40 meters of ice thickness per year) melted the horizontal undersurface of the ice only 5 meters per year (much slower than expected, due to a 2 meter thick layer of cold fresh meltwater insulating the ice from the warmer saltier water below).
But, and it’s a huge but:
There were basal crevasses in the ice that had vertical walls melting at over 30 meters per year, with melt rates as high as 43 meters per year.
These vertical crevices in the ice eventually reach to the top of the ice sheet as it thins seaward, and lead to complete fracturing of the ice shelf.
Bottom line: It won’t be a surprise if this ice shelf (150 km front, glacier as large as Florida) fractures and catastrophically collapses within the next decade.
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