Nature Geoscience: Doomsday Glacier Keeps “on Nails”
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Thwaites Glacier, informally known as the Doomsday Glacier, is located in Antarctica. It is so called because of the high risk of collapse and the threat of a sharp rise in sea levels.
The new study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, maps the glacier’s historic retreat. So researchers are trying to understand the trend of its melting and predict a catastrophe.
Over the past two centuries, the base of the glacier has moved away from the seabed and retreated 2.1 km per year. This is twice the rate that scientists have observed over the past decade.
This rapid decay may have occurred “as late as the middle of the 20th century,” Alastair Graham, lead author of the study and a marine geophysicist at the University of South Florida, said in a press release. “Thwaites is really holding on with his nails today, and we should expect big changes on small time scales in the future,” said marine geophysicist Robert Larter.
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