Tag Archives: Glaciology

Warm Seawater Accelerates Melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier

Warm Seawater Accelerates Melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier

A team led by glaciologists at UC Irvine used satellite radar data to reconstruct the impact of warm ocean water surging in a grounding zone extending several kilometers beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The research, the subject of a paper published in PNAS, will help climate modelers derive more precise projections of sea level rise resulting from the melting of ocean-terminating glaciers around the world. Credit: NASA/James Yungel

A team of glaciologists, led by the University of California, Irvine, has discovered evidence of warm, high-pressure seawater intruding many kilometers beneath the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. Often referred to as the “Doomsday Glacier,” its vast size and significant melting rate could substantially contribute to global sea level rise if it were to collapse. […]