scientists have found evidence of when it started and why

Scientists have established that the “doomsday glacier” in Antarctica began to melt rapidly in the 1940s. They call these data alarming.

A study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences makes it possible to predict what to expect from the melting of the glacier, which got its name because of the catastrophic consequences that its melting can cause, writes CNN.

The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is the widest in the world – its size is approximately equal to the area of ​​the American state of Florida.

Because satellite data covered only the last few decades, scientists knew it had been losing ice at an accelerated rate since the 1970s. However, they had no data on exactly when significant melting began.

By analyzing marine sediment cores (long, thin cylinders of ice formed from compressed layers of snow) taken from the ocean floor, researchers found that the glacier began to retreat significantly in the 1940s. Probably, the reason for this was El Niño, a climatic phenomenon characterized by an increase in the temperature of the water surface.

According to the report, the glacier has not been able to recover since then. Probably due to the increasing effects of global warming caused by human activities.

What happens to Thwaites will have a global impact on the planet. The glacier dumps billions of tons of ice into the ocean every year, causing a 4% rise in sea levels. Its complete collapse could raise sea levels by more than 0.6 meters.

The “Doomsday Glacier” also plays an important role in the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – it holds a huge area of ​​ice behind it.

The collapse of Thwaites would undermine the stability of the ice sheet, which holds so much water that it could raise sea levels by at least 3 meters. And this will cause catastrophic global floods.

The results of the study coincide with data from the nearby Pine Island Glacier, one of the largest ice streams in Antarctica, which scientists discovered also began to retreat rapidly in the 1940s.

“The obtained data are alarming, because they indicate that big changes are very difficult to stop. If the retreat of the ice sheet has begun, it could continue for decades, even if global warming does not intensify.” – said James Smith, a marine geologist from the British Antarctic Survey and co-author of the study.

It will be recalled that scientists have determined how much ice has melted in Antarctica in 25 years. Also, global warming has accelerated the rate of melting of the glaciers in Greenland by five times, compared to the situation that was 20 years ago.

Nepal’s snow-capped mountains have lost nearly a third of their ice in more than 30 years due to global warming. And the glaciers in the Himalayas may lose up to 75% of their volume by the end of the century due to global warming.