No Way to Stop the Melting of the “Doomsday Glacier”

Researchers say the “Doomsday Glacier” is irreversibly melting and may come apart in decades.

A recent interview with atmospheric scientist David Holland of New York University exposes truths about the melting Thwaites Glacier.

Axios said this morning that the West Antarctica ice shelf, dubbed the “Doomsday Glacier,” might melt in a matter of decades, releasing the ice it holds back into the ocean and rising sea levels by several disastrous feet.
Holland added it might break apart rapidly, in decades, or it could take millennia. And the only way to understand for sure is via this analysis.

Holland is now traveling an icebreaker ship into the thick sea ice to research the Thwaites’ grounding line, the point at which the ice hits bottom.
Temperatures and salinity levels will inform scientists how rapidly the iceberg is melting and if it is melting from underneath.

NASA said in 2014 that Western Antarctic sea ice loss was “inevitable.” In 2021, scientists discovered that the iceberg was considerably more fragile than initially assumed.

Holland’s team is now attempting to determine how much time we have left.

Ice Used to be Twice as Thick

Just as the Thwaites may pour inland ice into the ocean like a cork from a bottle, others are spilling alarming volumes of freshwater near penguin colonies.

According to a recent study released by academics from the Universities of Cambridge and Leeds, iceberg A-68a was the world’s biggest until it fragmented into over a dozen mini-bergs.

The wrecked A-68a dumped around 162 billion tons of fresh water into the ocean near the penguin home, which might have unpredictable and catastrophic consequences for temperature, ecology, and marine life.

The study’s authors wrote that icebergs affect the physical and biological properties of the ocean where they drift, depending on the extent of melting. The results could also help model the disintegration of other large tabular icebergs.

With two tales of fatal icebergs in a single day, it’s difficult to ignore the urgency of climate change legislation. Save the penguins, and we will also be saved.