The world's widest glacier could be even more vulnerable to melting than previously thought, new research suggests.
Ocean water is pushing kilometres beneath Antarctica's "Doomsday Glacier," making it more vulnerable to melting than previously thought, according to new research which used radar data from space to perform an X-ray of the crucial glacier.
"In the past, we had only sporadic data to look at this," Eric Rignot, professor of Earth system science at the University of California at Irvine and a co-author on the study, said. The speed of the seawater, which moves considerable distances over a short time period, increases glacier melt because as soon as the ice melts, freshwater is washed out and replaced with warmer seawater, Rignot said.
One uncertainty to be unravelled is whether the rush of seawater beneath Thwaites is a new phenomenon or whether it's been significant but unknown for a long time, said James Smith, a marine geologist at the British Antarctic Survey, who was not involved in the study.
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