Thwaites Glacier, the largest glacier in West Antarctica, is melting faster in some spots than its shape would at first suggest, new studies show.
found that water that is well above freezing is located near the grounding zone, but not all of it is reaching the base of the ice.
Should the even warmer water reach the base of the ice, retreat would likely quicken, and it may be much higher in other parts of the glacier this study did not examine. "This means we should be worried, very worried for the other places where the melt [rates are] high and the retreat is high. The system is very sensitive to the ocean, more than we thought."looked at the topography of the glacier's grounding line, and found the ice shelf melting faster where there are steep slopes and crevasses carved into the ice.
"Overall, these papers don’t really change my level of worry about Thwaites collapse or not," said Richard Alley, a climate scientist at Penn State University who was not involved in the new research.
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