An Antarctic glacier about the size of Florida may be more vulnerable to warming waters than previously thought.
Thwaites Glacier has lost about 50 billion tons of ice each year. Its melting causes global sea levels to rise by about 4%.
Rignot: “This is a vulnerable part of West Antarctica…where we are seeing the most dramatic glacier retreat yet.”
Eric Riignot is at the University of California, Irvine. In a recent study, his team analyzed new satellite data that show that during high tides, seawater is pushed beneath the glacier, into the cavity between the ice mass and the seafloor beneath it.
Rignot: “To our surprise, we saw the seawater intrusion propagating many, many kilometers inland, far away from where we thought it would go.”
He said this means more water is in direct contact with the glacier than previously thought.
Every degree of ocean warming causes more melting and sea level rise than scientists estimate.
But he said the world still had time to take ambitious climate action to limit global warming and slow glacier retreat.
Riignot: “The future of the planet is in our hands. … It depends on us.
Report source: Sarah Kennedy/ChavoBart Digital Media
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