Antarctic glacier collapse could submerge UK towns

AN Antarctic glacier the size of Britain is threatening to submerge coastal towns as distant as the United Kingdom by collapsing into the ocean and raising sea levels, scientists say.

British and American experts are launching the largest joint mission for more than 70 years to investigate how long the 292 668km² Thwaites Glacier can last in its current form.

A fleet of research ships, submarines and aircraft and more than 80 scientists will be dispatched to the remote West Antarctic region later this year following warnings that the ice structure could collapse within decades.

Glaciologists predict that the collapse of both Thwaites and the nearby Pine Island Glacier, two of the largest and fastest-retreating on the continent, could cause sea levels to rise by more than a metre.

This, in turn, could trigger the collapse of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, resulting in ocean rises of more than 3m.

Climate models indicate that a 1m rise would significantly increase the frequency of devastating storm surges, such as those that hit the UK’s eastern coastal towns in 2013.

However, a rise of 2m or more may cause permanent changes to Britain’s coastline with Hull, Peterborough, Portsmouth and parts of east London and the Thames Estuary at risk of becoming submerged.

Yesterday, leaders of the project, which comprises the UK’s Natural Environment Research and the US National Science Foundation (NSF), said there were reasons to suspect that a Thwaites ice retreat, once started, would be irreversible.

NSF deputy assistant director for geosciences Scott Borg said: “What happens in the Antarctic doesn’t stay in the Antarctic.

“Thwaites has the potential to affect sea levels worldwide. “Humanity cannot afford to wait.” The five-year project will comprise eight distinct research objectives. It will be one of the biggest Antarctic field missions ever launched.

At nearly 1 610km from the nearest permanent base, the glacier is one of the most challenging environments on the continent. The team will need to move more than 200 metric tons of scientific equipment into place to investigate the stability of the ice.

The scientists will use unmanned submarines to examine the underside of the glacier.

They will also enlist the help of seals, which will be fitted with headworn sensors.

British Antarctic Survey director of science David Vaughan said: “We’re going to be pushing the field season to the limit of the time you can spend in Antarctica to make the most of the opportunity.”

Sea levels are rising by 3.2mm a year and some scientists believe that, at a conservative estimate, oceans may have risen by about 30cm by 2100 compared to 2000.

But others predict that, mainly due to climate change, the world should brace for rises of 1.5m or even 2m.

The Thwaites Glacier is already showing signs of instability.

About 50 billion metric tons of ice is draining into the ocean, accounting for around 4% of global sea-level rise, an amount that has doubled since the mid-1990s.