Cavity two-thirds the size of Manhattan discovered under Antarctic glacier
ANTARTICA Scientists have discovered a giant cavity at the bottom of a disintegrating glacier in Antarctica, sparking concerns that the ice sheet is melting more rapidly than expected.
Researchers working as part of a Nasa-led study found the cavern, which they said was 300 meters tall and twothirds the size of Manhattan, at the bottom of the massive Thwaites glacier.
The space is big enough to have contained 14bn tons of ice and most of that ice has melted during the past three years. In a paper published in Science Advances, the scientists said the rapid change in the ice was “unexpected” at some points on the glacier. The researchers found the cavity using Italian and German satellites and ice-penetrating radar from Nasa’s Operation Ice Bridge, which uses research aircraft to monitor changes in polar ice. “A cavity under a glacier plays an important role in melting,” said the study’s lead author, Pietro Milillo, who is scientist at the Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “As more heat and water get under the glacier, it melts faster.”
But Milillo said the size of the underwater cavity was not the main concern because the 14bn tons it released were already underwater and so would not contribute to sea level rise. The important aspect of the paper, he said, was what it revealed about the interaction between sea and ice. Jeremie Mouginot, a co-author of the paper and a research scientist at the Université Grenoble Alpes, said ocean water was filling a widening gap between the floating ice shelf and the bedrock. Thwaites, he said, was a 120km-wide “monster glacier” that is continuing its retreat with huge future implications, because it could potentially add 0.6 meters to rising seas. Thwaites also supports neighboring glaciers that, if they melted, would increase sea levels by an additional 2.44 meters, threatening coastal communities worldwide.
(The Guardian, Photo: Nasa/ OIB/Jeremy Harbeck/EPA)