The Maui News - Weekender

Antarctic glacier’s breakup increases

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A critical Antarctic glacier is looking more vulnerable as satellite images show the ice shelf that blocks it from collapsing into the sea is breaking up much faster than before and spawning huge icebergs, a new study says.

The Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf loss accelerate­d in 2017, causing scientists to worry that with climate change the glacier’s collapse could happen quicker than the many centuries predicted. The floating ice shelf acts like a cork in a bottle for the fast-melting glacier and prevents its much larger ice mass from flowing into the ocean.

That ice shelf has retreated by 12 miles between 2017 and 2020, according to a study in Friday’s Science Advances.

“You can see stuff just tearing apart,” said study lead author Ian Joughin, a University of Washington glaciologi­st. “So it almost looks like the speed-up itself is weakening the glacier . . . . And so far we’ve lost maybe 20 percent of the main shelf.”

“It’s not at all inconceiva­ble that the whole shelf could give way and go within a few years,” Joughin said. “I’d say that’s a long shot, but not a very long shot.”

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