SERAMBINEWS.COM – The world’s largest ice sheet or glacier is predicted to collapse soon.
However, new findings led by the University of Michigan suggest that the danger of sudden collapse is predicted to be less than previously thought.
Launching Phys Saturday (19/6/2021), the study published in Science also includes simulations of deaths from West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, one of the largest and most unstable glaciers in the world.
The researchers modeled the collapse of various heights of ice cliffs, the near-vertical formations that occur where glaciers and ice sheets meet oceans. They found that instability does not necessarily lead to rapid disintegration.
“What we found was that over long periods of time, ice behaved like a thick liquid, like a pancake spread across a frying pan,” said Jeremy Bassis, UM professor of climate and space science and engineering.
He added that if the ice spread and thinned out more quickly, this could stabilize the collapse. “But if the ice sheet isn’t thinning fast enough, that’s when there’s a possibility of a faster glacier collapse.”
The researchers combined ice collapse and ice flow variables for the first time. They found that the stretching and thinning of ice, as well as the support of trapped ice chunks, could moderate the effects of fracture-induced sea ice cliff instability.
The new findings add nuance to an earlier theory called sea ice cliff instability, which suggested that if an ice cliff’s height reached a certain threshold, it could suddenly collapse under its own weight in a chain reaction of ice fractures.
Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, often referred to as the “Doomsday Glacier”, is moving closer to this threshold and could contribute nearly 3 feet to sea level rise if a complete collapse occurs.
This doomsday glacier in Antarctica measures 74,000 square miles, roughly the size of Florida, and is highly vulnerable to climate and ocean changes.
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