14 DAY TRIAL // An article published in this week's issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science details the findings of an investigation into the size and complexity of a water system that sits beneath the Thwaites Glacier in the Antarctica.
Researchers from the Institute of Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin explain that, with the help of state-of-the-art radar analysis, they have managed to collect new information about this subglacial water system.
This information will make it easier to predict how changes in the Antarctic ice sheet will influence ocean levels worldwide, the specialists maintain.
As explained on the official website for The University of Texas at Austin, the water system is several times larger than the Everglades.
A portion of it sits under the deep interior of the Thwaites glacier, and resembles a swamp.
One other portion is made up of stream-like channels and sits at the periphery, under parts of the glacier that are fairly close to the ocean.
The researchers explain that, because these swamp-like and stream-like parts of the subglacial water system have a different effect on the ice pressing over them, the Thwaites glacier came to sport a so-called conveyor belt of ice piles precisely where the swamp transitions to streams.
This conveyor belt it what keeps it in place and does not let it break free from the Antarctic continent and tumble into the ocean.
“This is where ocean and ice sheet are at war, on that sticking point, and eventually one of them is going to win,” researcher Don Blankenship said.
The bad news is that an increase in ocean temperatures and/or changes in the make-up of this water system can cause the Thwaites glacier to lose its stability.
Should the glacier fall into the ocean and melt, sea levels could up by as much as a meter (3.2 feet).
“Like many systems, the ice can be stabilized until some external factor causes it to jump its stability point.”
“We now understand both how the water system is organized and where that dynamic is playing itself out. Our challenge is to begin to understand the timing and processes that will be involved when that stability is breached,” Don Blankenship wished to stress.