Glacier as big as Britain is melting fast, but politicos do not feel the heat

While politicians the world over negotiated the nitty-gritties of climate deal at COP26 in Glasgow last month, something alarming was brewing on the West Antarctic ice sheet.

Glaciologists found deep cracks and fissures on top of and underneath the Thwaites glacier, which is as big as the size of Great Britain. Satellite images show it is melting much faster than it did in the 1990s. American and British scientists fear that parts of the glacier — probably the biggest in the world — may give in in the coming five years or even less.

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Thwaites is enormous in size and contains enough water to raise sea levels worldwide by more than half a metre. The Guardian states that the glacier contributes about 4% of annual global sea level rise and has been called the most important glacier in the world, even the “doomsday” glacier.

Thwaites is not the only one that is under threat though. Several other glaciers too are melting fast in Antarctica. The existing and survival of Thwaites is critical because it acts like a cork, blocking movement of other smaller glaciers to the sea. Scientists fear that if Thwaites gives away, other glaciers would collapse too, resulting in catastrophic rise in sea levels and inundation of several small islands and coastal cities.

As per one estimate, if all glaciers in West Antarctica were to collapse, every coastal city in the world would bear the consequences.

It is, however, difficult to estimate how fast the glaciers in Antartica would melt. Studies suggest sea levels rose from 1.4mm to 3.6mm between 2006 and 2015 and the rise continues.

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There is a difference in the way we look at melting in the Arctic and the Antartica. Ice loss in the Arctic barely affects sea levels because it mostly forms at sea. Antarctic ice, however, is mostly on land so any melting adds to sea levels, says The Guardian.

The threat to Thwaites, which is 300-metre thick and 50-mile wide, highlights the fact that global warming is for real and it won’t wait for countries, deliberating at global summits for several years, to agree on reducing carbon emissions.