Underwater ‘Storms’ rapidly melting Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier, scientists warn

New Delhi: The melting under two of the most vulnerable glaciers in Antarctica scientists have documented a shocking increase in the melting of two of the most susceptible glaciers in Antarctica that was as a result of moving underwater storms. These whirlpools in the ocean are drawing warm water upwards and hollowing weak areas under the ice shelves. These are the results of recent research in Nature Geosciences that caused renewed interest in the speed at which the sea levels in the world would rise, study published in the journal Science Advances.

Scientists have concentrated on Pine Island and Thwaites, also known as the Doomsday Glacier, because the latter can cause a significant increase in the sea levels. Through analysing sudden changes in the behaviour of oceans over short periods of hours and days, the team discovered a short-term force that has remained largely unknown to the studies of Antarctica. According to their data, underwater storms were the cause of a great part of losing ice during only nine months.

The storms are big whirling eddies, occasionally nearly six miles in diameter. They develop naturally in areas where there is deep warm water which contrasts with colder water. As these eddies move beneath the ice shelves, they compress warmer water upwards to the ice base. This quick movement causes extreme melting in the weak areas, as researchers at Dartmouth College and UC Irvine assert. The models of computers used together with actual measurements demonstrated that these storms caused almost 20% of melting over the period of study.

It was noted by scientists that there is a disturbing loop of the melting point; cold fresh water melts into the warmer salty water underneath, which makes the melting process more turbulent and faster. An increase in ocean temperature would only exacerbate this process. Due to the effect of ice shelves, which serve as walls to restrain the glaciers, their deterioration may lead to the release of vast quantities of land ice to the ocean. The entire collapse of Thwaites would increase the global sea level up to ten feet.

The findings were accepted by independent experts but cautiously. Some have observed that the area is still very challenging to measure directly, and a lot of ocean and climate processes work under the ice. The researchers state that further high-resolution observations, especially of seasonal and yearly ocean storms, are people in dire need. People say that a key to the long-term stability of Antarctica when the ocean temperatures keep increasing would be the understanding of such brief but powerful events.