The 'doomsday glacier' that could cause catastrophic sea level rise is more vulnerable than scientists think.

Thwaites Glacier is located in West Antarctica, and is approximately the size of the province of Cordoba. The mass has, according to scientists, the potential to increase sea level by 60 cm, which is why it is known as Doomsday Glacier. Although it has been melting for decades, a new study has shown evidence of “strong melting” due to the flow of warm seawater beneath it, which is greater than previously thought.

According to US media outlet The Mirror, Rignot and his team have previously documented how this happened Antarctica is melting six times faster than in the 1980s.

Thwaites Glacier is one of the fastest changing glaciers in the world and is known as one of the most unstable glaciers. “Water is able to penetrate under the ice much longer distances than we thought,” Eric Renaud, a glaciologist at the University of California, told USA Today. “It's like sending a shock wave down our spine and watching the water move for miles,” he added.

Reno said the process documented in his study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will accelerate the results of models that scientists use to predict future sea levels. While the glacier itself may take hundreds or thousands of years to collapse, An ice shelf can cause the glacier to retreat, which may be unstable It may be irreversible if it melts earlier.

“Thwaites is the most unstable place in Antarctica, and has the equivalent of 60 centimeters of sea level rise,” said Christine Dow of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, co-author of the study. He added: “The concern is that we are underestimating the speed at which the glacier is changing, which will be devastating for coastal communities around the world.”

Rignot and his research team used high-resolution satellite radar data to find evidence that warm water could reach the glacier. A study conducted in 2021 said that the ice shelf It could collapse in the next five years.