Slowly but surely, Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier” is crumbling apart as the cracks on its surface grow with every passing year. The massive glacier — about the size of Florida — now teeters on the brink of collapse, which would cause the sea level to surge 11 feet higher. But before everything falls to pieces, researchers are racing to measure how quickly the glacier is fracturing.
A new method to evaluate cracks across the Doomsday Glacier has already revealed some valuable details, shared in a study from the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface. Using recent satellite data, researchers have honed in on the underlying factors that are chipping away at the glacier’s surface.
The Doomsday Glacier (officially known as the Thwaites Glacier) has been melting at an intensifying pace in recent years, unsettling many climate scientists. It is currently losing about 50 billion tons of ice every year, contributing to ...
