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A Hole Opens Up Under Antarctic Glacier -- Big Enough To Fit Two-Thirds of Manhattan (nbcnews.com)
Scientists have discovered an enormous void under an Antarctic glacier, sparking concern that the ice sheet is melting faster than anyone had realized -- and spotlighting the dire threat posed by rising seas to coastal cities around the world, including New York City and Miami. From a report: The cavity under Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is about six miles long and 1,000 feet deep -- representing the loss of 14 billion tons of ice. It was discovered after an analysis of data collected by Italian and German satellites, as well as NASA's Operation IceBridge, a program in which aircraft equipped with ice-penetrating radar fly over polar regions to study the terrain. The discovery is described in a paper published Jan. 30 in the journal Science Advances. The researchers expected to see significant loss of ice, but the scale of the void came as a shock.
As an ice age species, we have a vested interest in not accelerating the rate of change. Absolutely the glaciers are going to melt. We need to adapt, but we need to buy time too. The changes at play are much bigger than you're imagining.
To be clear, neither the summary nor the article made any claims about global warming or global climate change (whichever you like to call it). Simply observation that a large portion of ice internal to this glacier is gone (assumed to have melted) and this raises a risk that the glacier will collapse into the ocean which, based on calculations, could raise sea levels very quickly by up to 2 ft. If that is the case, *why* it is gone is probably not the most important question, rather how do we protect in the event that the glacier collapses is where we should focus our attention.
Why didn't it melt across the expanse instead of just the center? This seems more like geothermal heat, as it is more directed. Climate change heating would have produced channels instead as it would follow currents which would expand across the entire glacier, not just the center.
Maybe you'll find answers in the paper. Did you try reading it ?