Scientists discover cavity two-thirds the size of Manhattan underneath Antarctic glacier

A gigantic cavity almost 300 metres tall and two-thirds the size of Manhattan has been discovered growing at the bottom of a glacier in West Antarctica.

The huge cavity is one of several disturbing findings
from a NASA-led study of the disintegrating glacier.

The Thwaites Glacier — which is itself more than twice the size of Tasmania — is currently responsible for approximately 4 per cent of global sea level rise.

The NASA-led study expected to find a few gaps between the ice and the bedrock underneath the glacier, where ocean water could flow in and melt it from below — but researchers said the size and explosive growth rate of the cavity took them by surprise.

They think it would have contained 14 billion tonnes of ice, and said most of that ice melted over the past three years.

Read the ABC News story - “Scientists discover cavity two-thirds the size of Manhattan underneath Antarctic glacier.”

Scientists stunned by Antarctic rainfall and a melt area bigger than Texas

Scientists have documented a recent, massive melt event on the surface of highly vulnerable West Antarctica that, they fear, could be a harbinger of future events as the planet continues to warm.

An iceberg lies in the Ross Sea with Mount Erebus
in the background near McMurdo Station in Antarctica,
 November 11, 2016. A sheet of meltwater lasted for as long
as 15 days in some places on the surface of the Ross Ice
Shelf, the largest floating ice platform on Earth, during the
 Antarctic summer of 2016.

In the Antarctic summer of 2016, the surface of the Ross Ice Shelf, the largest floating ice platform on Earth, developed a sheet of meltwater that lasted for as long as 15 days in some places. The total area affected by melt was 300,000 square miles, or larger than the state of Texas, the scientists report.

That’s bad news because surface melting could work hand in hand with an already documented trend of ocean-driven melting to compromise West Antarctica, which contains over 10 feet of potential sea level rise.

Read The Washington Post story - “Scientists stunned by Antarctic rainfall and a melt area bigger than Texas.”

Sit back and watch at the West Antartic ice sheet melts

Bradley Odpyke.

A few decades ago the likely outcomes of climate change were thought to be little more than hypothetical projections.

That has all changed – although those projections, which were never conjectural at all for they were measurable scientific realities, they have now become something that can actually be seen.

Of course, while all the remarkable weather events of the past decade could be seen, and felt, the where always discounted by the doubters as nothing more than a continuation of the world’s natural viability in the weather.

Now however, the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is a clearly visible outcome of climate change.

Writing on The Conversation, a researcher in physical and mathematical sciences at the Australian National University, Bradley Opdyke, says in a story headed: “We can now only watch as West Antarctic ice sheets collapse” described this “worrying moment”.

Loss of West Antarctic ice sheet 'inevitable'

Studies have shown that the loss of West Antarctic Ice sheet is inevitable.

A story headed: “Study indicates loss of West Antarctic glaciers appears unstoppable” says the massive ice-sheet is in a state of irreversible decline.

The study, based on multiply lines of evidence and 40 years of evidence, says the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica “have passed the point of no return”.

“These glaciers,” the story noted, “already contribute significantly to sea level rise, releasing almost as much ice into the ocean annually as the entire Greenland Ice Sheet.

“The contain enough ice to raise global see level by 4 feet (1.2 metres) and are melting faster than most scientists had expected,” it said.