#Thwaites and #PineIsland #Glaciers Rapid Melting Could Cause Four Foot Global Sea Level Rise

March 4, 2020

"Over the weekend of February 8-9, 2020, a significant calving event was observed by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellites on Thwaites’ neighbor #PineIslandGlacier. A 120-mile ice chunk—approximately the size of three San Franciscos—broke off the glacier’s front and splintered into several smaller icebergs, one of which was huge enough to receive its own name, B-49. Pine Island Glacier’s unstable state is evidenced by the diminishing time between calving events; prior events this century happened in 2001, 2007, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018. Between Thwaites and Pine Island, the amount of ice lost from Antarctica’s ice shelves is rapid and indicates a serious future threat. Both are susceptible to the encroachment of warm sea level because the “grounding line,” where the glaciers meet bedrock, lies below sea level. These two glaciers form the gateway to a large supply of frozen water on land that if released into the sea would cause global sea levels to rise by an estimated four feet. Although Pine Island Glacier appears to have stabilized for now, the threat of an increasingly unstable ice shelf yielding larger and larger icebergs (marine cliff instability) may cause dangerously fast losses of ice in West Antarctica."

Read more: https://www.climatecenter.pitt.edu/news/thwaites-and-pine-island-glaciers-rapid-melting-could-cause-four-foot-global-sea-level-rise

#SeaLevel #SeaLevelRise #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateCatastrophe #GlobalWarming

Das große Schmelzen: #Antarktis vor dem Kippen

"Wir haben womöglich nicht mehr den Luxus, langsame Veränderungen von #PineIsland abzuwarten; die Dinge könnten viel schneller gehen als erwartet“, sagte Leitautor Ian Joughin, #Glaziologe an der Universität Washington. Es sei schon etwa ein Fünftel des Hauptschelfs verloren gegangen.
„Die Prozesse, die wir in dieser Region untersucht haben, deuteten auf einen unumkehrbaren Kollaps hin."

https://taz.de/Das-grosse-Schmelzen/!5780766/

#Klimakrise #Kipppunkt