Scientists examine Antarctica’s thawing ‘Doomsday Glacier’

It’s ‘so messed up by crevasses, it looks like a set of sugar cubes,’ explains National Science Foundation’s Paul Cutler. ‘Its eventual mode of failure may be through falling apart,’ he says. 

Backed by a huge $50m multi-year initiative, however, researchers have finally made a partial breakthrough in examining the world’s widest glacier up close using a sophisticated autonomous vehicle aptly named Icefin. 

Built with integrated sonar, chemical, and biological sensors, the pencil-shaped device was lowered into a crevice at a secure eastern field site and then sent to survey several different points from under the ice.

Oceanographers were quickly able to confirm assertions that most of Thwaites’ shrinkage occurs below the ice due to basal melting, where warm water nibbles away the lower mass. 

The good news is that this melting rate is occurring more slowly than expected in the majority of study zones. The bad (and more significant) news is that this doesn’t notably change how the glacier’s melt is impacting rising sea levels. 

Atmospheric heating remains the real killer on that front, as ice cascades off the surface and into the water. The more the glacier breaks up or recedes over time, the more displaced chunks of ice end up in the water and drive the surrounding sea level up. 

The problem of being unable to observe the main trunk persists also, as the device isn’t capable of travelling such vast distances through volatile waters from east to west. The western region is frankly too dangerous for human expeditions. 

Despite the obvious drawbacks of the study, scientists remain optimistic that these findings will broaden our understanding of glacier melt and form the basis of future research into the area. 

‘Unfortunately, this is still going to be a major issue a century from now, but our better understanding gives us some time to take action to slow the pace,’ says Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre.