West Antarctic Ice Shelf Breaking Up from the Inside Out – Eos
Article Synopsis – Pine Island Glacier and its nearby twin, Thwaites Glacier, sit at the outer edge of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Like corks in a bottle, the two glaciers block ice flow and keep nearly 10% of the ice sheet from draining into the sea. A nearly 225-square-mile (588-square-kilometer) iceberg broke off from Pine Island Glacier in 2015. Researchers studying the event found that a rift had opened in the surface of the ice shelf nearly 20 miles (32 kilometers) inland in 2013. The rift grew over 2 years until the iceberg broke off in 2015. Rifts usually form at the sides of ice shelves. This inland rift implies that something weakened the center of the ice shelf. The most likely explanation is that a crevasse melted out at the bedrock level, driven by a warming ocean. This kind of rifting behavior provides another mechanism for rapid retreat of these glaciers, adding to the probability that there may be a significant collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the next century. The collapse could lead to a sea level rise of nearly 10 feet (3 meters), which would engulf major U.S. cities such as New York and Miami and displace 150 million people living on coasts worldwide. To read the actual article click here.