NASA scientists have for a long time had an eye on Thwaites glacier in the western part of Antarctica. But instead of finding a number of gaps between the ice and bedrock as expected discovered instead a giant hole.
”the Size and the explosive growth surprised us,” wrote the researchers in a statement issued on Wednesday.
the Glacier, which is about as big as Florida, is one of the hardest places to reach on earth. There is no way that in the long-term monitoring of the glacier from ground level. Instead, the team used the aircraft and ice breakers with radar equipment to examine the center of the hole extent.
”the Cavity was large enough to have contained 14 billion tonnes of ice, and most of the ice has melted in the past three years,” added the researchers.
Read more: the Increasingly rapid melting of the ice sheet in Antarctica
that all the Thwaites glacier, has enough ice to raise world sea levels by 65 centimeters. Along with nearby glaciers would sea levels could rise an additional 2.4 metres if all the ice melted.
– To understand the details about how the sea makes to glacier melting is crucial in order to calculate its impact on how the sea levels will rise the coming decades, ” says Eric Rignot, one of the researchers behind the study.
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