A critical Antarctic glacier is looking more vulnerable as satellite images show the ice shelf that blocks it from collapsing into the sea is breaking up much faster than before.
The Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf loss accelerated in 2017, causing scientists to worry that with climate change the glacier’s collapse could happen quicker than the many centuries predicted.
The floating ice shelf acts like a cork in a bottle for the fast-melting glacier and prevents its much larger ice mass from flowing into the ocean.
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That ice shelf has retreated by 20 kilometres between 2017 and 2020, according to a study in Friday’s Science Advances.
And the crumbling shelf was caught on time-lapse video from a European satellite that takes pictures every six days.
“You can see stuff just tearing apart,” said study lead author Ian Joughin, a University of Washington glaciologist.
“So it almost looks like the speed-up itself is weakening the glacier. … And so far we’ve lost maybe 20% of the main shelf.”
Source: 1News
