Tag Archives: glaciers

Imminent Collapse of Doomsday Glacier’s Massive Ice Shelf: What You Need to Know

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The South Korean icebreaker “Araon” navigates through sea ice near the Thwaites Glacier in January 2026.

Chang W. Lee/New York Times/Redux/eyevine

The front ice shelf of Thwaites Glacier is on the brink of collapse, increasing the instability of Antarctica’s most vulnerable glacier.

“Its imminent demise could occur suddenly, and to clarify, we are preparing an ‘obituary’ press release,” states Rob Larter from the British Antarctic Survey.

Thwaites Glacier, often referred to as the ‘Doomsday Glacier’, is approximately the size of the United Kingdom, rapidly shrinking and currently contributing to around 4% of global sea level rise. Furthermore, its collapse might instigate a domino effect across the West Antarctic ice sheet, leading to an alarming 3.3 meters of sea level rise and reshaping coastlines globally.

Numerous glaciers in Antarctica have ice shelves that float into the ocean, aiding the flow of ice from the continent. This includes the Eastern Thwaites Ice Shelf (TEIS), roughly the size of Greater London (1,500 square kilometers) and boasting a thickness of 350 meters. Recent satellite imagery reveals troubling indications that this ice shelf may soon become detached, with some experts asserting that this separation has already commenced.

“Suddenly, extensive areas were torn apart,” remarks Christian Wilde from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. “It resembles a shattered windshield.”

Significant cracks have emerged around the pinning points (the sections where the floating ice shelf is secured by underwater ridges) and along the grounding line, the area where the glacier transitions into the ocean and begins to float.

“It’s dramatic. I visited in 2019 or 2020, and now when I look at the satellite image, I can’t identify that ledge. There’s a considerable notch where there was none before,” comments Karen Alley, a professor at the University of Manitoba in Canada, who is examining how this divide might progress.

The primary cause of these changes is shifts in ocean circulation, which have led to the melting and thinning of the ice. Additionally, alterations in ice flow dynamics mean the shelf is colliding with stable points, causing fractures. “We’re transitioning from a robust, thick ice shelf anchored at specific points to a weakened, thinner ice shelf that’s disintegrating,” Alley explains.

The disappearance of ice shelves is also evident in the speed at which they flow. “From January 2020 to January 2026, the ice flow has tripled to over 2,000 meters per year, which is alarming,” Wilde states. This trend has intensified in the last five months. “We’re essentially in a state of free fall at this point.”

Simultaneously, fresh cracks are appearing along the grounding line. “These have emerged in the past few years as shelf displays have significantly accelerated,” comments Ted Scambos from the University of Colorado Boulder. This indicates that ice shelves are being pulled away from glaciers.

Predicting the exact moment of final breakup is exceedingly complex. “Forecasting ice shelf rupture is akin to predicting earthquakes,” Larter explains. “We recognize an event is in motion, but timing is reliant on unpredictable processes. The next satellite image we receive may reveal ice shelf collapse, but the same could be true next year.”

However, don’t expect a colossal iceberg to float into the ocean immediately. Due to the area’s geography, any detached ice is likely to remain in proximity, and, since TEIS is already so fractured, significant breaks are improbable.

While the dramatic collapse of giant icebergs often captures headlines, glaciologists emphasize that the primary concern lies in the diminishing strength of the ice shelf. Wilde remarks that the shelf is “effectively gone” when it ceases to impede the upstream flow. This results in a quicker movement of glaciers into the ocean.

In an upcoming study, Wilde and colleagues revealed that from January 2020 to 2026, the ice flow of glaciers previously supported by TEIS increased by roughly 33 percent. “There is evident proof that there is little to no buttressing in this region anymore,” he states. This reduction has effectively led to the collapse of the ice shelf.

This poses significant implications for future global sea levels. “Increased ice movement from Antarctica means more ice entering the ocean, contributing to rising sea levels,” Scambos notes, emphasizing that while this is not an immediate crisis, it will slowly unfold, affecting future sea levels over decades. “This will influence how Thwaites evolves and potentially contributes to 10 to 20 percent of future sea level rise.”

By 2067, Thwaites may lose approximately 190 gigatonnes of ice annually according to a January study by Daniel Goldberg from the University of Edinburgh and colleagues. This marks a 30 percent increase over current glacier losses, equating to the total ice currently lost from Antarctica.

While ice shelf break-offs are normal in polar cycles, current loss trends are alarming. “Since the 1990s, we’ve observed increasing instability in ice shelves,” Alley states. Notably, the adjoining Pine Island Glacier is also undergoing rapid changes, and its ice shelf is collapsing.

“Ice shelves remain stable primarily in extremely cold conditions,” Alley adds. “Both ocean and atmospheric temperatures must be low. However, as we warm the planet, we observe the corresponding loss of ice shelves, which is precisely what’s expected.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The World Faces the Loss of 3,000 Glaciers Annually

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The flow of melted snow creates channels through a glacier cave at the Morteratsch Glacier in Switzerland.

Lander Van Tricht

Currently, approximately 1,000 glaciers are disappearing each year, and if nations fulfill their carbon emission reduction goals, this could escalate to 3,000 glaciers lost annually by 2040.

Over the past two decades, at least 4,000 glaciers have melted. Lander Van Tricht and researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland utilized climate models to forecast the fate of the globe’s 211,000 glaciers in the coming century under various global warming scenarios.

If current climate targets remain unchanged, the planet is predicted to warm by 2.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels this century. This projection implies that 79% of the world’s glaciers will vanish by 2100. Conversely, if humanity manages to limit climate change to 2 degrees Celsius, 63% of glaciers will disappear.

“While we are destined to lose many glaciers, we still have the potential to protect a significant number,” observes David Rounce, who conducted research at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If countries fail to meet their emissions targets and global warming escalates to 4°C, a staggering 91% of glaciers will be lost.

The forecast for glacier melting is predicted to accelerate sea level rise this century by 25 centimeters. Additionally, it will diminish the summer snowmelt water supply that many regions depend on for irrigation. Approximately two billion individuals live in watersheds nourished by mountain snow and ice, with many residing near rivers originating from Himalayan glaciers.

Moreover, melting ice poses a higher risk of flooding caused by sudden water releases from glacial lakes. In a 2023 incident in India, flooding resulted in the deaths of 55 individuals.

Previous studies have indicated that even if warming is restricted to the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius, half of all glaciers will still melt this century. The recent research suggests that up to 55% may be lost at this level of warming.

The study also outlines the annual glacier loss rate by region. This rate is expected to peak around the mid-century and then decline as smaller glaciers disappear, leaving behind larger ones, particularly in the North and South Poles.

“Large ice takes time to melt, so they will take longer to disappear,” Van Tricht explains.

According to current climate goals, western Canada and the continental United States are likely to lose nearly all their glaciers by 2100. This is a significant setback for tourism, as Montana’s Glacier National Park is expected to lose the majority of its glaciers, although some may endure as small glaciers or ice remnants, based on future studies from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Similarly, the Alps are projected to be largely devoid of glaciers. Local communities are already holding glacier funerals, chronicling the stories of global glacier losses at a dedicated website. In 2019, around 250 individuals, including professors from ETH Zurich involved in this research, trekked to the remnants of the Pizol glacier.

They gathered not only to bid farewell but also to convey to the public that “we are connected to the glacier,” stated Matthias Hass. “When they are gone, it will be a significant loss for us.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Signs of Climate Threats Are Evident in Europe’s Melting Glaciers

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As she crossed into Austria, Andrea Fisher, the assistant director of the multidisciplinary mountain research institute at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, remarked that such popular movements are growing increasingly vigorous and frequent.

“Within the next five years, a third of Austria’s glaciers will vanish,” Fischer announced, standing at the remnants of the Stub Glacier, located approximately 72 miles northeast of Mortersch. Stub, one of Austria’s most frequented ski destinations, is projected to completely disappear by 2033.

“The demise of the alpine glaciers is drawing near. We are witnessing it firsthand. This isn’t a model on a computer; it’s a stark reality,” Fisher stated as she maneuvered the muddy truck to the precipice of the ice.

Andrea Fisher.
Sean Keene / NBC News

As global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions falter, temperatures worldwide continue to increase. According to NASA, last year marked the hottest on record. The United States’ exit from the Paris Climate Agreement has critically weakened global climate initiatives, complicating the already challenging objective of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (approximately 3 degrees Fahrenheit).

Europe exhibits the fastest temperature growth on the planet, with Austrian temperatures rising by 3.1 degrees Celsius since 1900—more than double the global average. Fisher emphasized the importance of glacier studies to forecast future climate trends.

“Glaciers serve as archives of climate history,” she explained. They contain records of precipitation and atmospheric patterns spanning centuries. “I’m diligently searching for all the cold ice that preserves this crucial information before it disappears,” she concluded.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

The groundbreaking role of giant glaciers in shaping Earth’s surface and fostering complex life

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By chemically analyzing ancient rock crystals, scientists at Curtin University, Portsmouth University and St. Francis Xavier University discovered that glaciers were carved to mark the landscape after the events of the neoplasm of the Snowman Earth, releasing the main minerals that transformed the sea shells. This process has had a major impact on the composition of the planet, creating conditions that allow complex life to evolve.

Impressions of the artist “Snowman Earth.” Image credit: NASA.

“Our research provides valuable insight into how the natural systems of the Earth are deeply interconnected,” says Chris Kirkland, professor of Curtin University, the study's lead author.

“When these huge ice sheets melted, they caused a huge flood that washed out mineral and uranium-containing chemicals into the ocean.”

“This influx of elements changed marine chemistry as more complex lives began to evolve.”

“This study highlights how Earth's land, oceans, atmosphere and climate are closely connected. Even ancient glacial activity triggers the chemical chain reaction that formed the planet.”

This study also offers a new perspective on modern climate change.

It shows how past changes in the global climate have caused large-scale environmental transformations.

“This research is a clear reminder that while the Earth itself can withstand, the conditions that make it habitable can change dramatically,” Professor Kirkland said.

“These ancient climate changes demonstrate the profound and lasting impact of changes in the natural and human-driven environment.

“Understanding these past events will help us to better predict how today's climate change will reconstruct our world.”

Survey results Published in a journal Geological.

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CL Kirkland et al. Neoproterozoic glacial broom. GeologicalPublished online on February 25th, 2025. doi: 10.1130/g52887.1

Source: www.sci.news

Global Glaciers Have Decreased by Over 5% Since 2000

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Rhone Glacier in the Swiss Alps in 2024

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

According to the most comprehensive assessment, glaciers around the world have been shrinking by more than 5% on average since 2000. This rapid melting rate has accelerated by more than a third over the past decade as climate change continues in stages.

It is said to be “a problem of warming level for glaciers.” Noel Goomeren At the University of Edinburgh, UK. “They are climate change barometers.”

The new numbers come from a global consortium of hundreds of researchers known as the Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise. This group sought to reduce uncertainty about how much of the planet's 200,000 or so glacier melted by assessing different size measures using standard procedures. This includes gravity and elevation measurements from 20 satellites, as well as ground measurements.

Between 2000 and 2011, glaciers melted at an average rate of approximately 231 billion tons of ice per year, researchers found. This melting rate increased to 314 billion tonnes per year between 2012 and 2023, an acceleration of more than a third. In 2023, a mass of approximately 548 billion tons was recorded.

These numbers are consistent with previous estimates. But this comprehensive look “gives a little more confidence in the changes seen in the glacier,” says Gourmelen, part of the consortium. “And there's a clear acceleration.”

Overall, thawing of roughly 7 trillion tons of glacial ice since 2000 has increased sea level by almost 2 centimeters, melting into the second largest contributor of sea level rise, resulting in the expansion of water from warming oceans. Ta.

“This is a consistent story of glacial changes.” Tyler Sutterley At Washington University in Seattle. “Areas that have had glaciers since ancient times have lost these ice symbols.”

Alps glaciers have lost more ice than any other region, shrinking nearly 40% since 2000. In the Middle East, New Zealand and the West, glaciers have seen more than 20% reductions. Depending on future emissions, the world's glaciers are predicted to lose quarter to half of the ice by the end of the century.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Andean glaciers at their smallest in 130,000 years

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Peru’s Kecheke Glacier is retreating due to global warming

Emilio Mateo/Aspen Global Change Institute

Andean glaciers are almost certainly smaller than they have been for at least the past 130,000 years, a study of rocks exposed by melting ice has found.

“Frankly, this came as a shock to us.” Andrew Golin “We believe this is clear evidence that at least one part of the world has moved away from the comfortable climatic conditions that have fostered the development of human civilization,” said the University of California, Berkeley researcher.

The Andes are so high that many permanent glaciers exist in the tropics. In fact, almost all of the world’s tropical glaciers are found in the Andes.

For decades it has been clear that global warming is causing these glaciers to thin and retreat, but it has been unclear how this compares to what happened in the more distant past.

Gorin and his colleagues analyzed 20 samples of rocks recently exposed by the retreat of four tropical glaciers in the Andes. They looked at carbon and beryllium isotopes, which form when exposed rocks are hit by cosmic rays, and can reveal when a glacier last retreated beyond a particular point.

Similar studies in the world´s north have found that glaciers were at their smallest thousands of years ago, in the middle of the current interglacial period, because changes in Earth´s orbit caused more sunlight in the north during winter, causing glaciers to retreat, Gorin said.

Although the northern glacial retreat during the Interglacial Period was a regional rather than global phenomenon, the researchers expected to find a similar phenomenon in the Andes at the time, but the levels of the isotype they found were so low they were barely detectable.

“This is a wake-up call,” Gorin said. “It’s like a canary in the coal mine for any mountain glacier.”

“We’re quickly passing climate milestones that we thought were decades away,” he says, “and we chose the specific locations on these glaciers that we sampled with the implicit assumption that these glaciers are smaller than they’ve ever been in human history.”

The results of the study directly show that these glaciers have never retreated as much as they are today in the past 11,700 years – prior to this point, the entire planet was in a global ice age, and work by other research teams has shown that the tropics were colder at that time.

Although the study does not say so, Gorin agreed when asked that this means Andean glaciers have shrunk to their smallest size since at least the last interglacial period, about 130,000 years ago.

“I would be willing to bet everything you say that these glaciers are currently at their smallest since the last interglacial period is true,” he says, “but the limitations of the techniques we used to address this problem mean we can’t definitively prove that’s the case, so we don’t say so in the paper.”

“This is a shocking study.” Liam Taylor “Science now conclusively shows that Andean glaciers are in a state not seen since the Holocene epoch that began 11,700 years ago, and this is the direct result of climate-altering human activities,” researchers from the University of Leeds in the UK said.

Taylor said the retreat of glaciers is already affecting agriculture, drinking water supplies, sanitation and hydroelectric power in the region because the glaciers act as reservoirs, storing snowfall in the winter and releasing meltwater in the summer.

“Many of the glaciers in the region are now past ‘peak water level,’ meaning that the meltwater that provides freshwater downstream is drying up,” he said.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Peru over the past century from floods caused by lakes formed by retreating glaciers. Stephen Harrison Researchers from the University of Exeter in the UK have warned that more similar disasters are likely around the world as mountain glaciers retreat.

Climate models predict that mountain glaciers will lose more than 90 percent of their ice by the end of the century, leaving only a few small glaciers in the highest regions, he says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Shrinking glaciers reveal desolate mountain landscape in Canada

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This frigid landscape in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, is a sight to behold, but it may not stay like this for long, so enjoy it while you can.

When snow falls in these places, it hardens into thick ice that flows over the land, forming glaciers, and when it melts, it creates huge reservoirs of water that sustain life. These are ancient and important resources.

Ice age processes have occurred throughout most of Earth's history. However, many of these icy relics are at risk. Photographer and artist Edward Burtynsky says he feels lost.. That's the message behind this photo. New work exhibition at Flower Gallery, London, February 28th to April 6th.

Photographing from a helicopter, Burtynsky was shocked to see that the glacier had retreated dramatically since his last visit 20 years ago. The history of glaciers in this range dates back 150,000 years, he said, but they are rapidly shrinking due to global warming caused by human activity.

“When it's gone, it's gone, and the whole ecosystem and the whole living system is changed forever,” Burtynsky says. His images, he says, are designed to remind us of what has been lost. New work It also focuses on soil erosion in Turkey and the impact of coal mining on Australia.

Burtynsky is currently exhibiting in another exhibition in London. extraction/abstraction. It also explores the impact humans have on the planet and is on display at Saatchi's gallery until May 6th.

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Source: www.newscientist.com