Antarctica iceberg fox news1/16/2024 ![]() ![]() What worries scientists is that the leading edge of the huge glacier is breaking apart in many places. These edges with warm water underneath border the ocean and provide “back support” that holds the rest of the glacier in place, preventing it from falling into the sea, Holland said. The key to the future of Thwaites is the ice shelf and its tongue. And that’s ironic – and troublesome for researchers – because overall Antarctic sea ice is unusually low for this time of year, Larter said. Much of the problem is that loads of sea ice have gravitated around the huge iceberg. It measures about 43 miles by 28 miles, almost the size of Rhode Island, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. This iceberg used to be the tongue or leading edge of Thwaites until it broke off about 20 years ago, Larter said. Thwaites is spawning more icebergs as it falls apart, Holland said. “Nobody can get to Thwaites this year,” Holland told the Associated Press on Monday. ![]() ![]() The smaller Dotson ice shelf is about 87 miles (140km) west of the Thwaites ice shelf. He is hoping that along that blinding white ice and its rugged frozen cliffs he can learn about the unseen warm ocean water nibbling away at both Dotson and Thwaites from below. Improvising, Holland decamped at the nearby Dotson ice shelf to do his research where no human had been before. David Holland, an environmental scientist at New York University, who planned to drill deep through the Thwaites ice shelf to measure the water’s warmth below it, is achingly close but not quite there. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |