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Ice shelf protecting Antarctic glacier is on the verge of collapse - ZME Science
Jun 14, 2021 56 secs
Pine Island is Antarctica’s biggest glacier and also the fastest melting one on the continent, responsible for about 25% of its total ice loss.

Together with its neighboring Thwaites glacier, Pine Island connects the center of the western Antarctic ice sheet with the ocean, discharging significant amounts of ice to the sea.

“We may not have the luxury of waiting for slow changes on Pine Island; things could actually go much quicker than expected,” lead author Ian Joughin, said in a statement.

The Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers have been under the spotlight in recent decades as their ice shelves thinned because warmer ocean currents melted the ice’s underside.

Pine Island Glacier’s motion toward the sea accelerated from 2.5 kilometers per year in the 1990s to 4 kilometers per year to 2009.

But if the rest of that ice shelf breaks up and goes away then this glacier could speed up quite a lot

But what’s certain is that the new findings change the timeline for when Pine Island’s ice shelf could disappear and the speed the glacier might move. 

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science

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