Why is it in the News?

Antarctica's Doomsday Glacier, the world's widest glacier, has lost over 50 billion tons of ice and the melting rate is on the rise as the continent gets warmer.

What is Doomsday Glacier?

• The Thwaites Glacier (also known as Doomsday Glacier), a massive and world’s widest glacier is located in West Antarctica.
• The Doomsday nickname reflects the potential for catastrophic flooding if the glacier were to collapse completely.
• Scientists are particularly concerned about Thwaites Glacier because of its size and location.
  • If it were to collapse or significantly retreat, it could lead to a more rapid flow of ice from the interior of West Antarctica into the ocean, contributing to rising sea levels.
  • The collapse could lead to a 65 cm rise in global sea level.
• The ice loss in the region has been observed to be accelerating since the 1970s, however, so far it remained unclear as to when this retreat began.
• The significant glacial retreat began in the 1940s and the findings coincide with previous work that studied retreat on Pine Island Glacier and found glacial retreat began in the ‘40s as well.
• This change is not random nor specific to one glacier but It is part of a larger context of a changing climate.

Why Did the Melting Begin?

• The meeting was kicked off by an extreme El Nino climate pattern that warmed the west Antarctic, and since then the glacier has not been able to recover from the damage.
  • It is significant that El Niño only lasted a couple of years, but the two glaciers, Thwaites and Pine Island remain in significant retreat.
  • Once the system is kicked out of balance, the retreat is ongoing.
• The Doomsday Glacier's melting remains one of the most crucial events triggered and accelerated by climate change and could lead to the submergence of several coastal regions of the world.