Two huge glaciers in Antarctica are melting and Venice could be submerged

Merger two of the largest Antarctic glaciers, Pine Island and Thwaites, have reached a point of no return, determined satellite observations confirmed by experts.

It is believed that melting ice in this now unstoppable region could lead to the collapse of the entire Western Antarctic Shelf, which contains enough ice for raise the sea level by more than 3 meters.

This is indicated by the study published in the journal Cryosphere by researchers at the University of Northumbria, under the supervision of Sebastian Rosier.

This is the first confirmation that this important glacier in the western cap, whose size is two-thirds of the UK, could have reached the point of no return.

MOLTEN

“The possibility that Pine Island has entered an unstable phase of retirement has already been revealed, but our study is the first to confirm that it has crossed this critical threshold,” said Rosier.

The Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers, which together contribute to the 10% sea level rise“They have been under surveillance for several years,” said Massimo Frezzotti, professor of physical geography at Roma Tre University and researcher at the Italian National Agency for New Technologies (ENEA).

He added, however, that “until now, ice models have not been able to reproduce data from satellite observations.”

“The warning indicators extracted from the observations were reproduced in this model, which confirms that the limit thresholds have already been exceeded, due to the entry of warm water from the ocean”, he explained. .

The temperature of Antarctic waters, continued Frezzotti, “is -2 °, but now between 2 and 3 ° of water, with a high melting temperature.”

Thus, it was observed that “where the glaciers retreat in contact with the ice and the ocean, it is precisely because of these warm waters”.

AN ECOLOGICAL DISASTER

West Antarctica rests on a base below sea level and the retraction of this floating part allows the entry of these deeper warm waters.

“It could bring down the ceiling and cause an overall sea level rise of three meters. Just to give an example of its consequences, Venice would be completely submerged“, subrayó Frezzotti.

According to the expert, the results of this study should give some thought to what is happening in Antarctica and Greenland.

“These are the cold engines of the planet, perceived far away by us, but they have a significant global impact,” he said.

“If they overheat, the whole circulation will do it, and it will go from a stable situation to an unstable situation” across the planet, he concluded.

ANSA Agency.

GML