Doomsday glacier collapse estimated at five years

Scientists at the University of Oregon have discovered dangerous cracks in the Doomsday Glacier.

Scientists at the University of Oregon have discovered that the Touates Glacier, located in West Antarctica, could become unstable in the near future and collapse within five years. It is estimated that the complete collapse of the Doomsday Glacier could lead to a dangerous rise in global sea level of 0.6 metres. The researchers presented their findings at a conference of the American Geophysical Society.

Specialists have studied the part of the Touates Glacier which partly rests on the sea floor, i.e. it is a shelf. The easternmost ice shelf (TEIS) underpins one-third of the Touates Glacier itself and its breakup would cause the land portion to slide into the sea and consequently increase its contribution to sea level rise by 25 per cent. Recent studies have shown that the shelf part is increasingly weakly holding on to the shallow seabed.

Radar images from the Sentinel-1 satellite have shown the cracks spreading from the land part to the centre of the ice shelf at a rate of up to two kilometres a year. New satellite data, GPR data and GPS measurements show that if these cracks intersect with those at the base of the glacier where it makes contact with the sea floor, the TEIS will collapse in just five years. According to the paper's conclusions, the catastrophic process will become irreversible in the very near future.

The Toits Glacier is called the Doomsday Glacier because it is the fastest-moving and most unstable glacier in Antarctica and already contributes four per cent to sea level rise. It is thought that an increase in the temperature of the waters that bathe Antarctica, due to global warming, could lead not only to the complete collapse of the glacier into the Southern Ocean but also destabilise many other glaciers.