Antarctica Under Climate Threat: Totten Glacier's Ice Shelf Is Melting & It Could Raise Sea Level By Over 11 Feet

By Shubham Ghosh - 19 Dec '16 11:43AM

Antarctica is melting! Scientists in the US and Australia have now come up with worrisome observations near the largest glacier of the largest ice sheet which is Totten glacier in East Antarctica. The ocean observations confirmed that Totten was melting from below, something which has concerned the scientific and research community.

The observation which included sampling ocean temperatures in seas over one kilometer deep in some areas near the edge of Totten glacier's floating ice shelf showed that warm water of the ocean is flowing towards the glacier at a rate of 220,000 cubic meters a second.

The warm water, according to the observation, is making the ice shelf lose huge masses every year and if the entire shelf, which is larger than the size of California, gets dissolved in the ocean, its water level would go up by 11.5 feet, posing a threat to the coastal habitation.

Don Blankenship, a glaciologist at University of Texas, Austin, who is also one of the study's co-authors, said the ice shelf is thinning because the ocean's warm water, just like what is happening in West Antarctica. He was, however, not on Aurora Australis, the research vessel, from which the observation was conducted.

The lead author of the study which was published in Science Advances recently is Stephen Rintoul, a researcher with University of Tasmania, Hobart, and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Canberra. Totten glacier is relatively close to Casey Station, one of Australia's bases in Antarctica.

Rintoul and his so-researchers went close to the Totten ice shelf in January last year by using an opening in the sea ice, thereby succeeding in making the necessary ocean observations and detect the warm water.

Though the water reaching the Totten ice shelf may not be called "warm" as they are a little bit below the freezing point. But at extreme depth and pressure, the freezing point of ice also goes down, making the water warm enough to dissolve the ice.

The melting of Totten ice shelf has worried the scientists all the more since they had thought that East Antarctica was isolated warm water. But in reality, things are proving to be otherwise. Are the people doing enough to save Antarctica to save ourselves?