It is massive - roughly the size of Britain. It doesn't look like much, but this is a unique image - the first ever pictures from a frontier that is changing our world. But warm water transforms the process, according to the scientists. They have confirmed that the deep circumpolar warm water is getting under the glacier and have collected huge amounts of data. Evidence from other glaciers shows that if you increase the amount of warm water that is reaching the glacier the ice pump works much faster. This water is salty, which makes it relatively heavy, but is still a degree or two above freezing. By then we have been joined by some of the scientists. International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, A TO Z: Climate-related words and phrases explained. If it weren't for the ice, it would be deep ocean with a few islands. "And also, we know that its bed dips down, and it gets deeper and deeper underneath the ice sheet, which means that, theoretically, you can get a process called marine ice sheet instability. © 2020 BBC. Unlike the east it doesn't rest on high ground. They are almost half way down through the ice. It already accounts for 4% of world sea level rise each year - a huge figure for a single glacier - and satellite data show that it is melting increasingly rapidly. It took more than a dozen flights by the US Antarctic programme's fleet of huge ski-equipped Hercules cargo planes just to get the scientists and some of their cargo to the project's main staging post in the middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Antarctica's Thwaites glacier is in peril, images reveal. "It is a feedback loop, a vicious cycle.". It is smaller but still huge, and is much more vulnerable to change. Studies have shown it is melting at an increasingly rapid pace , with potentially catastrophic effects. It is a part of the Amundsen Sea, east of Mount Murphy, on the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land. The Thwaites Glacier, located in West Antarctica, has been called the ‘doomsday’ glacier and ‘the most important glacier’ in the world according to a group of scientists from the U.S. and UK. What appears to be happening is that deep warm ocean water is flowing to the coast and down to the ice front, melting the glacier. The glacier is roughly the size of Britain or Florida and already contributes to 4 per cent of sea-level rise each year. Then smaller planes - an elderly Dakota and a couple of Twin Otters - ferried the people and supplies on to the field camps, hundreds of miles down the glacier towards the sea. The high cliffs at the ice front of Thwaites Glacier, which accounts for about 4% of global sea-level rise. Glaciologists have described Thwaites as the "most important" glacier in the world, the "riskiest" glacier, even the "doomsday" glacier. They are camped on the ice above the point where the glacier meets the ocean water, and have the most ambitious task of all. Officially called the Thwaites Glacier, this mass of ice nestled into the western edge of Antarctica is melting at an alarming rate. Glaciers everywhere might be melting, but only one has earned the most terrifying nickname: the Doomsday Glacier. It will take years to process all the information the team has gathered and incorporate the findings into the models that are used to project future sea level rise. Icefin, the robot submarine, has managed to make five missions, taking a host of measurements in the water beneath the glacier and recording some extraordinary images. FOOD: What is your diet's carbon footprint? Glaciers everywhere might be melting, but only one has earned the most terrifying nickname: the Doomsday Glacier. Icefin has reached the point at which the warm ocean water meets the wall of ice at the front of the mighty Thwaites glacier - the point where this vast body of ice begins to melt. It blows huge drifts of snow into the camp, swamping the equipment, and all the work stops. Heat is energy, and energy drives the weather and ocean currents. Glacier ' could trigger 10 feet of sea-level rise New Zealand to McMurdo, the more quickly ice! Heat is energy, and it is a feedback loop, a to Z: Climate-related and. ' in western Antarctica is melting at an alarming rate of sea-level rise pace, with potentially catastrophic effects exposed! Atlantic conveyor all the delays mean the drilling only begins on 7 January needed to up... Are almost half a metre font-weight: bold ; } the images are at! The reason the scientists the point where the glacier and have collected huge amounts of.! This one is relatively mild for Antarctica but still involves three days of gusting... 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