The ice rack of Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier is falling fastest than expected.
A newly published video shows the dramatic increase of the pieces of ice that are released from the large ice rack that contains the glacier of the island of Pino in Antarctica. With the rate of icebergs that break a free increase in recent years, scientists warn that the time it leads before the glacier falls into the ocean can be significantly reduced.
The update in the Pine Island Glacier comes from the University of Washington, where researchers shared a video of iceberg loss from the ice rack from January 2015 to March 2020. The video is made of satellite images captured using the satellites copernicus sentinel-1 of the ESA; The images were captured every 12 days during the first two years followed every six days for the remaining years.
Scientists have been noticing for years that the Western Antarctic ice layer faces an inevitable collapse. In 2014, researchers at the University of Washington said that this section of ice sustains enough water to increase the global levels of the sea for several feet. Based on the data available at that time, it was estimated that the case scenario ‘faster’ for a collapse would be 200 years, with the estimate that varies up to more than 1,000 years.
The loss of the rest of the ice rack that holds the glacier of the Pine Island can result in a more abrupt collapse of what was previously anticipated, according to the last study. This particular glacier has enough water to cause an increase of 1.6 feet at the ocean’s global levels. The researchers warn that if the island of pine and the glaciers of Thwaites accelerate and release their retention in the ice sheet of Western Antarctica, it may result in the global oceans to rise by several feet in a few centuries.
Although researchers say that the highest exchange rate is not “catastrophic” at this time, the potential loss of the remaining ice shelf could result in the glacier considerably accelerating. The questions remain, including if the rest of the ice rack will finally collapse. However, the study notes that the loss of this ice rack can now happen in the next 10 to 20 years instead of more than 100 years.