WATCH: Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' Melting From Underneath, Could Lead To Catastrophic Rise In Sea Level

Researchers have found that the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica, also known as "Doomsday Glacier”, is melting quickly along its base with cracks and crevasses visible.

New Delhi: Even as leaders from around the world debate the effect of global warming and steps to be taken to combat it, scientists are now warning about an alarming development in Antarctica. According to two studies published in the journal Nature, the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica, also known as "Doomsday Glacier”, is melting quickly along its base with cracks and crevasses visible. The collapse of the glacier which is the size of Britain could lead to catastrophic sea level rise.

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Scientists studied the glacier by measuring the melting rate from below by installing cameras and probing through a borehole. While it is well known that melting beneath the ice shelf is slower, what scientists found at the glacier was that melting was significantly faster with the formation of deep cracks and ‘staircase’ forms. This indicates that even with small amounts of melting there was rapid glacier retreat.

According to the article in Nature, since the late 1900s the ‘grounding line’ of the glacier which is where the ice attached to bedrock transitions to ice floating in the sea, has shifted 14 kilometres inland and some parts of it are retreating as fast as 1.2 kilometres per year. The retreating glacier is responsible for about 4% of today’s global sea-level rise as thicker ice floats in the sea.

The article says that the grounding-line retreat is driven by warm ocean water melting the underside of the ice.

“Our results are a surprise but the glacier is still in trouble. If an ice shelf and a glacier is in balance, the ice coming off the continent will match the amount of ice being lost through melting and iceberg calving. What we have found is that despite small amounts of melting there is still rapid glacier retreat, so it seems that it doesn't take a lot to push the glacier out of balance," said Dr Peter Davis, Oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey and lead author on one of the studies, in a press release.