sheets of ice They can hit the ocean at up to 600 meters per day, much faster than previously recorded, according to a new study.

As the researchers note, this development shows that some layers of ice in Antarcticamong them Thwaites, who is called and “Apocalypse Glacier” (Doomsday Glacier), periods of rapid collapse may occur in the near future, accelerating sea level rise.

OUR sea ​​level rise are among the major long-term effects of global warming as hundreds of the world’s coastal metropolitan areas become increasingly vulnerable to flooding.

“Our study warns of the rate at which ice sheets are retreating,” says Christine Batchelor of Newcastle University, who led the study. “This shows that the rate of retreat could be much higher than what we have recorded to date.”

“These rhythms translate into sea level rise” she says, explaining that this rate of ice loss becomes extremely critical when, for example, the rise that the scientific community predicted in two hundred years will finally occur in twenty.

Most previous estimates of the ice sheet’s rate of collapse are based on satellite data that has been collected for about half a century. Geological data used in the study spanning thousands of years agoallowing analysis of a much wider range of conditions.

The study that published in the journal Natureused high-resolution mapping of the seafloor off the coast of Norway, where huge ice sheets collapsed into the sea at the end of the last ice age, 20,000 years ago.

The scientists focused on a set of small ridges parallel to the coast that formed where the base of the ice sheet met with ocean water. With their measurements, they were able to calculate rate of collapse of the Norwegian ice sheet from 50 to 600 meters per day: the speed is twenty times faster than the fastest retreat (thirty meters on the Pope Glacier in West Antarctica) recorded by satellites.

The new study covered the area 30,000 square kilometers and 7,600 sea faults, allowing scientists to understand what can control the rate of retreat.

“Measurement on the Pope Glacier showed that 30 meters per day was maintained for about 3.5 months. But 600 meters a day, of course, could not be maintained for a year or many years – there would be no ice left at all, ”says Batchelor.

Source: Guardian