Scientists are concerned that the ice shelf keeping one of Antarctica's largest glaciers together is breaking apart too quickly, speeding up the glacier's eventual fall into the sea.
Washington University shared satellite photos of Pine Island Glacier rapidly breaking off between 2015 and 2020. The university also pointed out that the ice shelf lost nearly one-fifth of its area between 2017 and 2020, with three significant fractures.
You may check out the whole time-lapse here.
Ice Shelf Has Moved Away by 12 Miles
Researchers claim that the ice shelf has receded by 12 miles (20 kilometers) between 2017 and 2020. A European satellite that takes photographs every six days captured the eroding frame on time-lapse footage.
"You can see stuff just tearing apart," study lead author Ian Joughin said in an Associated Press report (via HuffPost). "So it almost looks like the speed-up itself is weakening the glacier. ... And so far we've lost maybe 20% of the main shelf," Joughin, a glaciologist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory, added.
Between 2017 and 2020, three massive breakup episodes occurred, resulting in icebergs measuring more than 5 miles (8 kilometers) long and 22 miles (36 kilometers) wide that then broke up into many smaller pieces, according to Joughin. There were also several smaller breakups.
Starting in 2017, Joughin tracked two spots on the main glacier and discovered they were moving 12 percent faster toward the sea.
As a result, there will be 12% more ice in the water from Pine Island than there was previously.
The Pine Island Glacier, which is not on an island and has no pine trees, is one of two side-by-side glaciers in western Antarctica that ice scientists are most concerned about losing. The Thwaites Glacier is the other.
Pine Island is home to 180 trillion tons of ice, or the equivalent of 1.6 feet (half a meter) of sea-level rise, and accounts for over a quarter of the continent's ice loss.
Melting Could Go Much Quicker Than Expected
According to LiveScience, the Pine Island Glacier in the West Antarctic encompasses 68,000 square miles and holds 180 trillion tons of ice.
The average worldwide sea level might climb by 50 cm if the glacier crashes into the ocean (around 20 inches).
Scientists are concerned that if the ice shelf loses its way, the glacier will follow suit.
"We may not have the luxury of waiting for slow changes on Pine Island; things could actually go much quicker than expected," Jougin told the BBC.
"The processes we'd been studying in this region were leading to an irreversible collapse, but at a fairly measured pace. Things could be much more abrupt if we lose the rest of that ice shelf," Joughin added.
According to Joughin, the entire shelf could collapse "within the next few years."
One of two glaciers in western Antarctica that scientists are concerned about is the Pine Island Glacier, which is nearly five times the size of Wales.
According to an April research reported in Scientific American, the Thwaites Glacier, popularly known as "Doomsday Glacier," is melting quicker than previously assumed.
The ice is melting because of the climate problem, warming the Earth's atmosphere and oceans.
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