Transcript:

Hey. Good morning. This is Robert at English 360. And today we talk about Glacier. Glacier as the Americans like to call it. Basically, glaciers are big bodies of ice and they hold a lot of freshwater and scientists believe that it is catastrophic if they were to melt because the sea levels we don't see new rapidly. There is an article in the news which talks about Doomsday Glacier. It says there's a Doomsday Glacier, which could raise sea level by several feet, two three feet, basically about a half meter or more.


And it's trying to survive by its fingernails. Now, obviously, glaciers are not living animals. It's figurative. This glacier is on the edge. It may melt completely. And if it does, we will be in big trouble. Let's see why. Antarctica's so-called Doomsday Glacier, nicknamed because of its high risk of collapse and threat to global sea level, has the potential to rapidly retreat in the coming years, amplifying concerns over the extreme sea level rise that would accompany its potential demise.


Now, this is a difficult word to pronounce. The Thwaites glacier, capable of raising sea level by several feet, is eroding along its underwater base as the planet warms. In a study published Monday in the Journal Nature Geoscience. Scientists mapped the glacier's historical retreat, hoping to learn from its past what the glaciers will likely do in the future. They found that at some point in the past two centuries, the base of the glacier dislodged from the seabed and retreated at a rate of 1.3 miles or about two kilometres per year.


That's twice the rate that scientists have observed in the past decade or so. So basically this huge glacier, which is rooted to the seabed now, is starting to detach. And one basic problem is that if it detaches from the seabed, it's going to melt more quickly. That swift disintegration possibly occurred as recently as the mid-20th century, according to a study.


It suggests that Thwaites has the capability to undergo a rapid retreat in the near future once it recedes past a seabed ridge that is helping to keep it in. Thwaites is really holding on to today by its fingernails, and we should expect to see big changes over small timescales in the future, even from one year to the next.


once the glacier retreats beyond a shallow ridge in its bed. The Thwaites glacier located in West Antarctica, it's one of the widest on earth and is larger than the state of Florida. But it's just a fraction of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which holds enough ice to raise sea level by up to 16 feet or about five meters, according to NASA.


As the climate crisis has accelerated, this region has been closely monitored because of its rapid melting and its capacity for widespread coastal obstruction. The Thwaites glacier itself has concerned scientists for decades. As early as 1973, researchers questioned whether it was high risk of collapse. Nearly a decade later, they found that because that glacier is grounded to seabed rather than to dry land, well, ocean currents to melt the glacier from underneath, causing it to destabilize from below.


It was because of that research that scientists began calling the region around the Thwaites the weak underbelly of the West Antarctic ice sheet. In the 21st century. Researchers began documenting the Thwaites rapid retreat in an alarming series of studies. In 2001, satellite data showed the grounding line was receding by around 0.6 miles or about one kilometer per year.


In 2020 scientists found evidence that warm water was indeed flowing across the base of the glacier, melting it from underneath. And in 2021, a study showed that Thwaites ice shelf, which helps to stabilize the glacier and hold the ice back from flowing freely into the ocean could shatter within five years. From the satellite data we're seeing these big...