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Two of the world’s most famous glaciers – one the world’s highest and the other the world’s widest – are fast losing ice as the earth heats, according to two new studies, highlighting the near-constant unfolding of the climate disaster around the world.

The Thwaites glacier in Antarctica is the subject of the first study, while the glacier at South Col, which borders Mount Everest, is the subject of the second. Because they are both thin, the potential outcomes capture the two most serious risks that humanity faces as a result of the climate crisis: sea level rise and the loss of freshwater sources that billions of people rely on.

“The ice shelf is thinning and weakening,” says the author. When it breaks away, which could happen in as short as 3 to 10 years, the Thwaite’s outlet will enlarge, and the area of quicker flow would grow, hastening the glacier’s retreat. The rate of ice flow to the ocean, and thus the contribution to sea level, will grow during the next 50 to 200 years, according to Ted Scambos, senior research scientist.

Thwaite’s is the world’s widest glacier, covering about 120 kilometers along the frozen coast and extending to a depth of around 2,600 to 3,900 feet (800 to 1,200 meters) near its grounding line in west Antarctica (the point where land ice begins to float in the sea).

In other words, the Thwaite’s glacier will reach a crucial tipping point in 3-10 years, triggering a chain of events that would hasten its descent into the sea, dragging several other neighbouring glaciers with it.

The amount of ice that enters the oceans as a result of this will cause a global sea-level rise cascade. According to Scambos, this could happen within the next 50 years.

Scambos was part of a group of over 100 scientists financed by the National Science Foundation of the United States and the Natural Environment Research Council of the United Kingdom, who presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) annual meeting on December 13.

Over the next few centuries, the cumulative impact might be as much as 2-10 feet, which means many low-lying areas around the world could be flooded.

He told that a number of variables that exacerbate the Thwaite’s’ vulnerability have recently increased: “retreat of the ice from the ocean (grounding line retreat) and deterioration of the ice shelf (increasing flow speed, growth of huge fractures) have both increased in the past 2-3 years.”

Warm water, which is a direct result of global warming, is at the root of the problem. The ice shelf at the base of the Thwaite’s is progressively dissolving as a result of this water. According to an explanation given by one of the researchers, Dr Erin Petit, an associate professor at Oregon State University, during the AGU meeting, that ice shelf is responsible for anchoring the glacier to an underwater mountain on its eastern side – once that anchor comes unstuck, the speed at which the ice is drifting into the sea will increase.

The South Col glacier near Mount Everest is located about 8,000 kilometres away. The glacier has been thinning at a pace of 2 metres each year, according to a study published in the Nature Research journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science on February 3.

According to the researchers, the South Col glacier serves as a sentinel for accelerated ice loss in the Himalayas, whose glaciers feed rivers that flow into Asia’s most densely populated areas, meeting the fresh water needs of billions of people.

The glacier, which stands almost 26,000 feet above sea level and is the world’s highest, is losing ice roughly 80 times faster than it is accumulating, and it may be gone by mid-century.

This, like the Thwaite’s’ influence, is a relatively new phenomena. The thinning is thought to have accelerated in the 1990s, according to the scientists.

In a statement, study co-author Paul Mayewski, a glaciologist at the University of Maine and director of the University’s Climate Change Institute, said, “ answers one of the big questions posed by our — whether the highest glaciers on the planet are impacted by human-source climate change.” “The answer is emphatically yes, and it has been so since the late 1990s.”

This research tackles a fundamental concern from the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition: if climate change is affecting glaciers at the world’s highest point.

The authors speculate that there could be more avalanches on Everest, or that more bedrock will be exposed, making the terrain more perilous for climbers.

“This increased mass loss of glaciers and tipping sensitivity, particularly at the world’s highest elevations, where temperatures never get above zero degrees Celsius, is a wake-up call for us all.” In a statement, Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Associate, ICIMOD (International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development), said, “It also shows the importance of direct measurements on glaciers to increase our understanding of the processes when forecasting how these landforms will respond to changing climate.”