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Antarctica's Totten Glacier Is In Retreat, And That Could Be Really Bad For Sea Levels
Antarctica's Totten Glacier Is In Retreat, And That Could Be Really Bad For Sea Levels
Nov 15, 2024 12:31 AM

Outlined in blue, the Totten Glacier catchment basin is nearly as big as Texas.

(Australian Antarctic Division)

An Antarctic glacier three-fourths the size of Texas continues to melt into the sea, and if it disappears completely, sea levels will rise dramatically around the world, a new study says.

The Totten Glacier is melting quickly in eastern Antarctica and threatens to become yet another point of concern as global temperatures rise, according to the study published in the journal Nature. It's getting close to a "tipping point," the study found, and if the glacier collapses, global sea levels could rise nearly 10 feet, and that doesn't account for other possible causes of sea level rise from other melting elsewhere.

"I predict that before the end of the century the great global cities of our planet near the sea will have two- or three-meter (6.5 to 10 feet) high sea defenses all around them," study author Martin Siegert told the French Press Agency.

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The study also said that if the glacier retreats another 100 miles or so, it will enter a period of runaway melting that will move it another 125 miles or more inland. The last time such a pronounced retreat of the glacier occurred was during the Pliocene Epoch, more than 3 million years ago.

"Three-point-five million years ago, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were in the region of 400 parts per million –so about where they are now," Siegert told BBC.com. "The atmosphere was a couple of degrees warmer than it is now, which is in line with what we expect for the end of this century if we do nothing about it. The Pliocene is where we're headed."

From above, the glacier appears to be relatively healthy. In fact, Antarctic sea ice coverage reached a record high in 2015. But below the ice, networks of relatively warm salt water are eating away at the glacier little by little, a 2015 study found. As that ice melts, the glacier will slowly retreat and the sea level will rise, the study also concluded.

Despite scientists' well-publicized concerns about melting in West Antarctica and Greenland, the news about the Totten Glacier could add yet another round of sea level rise if the current course isn't reversed.

"You can't ignore East Antarctica," Jamin Greenbaum, author of the 2015 study, told Live Science. "We really need to understand the physics behind these changes so that we can have accurate predictions of sea-level change for the next 100 to 1,000 years."

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Images of Antarctica

Stunning Images of Antarctica

Photo/Santiago Vanegas

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