Antarctic Glacier Saw the Fastest Retreat In Modern History
- Reference: 0179956522
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/04/0026217/antarctic-glacier-saw-the-fastest-retreat-in-modern-history
- Source link:
> An Antarctic glacier [1]shrunk by nearly 50% in just two months , the fastest retreat recorded in modern history, according to a new study -- and the way it retreated could have big implications for global sea level rise. The Hektoria Glacier, roughly the size of Philadelphia, is on the Antarctic Peninsula, a spindly chain of mountains sticking off the continent like a thumb pointing toward South America. It is one of the fastest warming regions on Earth.
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> Grounded glaciers like Hektoria, which rest on the seabed and don't float, generally retreat no more than a few hundred meters a year. But between November and December 2022, Hektoria retreated by 5 miles, according to the study [2]published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience . [...] Understanding more about why this happened is vital; if larger glaciers retreat at similar rates, it could have "catastrophic implications for sea level rise," the authors wrote in a statement accompanying the report. Antarctica holds enough ice to raise global sea level by around 190 feet.
Models show that the latest time this kind of ice plain melting occurred was between about 15,000 and 19,000 years ago, "during a period of warming that ended the last Ice Age," notes the report.
"[W]e hadn't seen it play out live before, certainly not at this rate," said Naomi Ochwat, a study co-author and postdoctoral associate at the University of Colorado Boulder.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/03/climate/antarctic-glacier-hektoria-rapid-melt-sea-level
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01802-4
oh oh (Score:1)
> Antarctica holds enough ice to raise global sea level by around 190 feet.
That's pretty bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody is predicting the entirety of the Antarctic ice cap to melt anytime soon-- not in the next century, anyway.
But, yes, in the long term-- centuries-- if we don't figure out a way to stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the Antarctic ice cap will melt, and the sea level will rise sixty meters.
(and by that time the northern hemisphere glaciers will have melted, too.)
That's pretty bad.
Re: (Score:1)
> Nobody is predicting the entirety of the Antarctic ice cap to melt anytime soon
Then why talk about what would happen if it did? What's the implication for next year or even 20 years?
The problem with this isn't the exaggeration or that its scaremongering. The problem is that it suggests the real consequences won't occur until everyone alive today is long since dead. There is no sense that this is an urgent problem. Its just something people in the future will have to deal with.
There is a basic formula for moving people to action; anger/fear about the problem, hope that something ca
Glacial Period (Score:1)
We are still in the last ice age. It will end when the caps have completely melted like when the prior ice age ended. 17,000 years ago was the end of the interglacial period within the current ice age.
This planet won't have you (Score:2)
Normally, one would say, if you don't look after the planet, you won't have a planet. The problem is, the planet was here long before self-deluded humans, so the correct perspective is, the planet won't have you. Most people lack the humility to recognize why that's a problem. A lot of them also care more about self-aggrandizing billionaires, than the health and wealth of themselves and their neighbours.
Re: (Score:3)
If you don't look after the planet, there will still be a planet. It just won't have you on it.