Dooms-day' melting of 5,500-year-old iceberg in Antarctica threatens to submerge countless cities

An alarming report has been released about the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. According to the report given by 13 scientists of America-Britain for two months, this huge mountain known as Dooms Day mountain is melting rapidly and it is possible that the sea level will increase by 10 feet. The robot was sent to a depth of 2,000 feet to estimate how much the ice mountain is melting. This mountain is melting at many times faster than what was expected till now. Fears have been expressed that a greater destruction may be caused. The report was published in the journal Science.
A Cornell University research team has found wide cracks under the massive Thwaites Glacier in the Antarctic continent, which has accelerated its melting, leading to rising ocean levels. The first such observation has been made by the remotely operated underwater robot Icefin. The robot was launched by drilling a 2000 feet deep borehole in a huge glacier the size of Florida.
The Thwaites is slowly sinking into the sea and the ocean floor has been rising steadily since 2011, researchers said. The ice at the base of this huge ice shelf has melted and thinned. The study, published in the journal Nature, sheds light on the effects of melting glaciers in relatively warm ocean waters. A robot oceanographer called IceFin provides researchers with the opportunity to study the ice and water beneath the ice shelf. Monitoring the melting of the ice allows us to understand not only how much ice is melting, but also where and how much it is melting. Brittney Smith, associate professor of astronomy and earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University, said the glacier is becoming brittle as warm seawater seeps into crevasses. Estimates of glacier melt rates have been calculated based on data provided by IceFin. As part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, the observations were obtained by sending a robot under the ice.
The Thwaites Line has moved back nine miles since the 1990s. Because of this, a 75-mile-wide section of ice has melted and mixed in the ocean. Meanwhile, the ice sheet that has covered the Arctic Circle for 18 million years has already started melting. As a result, the acidity in the oceans is increasing three to four times faster, according to a study published in the journal Science.
Researchers have concluded that there is a strong correlation between the rate of ice melting and the rate of increasing ocean acidification. Data from 1994 to 2020 has been used for this study. Scientists have predicted that the ice in the region will disappear by 2050 due to increasingly hot summers.