David Holland says they have found that the water under an ice shelf is 3°C above freezing, which has frightening implications for the rate at which the glacier is melting.
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The anticipated collapse of the ‘apocalyptic’ Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica has captured the world’s attention, including politicians here at home.
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Metro Vancouver Regional District officials hosted a conversation this week with Canadian climatologist David Holland to learn more about the implications for the region when this glacier cracks open.
Postmedia told him last week how the expedition to Antarctica to drill into the Thwaites Glacier had been postponed, but instead they were gathering vital information on a nearby glacier called the Dotson Plateau, about 140 kilometers away. west of Thwaites.
This week he told Metro Vancouver what they found is that the water under the ice cap is 3C above freezing, which has frightening implications for speed. when the glacier melts.
“It’s absolutely huge. So this ice cap that I’m standing on is melting from the bottom and melting in some places 100 meters a year, which is a huge number. It’s the biggest melt anywhere on Earth,” said Holland, who is also a professor of math and atmospheric/ocean science at New York University.
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“That’s why it caught the world’s attention.”
Holland is part of an international team on two research icebreakers deployed to Antarctica for about two months to determine how fast the largest ice shelf on Earth is breaking up. Cracks in the glacier have raised alarms that it could collapse sooner than expected, causing sea levels to rise by two feet.
They were unable to reach Thwaites due to sea ice build-up, but drilling data 500 meters below the Dotson Plateau gave some insight into water temperatures below the glaciers.
“Ocean currents are controlled by the atmospheric wind and the winds have changed. And winds are only controlled by one thing on our planet and that is temperature. The air temperature naturally changes, but we have also changed,” Holland said.
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“On this little planet we live on, if you change the air temperature, you change the wind, and if you get mixed up in the ocean currents and if they collide with big ice caps, you’re toast.”
Adriane Carr, chair of Metro Vancouver’s climate action committee, said hearing from climate scientists like Holland was key to helping people realize that “we absolutely have to succeed” in taking dramatic action to deal with it. to the existential threat of climate change.
“I certainly came away with – and I think everyone did – that the ice is melting faster than we would like,” Carr said. She said this latest research in Antarctica is not included in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s prediction of a one-metre sea level rise. by 2100, which means that it could be much higher than what decision-makers anticipate in their climate action plans. .
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Carr said they are stepping up efforts in Metro Vancouver to achieve CO2 reductions of 45% by 2030, but added that this will require a massive collaborative effort between municipalities.
“It won’t be easy, but you know, what David Holland said was ‘the real message is don’t let go of the pedal,'” she said.
Carr said the biggest challenges they face in the area are transportation, like how to get the trucking industry out of fossil fuels and retrofitting older buildings. She said municipalities must “absolutely” stop using natural gas in new buildings.
In the city of Vancouver, for example, 58% of carbon emissions come from buildings due to the use of gas, Carr said.
The Thwaites Glacier traps huge volumes of water that scientists say would cause catastrophic sea level rise if it broke into the ocean. At 192,000 square kilometres, Thwaites is the size of some countries like Portugal or Hungary – or the state of Florida, which, incidentally, scientists say will be partially submerged if the glacier melts.
Holland said the Thwaites could break up within five years, but scientists are still trying to figure out what will happen to sea level once it does, as it acts like a plug on the ice of the Antarctic.
“We are a long way from having a smartphone app that tells us when the sea is going to rise,” Holland said. “But for now, we can just say there are some interesting signs of change happening here, the biggest change on Earth.”
ticrawford@postmedia.com
