Ice shelf the size of Indian capital city Delhi will detach from 'Doomsday Glacier' in 2026

The Thwaites Glacier, also known as the Doomsday Glacier, is set to lose its ice shelf this year. It is already the most vulnerable body of ice in the world, and its downfall could cause global sea levels to rise by 2.1 feet. New Scientist reported, citing satellite images, that the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf (TEIS) will soon separate from the glacier. Ice shelves are different from glaciers in the sense that the latter are attached to the ground. Ice shelves float in the sea and are attached to the glacier, acting as a buttress and stopping the ice from the glacier from flowing into the sea. According to Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey, this event of grave consequences will most likely happen in 2026. He is in charge of the UK arm of the science coordination office at the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. "The last bit of ice shelf in front of the glacier is poised to disintegrate," he told Live Science. He added that they don't know how it will happen, but it most definitely will.

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Thwaites Glacier is the largest glacier in West Antarctica, and measures about 120 kilometres across its ocean front. It is more than 6,500 feet wide in some places. Its immense width and volume have led to it being named the Doomsday Glacier because it has been losing hundreds of billions of tonnes of ice since the 1980s. The warm ocean water underneath it is affecting its structural integrity as the glacier is melting from its base. Thwaites has retreated around 20 km since 1992. The movement on the side where the ice is breaking away has nearly doubled over the last eight months, Larter said.

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A study published March 9 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters noted that global warming could cause it to lose 180 billion to 200 billion tons of ice per year by 2067. While Thwaites itself will cause major damage to coastlines, its collapse would make the rest of the ice sheet vulnerable as well. British Antarctic Survey estimates that if the entire ice sheet slips into the ocean, sea levels would rise by 10.8 feet.

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Glacial earthquakes hit Thwaites

A series of earthquakes over 13 years has also shaken Thwaites, adding to fears that it could collapse. Thanh-Son Pham, a researcher at the Australian National University, found that hundreds of iceberg earthquakes have jolted it between 2010 and 2023. The study published in Geophysical Research Letters stated that 362 glacial earthquakes were reported in Antarctica in over a decade, and 245 of them occurred in Doomsday Glacier.

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Another team of researchers from the University of Manitoba stated that more cracks are forming in one zone. "Over the past two decades, the shelf has experienced progressive fracturing around a prominent shear zone upstream of its pinning point, gradually compromising its structural integrity," they wrote.