This glacier has a gigantic cavity and that’s not good for the sea level

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Whether they’re in your teeth or in an Antarctic glacier, cavities are a bad sign.

The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica has developed a cavity roughly two-thirds the size of Manhattan and about 1,000 feet tall, according to a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory study published Thursday. This empty space has the negative effect of speeding up the rate at which the glacier melts and, in turn, how quickly sea levels rise.

An investigation by the New York Times from 2017 looked at the Thwaites Glacier, which is roughly the size of Florida, and how much ice it’s regularly shedding and feeding into the sea. The problem with this glacier is that it’s shedding a lot and accounts for about 4 percent of total sea level increase around the world according to NASA. Read more…

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