{"id":2774,"date":"2026-10-18T14:14:58","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T08:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=2774"},"modified":"2026-10-18T15:29:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T09:59:21","slug":"what-is-thwaites-glacier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-thwaites-glacier\/","title":{"rendered":"Thwaites Glacier"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Thwaites Glacier Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Antarctica\u2019s \u201cDoomsday Glacier\u201d could add up to 3 cm to global sea levels by 2100, twice as much as earlier estimates suggested, according to a new study.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Thwaites Glacier<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thwaites Glacier, often referred to as the <\/span><b>Doomsday Glacier,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a large glacier located on the <\/span><b>north coast of West Antarctica, bordering <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the <\/span><b>Amundsen Sea.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>fast-flowing glacier<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> covering an area of approximately 192,000 sq.km., an area about the <\/span><b>size of the U.S. state of Florida<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and<\/span><b> slightly smaller than<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>island of Great Britain.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has the <\/span><b>world\u2019s widest glacial interface with the ocean<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, extending roughly 120 km.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is named for American glacial geologist and geomorphologist Frederik T. Thwaites.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <\/span><b>portion <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the glacier is an <\/span><b>ice shelf over the Amundsen Sea<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>held up <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in several places <\/span><b>by underwater plateaus. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is one of the most vulnerable<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and important glaciers in the world in terms of future global sea-level rise.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Impacts of Melting of Thwaites Glacier<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has been <\/span><b>becoming thinner, retreating<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><b>contributing to sea-level rise.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>contributes 4% to global annual sea-level rise<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and its collapse could destabilise the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), which would cause catastrophic sea-level rise.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>If the entire Thwaites Glacier were to melt<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, it could <\/span><b>raise the world\u2019s ocean<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s by about <\/span><b>65 centimeters (over 2 feet).<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It also <\/span><b>acts as a buffer, holding back neighboring glaciers <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that contain around three meters of potential sea level rise.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If it weakens beyond a point, other glaciers may lose ice faster as well, further increasing sea-level rise.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Higher sea levels will cause coasts to flood more easily, worsen erosion, increase storm surges, and threaten cities, low-lying islands, and ports.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists also report that the <\/span><b>temperatures of the bottom waters in the Amundsen Sea<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> have been <\/span><b>increasing <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">from continued global warming.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is evidence that the<\/span><b> warming waters<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are<\/span><b> slowly melting submerged ice at the base of the glacier,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> thereby making the <\/span><b>glacier more unstable<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and raising concerns that it will collapse. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/theprint.in\/science\/scientists-doomsday-glacier-sea-levels-2100\/3074564\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><b>TP<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thwaites Glacier is a large glacier in West Antarctica, about the size of a large country. Read more about Thwaites Glacier, Location, Impact, Significance, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":86849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5250],"class_list":["post-2774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-thwaites-glacier","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2774"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129538,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions\/129538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}