Will Sea Levels Rise Again In Next Decade? Scientists Worry The Answer Is 'Yes'

Scientists are worried that the world will experience rising sea levels in the next decade and the source of their fear is the pending collapse of a massive glacier in Antarctica.

On Wednesday, Dr. Erin Pettit, a professor at Oregon State University and an expert on glacier dynamics, sounded the alarm that a massive glacier located in Antarctica is at risk of falling right into the sea. This glacier, known as the Thwaites Glacier, is estimated to be the size of Florida but Petitte warns that it can soon collapse.

“This eastern ice shelf is likely to shatter into hundreds of icebergs,” Pettit told the Washington Post. “Suddenly the whole thing would collapse.”

Pettit cautioned that a chain reaction could begin in 2031 if the Thwaites do indeed collapse. Right now, it is blocked from the sea by an underwater mountain on Antarctica's eastern shelf, but this mountain to is progressively disintegrating, said Pettit.

Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, described Thwaites as the "widest glacier in the world" and noted that its outflow into the ocean has been picking up speed in the last three decades. In a press release describing recent studies into the impact of Thwaites' looming collapse, Scambos said time is of the essence to understand what is going on in the world’s southernmost continent.

“If Thwaites were to collapse, it would drag most of west Antarctica’s ice with it,” Scambos said. “So it's critical to get a clearer picture of how the glacier will behave over the next 100 years.”

A previous study by the British Antarctic Survey estimated that the glacier's advance has contributed to a 4% rise in global sea levels already. However, if researchers are right and Thwaites can soon experience a major decline, this contribution to rising seas would rise to 25%. This would push global sea levels up by about 2 feet.