A gigantic cavity was discovered in a glacier and that’s bad news

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.

The newly discovered cavity previously contained 14 billion tons of ice, which is now water, and it means that the Thwaites Glacier is melting faster than anyone thought. If the whole glacier melts, it would raise the sea level by more than two feet.

In 2018, a report from over 40 earth sciences agencies looking at ice loss in Antarctica found that the continent has lost three trillion tons of ice over 25 years, primarily from West Antarctica. This has had a dramatic effect on the sea level, which has risen 7 and a half millimeters from the continent alone.

The melting of glaciers and the sea level’s rise, which is spurred on by global climate change, has devastating impacts on wildlife and coastal communities. As sea levels rise, coastal communities and low-level land areas become more susceptible to flooding and will force millions of people to relocate.

The discovery of this cavity suggests the devastation is ramping up faster than we previously thought.

h/t New York Times