Denman Glacier is retreating into Antarctica’s deepest valley. 5 feet of sea level rise are at stake. - The Washington Post

Denman Glacier is retreating into Antarctica’s deepest valley. 5 feet of sea level rise are at stake. - The Washington Post

A weak point in Antarctica’s ice sheet

Seawater has advanced by more than 5 kilometres under Antarctica’s Denman Glacier between 1996 and 2018. Satellite data from the Italian Space Agency show that the glacier rests on a trough extending to 3.5 kilometres below sea level — the deepest land canyon on Earth — and holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 1.5 metres. The study found it to be at risk of irreversible retreat. “If I have to look at East Antarctica as a whole, this is the most vulnerable spot in the area,” says geoscientist Virginia Brancato.

The Washington Post | 6 min readReferenceL Geophysical Research Letters paper