World News for Students of English

22-12-2021 07:00

The Thwaites Glacier is in Antarctica, and it is as big as Florida, USA. Last week, scientists warned that it could break into pieces, which would be a world disaster.

The Thwaites Ice Shelf supports the glacier, and scientists believe that it will break within 5 to 7 years. This means that the glacier will completely break in the future, too.

Scientists are not sure when exactly it will happen. It can take hundreds of years, but it can be much sooner. Scientists worry a lot because when it happens, the sea level will rise by about 60 centimeters on the whole planet.

In 2020, scientists learned that water under the glacier was two degrees above zero. This warm water causes the glacier to erode faster, and that reason is why scientists are afraid of what will happen in the future. It is clear that the sea water temperature will rise in the future, too, and this can make the glacier erode even faster.

Difficult words: glacier (a large mass of snow which moves very slowly), ice shelf (a sheet of ice that sits on land), erode (to slowly destroy rock, land, or ice through water or wind).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.