DESCRIPTION: 

Glaciologists have described Thwaites Glacier as the "most important" glacier in the world, the "riskiest" glacier, even the "doomsday" glacier. 

TRANSCRIPT: 

Woman: If we're thinking about what a sea level going to be like in ten years whether you're building a dike around your town or... or anticipating how far inland to move coastal cities in Florida. This glacier is a big piece of that question and this is the location to be asking these questions at where we're standing right on it. [Music] Man: This is a historic moment the first time. Anyone has tried to drill down through this grass here beneath the six hundred meters of ice below me is the most important point of all the point at which the ice meets the ocean water. This is ice Vinnitsa it's a nasa-funded robot submarine. This is the first time any measurements have been taken beneath what they call the the Doomsday gracia. It's the first time anyone has seen this. This is the point where the ice meets the warmer ocean water. It's the place where this this huge Gracia is rapidly melting. Woman: So, this glacier is significant because it is huge and it's deep it's thick. There's a giant volume of ice here. The bottom of the ice is below sea level and so that means that it's very sensitive to change so the ocean can very easily melt in and thin this glacier. Man: So throats grass is really remote it's right at the heart of the vast basin of ice that's West Antarctica the glasses the size of the UK it's the stormiest part of the stormiest continent in the world and more than a thousand miles from the nearest research station. All this broken ice is almost a hundred miles long. The ice rises almost a mile from the seabed and it's collapsing into the sea at two miles a year. If frights melts it'll increase sea levels worldwide by half a meter but it is in the middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and thus three meters more of sea level rise locked up in that. Woman: Standby...3/2... We have just detonated a shot and recorded the energy the echo from the explosion in order to map the grounding zone. So the point where the glacier glows afloat on the ocean it is changing it is migratin inland and so this huge reservoir of ice behind us is becoming vulnerable to the ocean melting that's happening out there. Man: Let's be clear that the ice here isn't going to vanish overnight it'll take decades maybe even centuries forthe weights to go but as the work here has confirmed it is melting increasingly rapidly and that will mean huge changes for us all. 

QUESTIONS: 

1. Briefly narrate your knowledge about Antarctica. 

2. What will happen if Antarctica melts?

3. Explain the 'doomsday glacier'.