Sif Island is made of granite and is covered by a remnant ice shelf, and a few seals (CD Hillenbrand/Laura Taylor)

Melting ice in Antarctica has uncovered an uncharted island that researchers have christened ‘Sif Island’.

The new landmass was noticed by scientists from the Thwaites Glacier Offshore Research project after receding ice made it visible for the first time.

Antarctica’s mighty Thwaites glacier is feeling the full effects of Earth’s warming climate and is retreating back faster than new ice can form. Sif Island is small, measuring only about 350 meters across, and is formed of volcanic granite.

It’s still largely covered by ice but there are apparently a few seals that have made a home there.


‘At first, we thought maybe an iceberg had become lodged on the outcropping years ago and then melted enough to expose the underlying rock, but now we think that the ice on the island was once part of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, a massive field of floating ice that entends outward into the ocean from the edge of the glacier,’ wrote Sarah Slack, a member of the expedition, in a blog post.



Now that Sif Island has appeared, scientists may conduct further studies on it to understand more about how the land beneath the ice of Antarctica may respond to climate change.





After being the first visitors, we can now confirm that Sif Island is made of granite and that it is covered by remnant ice shelf, and a few seals. Photos by CD Hillenbrand (BAS) and Laura Taylor (UH). @glacierthwaites @glacieroffshore @GAViglione #nbp2002 @BAS_News @UHEAS pic.twitter.com/dtWtdI95tL — Julia Smith Wellner (@houston_wellner) February 23, 2020

The Thwaites Glacier is located in ‘one of the most remote and hostile areas of West Antarctica’ and is known as the ‘doomsday glacier’.

This huge chunk of frozen water was given its ominous apocalyptic nickname because of the risk it will break apart and dump so much freshwater into the ocean that sea levels rise by 65cm – more than two feet.

West Antarctica is at the forefront of climate change and melting quickly (Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

From 1992 to 2011, Antarctica lost nearly 84 billion tons of ice a year.

From 2012 to 2017, the melt rate increased to more than 241 billion tons a year, according to a study in the journal Nature.