Latest Glaciers of Antarctica Stories
NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EST on Wednesday, Nov. 9, to discuss a new field campaign season on one of Antarctica's "hottest" spots: the rapidly-melting Pine Island Glacier. The Pine Island Glacier ice shelf expedition, an international effort led by seven institutions, aims to peek beneath the ice and determine how the ocean is melting the glacier's underbelly. During the news conference, panelists will discuss this season's scientific goals, state-of-the-art data...
[ Watch the Video ] After discovering an emerging crack that cuts across the floating ice shelf of Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, NASA's Operation IceBridge has flown a follow-up mission and made the first-ever detailed airborne measurements of a major iceberg calving in progress. NASA's Operation Ice Bridge, the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown, is in the midst of its third field campaign from Punta Arenas, Chile. The six-year mission will yield an...
Researchers said on Wednesday that an Antarctic glacier with the potential to raise global sea levels could speed up its retreat within 20 years. Columbia University researchers said the Thwaites Glacier is expected to speed up once it detaches from an underwater ridge it is currently attached too. The ridge appears to be slowing the glacier's slide into the sea, but the finding says the glacier is losing its grip on a previously unknown ridge. The researcher said this explains why...
Scientists with NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne research campaign began the mission's third year of surveys this week over the changing ice of Antarctica. Researchers are flying a suite of scientific instruments on two planes from a base of operations in Punta Arenas, Chile: a DC-8 operated by NASA and a Gulfstream V (G-V) operated by the National Science Foundation and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The G-V will fly through early November. The DC-8, which completed its...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Scientists with NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne research campaign began the mission's third year of surveys this week over the changing ice of Antarctica. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Researchers are flying a suite of scientific instruments on two planes from a base of operations in Punta Arenas, Chile: a DC-8 operated by NASA and a Gulfstream V (G-V) operated by the National Science Foundation and the...
Fresh research into glaciers could help scientists better predict the impact of changing climates on global sea levelsFresh research into glaciers could help scientists better predict the impact of changing climates on global sea levels.Scientists have shown for the first time that the terrain beneath glaciers influences how much glacier melt contributes to fluctuations in sea levels.Researchers say the study will improve their understanding of how ice sheet movements have affected sea levels...
A major glacier is undermined from belowStronger ocean currents beneath West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf are eroding the ice from below, speeding the melting of the glacier as a whole, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience. A growing cavity beneath the ice shelf has allowed more warm water to melt the ice, the researchers say"”a process that feeds back into the ongoing rise in global sea levels. The glacier is currently sliding into the sea at a clip of four...
Scientists from the U.S., U.K. and Australia have used ice-penetrating radar to create the first high- resolution topographic map of one of the last uncharted regions of Earth, the Aurora Subglacial Basin, an immense ice-buried lowland in East Antarctica larger than Texas. The map reveals some of the largest fjords or ice cut channels on Earth, providing important insights into the history of ice in Antarctica. The data will also help computer modelers improve their simulations of the past...
New research, published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, highlights San Rafael Glacier in Patagonia, which has retreated about 5 miles since the peak of the Little Ice Age, BBC News reports. Glaciers have lost volume on average "10 to 100 times faster" in the last 30 years.Sea levels are rising faster now than at any time in the last 350 years and melting glaciers are a large reason for that, according to the study by Universities at Aberystwyth, Exeter and Stockholm who looked at...
An international team of scientists working in the most remote parts of Antarctica have discovered that masses of ice form underneath the ice sheet instead of on top, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.Liquid water locked deep under Antarctica's coat of ice regularly thaws, and then refreezes to the bottom, creating as much as half the thickness of the ice in some places, the researchers said. "We usually think of ice sheets like cakes -- one layer at a time...
