Latest Glaciers of Antarctica Stories
U.S. scientists say a 24-foot-long robotic submarine will be used in a multimillion-dollar, five-year study of melting on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Northern Illinois University said its robotic submarine will be lowered through more than a half mile of ice into ocean water in the study that involves nine U.S. institutions. Researchers said the submarine will collapse to a width of only two feet, allowing it to be lowered through a drill hole melted in the ice. The sub is designed to...
The most comprehensive picture of the rapidly thinning glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has been created using satellite lasers. The findings are an important step forward in the quest to make more accurate predictions for future sea level rise.Reporting this week in the journal Nature researchers from British Antarctic Survey and the University of Bristol describe how analysis of millions of NASA satellite measurements* from both of these vast ice...
Experts say one of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago, BBC News reported.The surface of the ice at the Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica is now dropping at a rate of up to 50 feet a year, according to a recent study of satellite measurements.The work, by British scientists and published in Geophysical Research Letters, shows that the glacier has lowered by almost 300 feet since 1994, which has serious implications for sea-level...
A new study published this week takes scientists a step further in their quest to understand how Antarctica's vast glaciers will contribute to future sea-level rise. Reporting in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and University of Durham describe how a new 3-d map created from radar measurements reveals features in the landscape beneath a vast river of ice, ten times wider than the Rhine*, in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.During 2007, two researchers...
Most comprehensive seabed image of Amundsen Sea EmbaymentMotorway-sized troughs and channels carved into Antarctica's continental shelves by glaciers thousands of years ago could help scientists to predict future sea-level rise according to a report in the journal Geology this month (May).Using sonar technology from onboard ships, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the German Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) captured the most extensive, continuous set of images of the seafloor...
Scientists have once again found cause to marvel at the brilliant tenacity of life.In a small subterranean pool of highly concentrated salt water that hasn't seen the sun for some 1.5 million years, researchers have discovered flourishing colonies of previously unknown species microbes.The red water of Blood Falls that flows from the base of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica has intrigued scientists since its discovery more than a century ago. A crew of scientists from Harvard and Dartmouth...
U.S.-led scientists have found that an ecosystem below an Antarctic glacier has survived millions of years by using sulfur and iron compounds for growth. Co-led by Montana State University Professor John Priscu and Jill Mikucki of Dartmouth College, the scientists said the ecosystem lives without light or oxygen in a pool of brine trapped below Taylor Glacier, next to frozen Lake Bonney in eastern Antarctica. Priscu said the ecosystem contains a diversity of bacteria that thrive in cold,...
According to the UN Environmental Program, an enormous breakaway piece of Antarctica's ice shelf could amplify the already significant effects of global warming in the region.The 40-kilometer (25-mile) ice bridge "“ which was the Wilkins Ice Shelf's last bridge to the coast "“ has now completely broken off and can be seen in satellite images as a free-floating island of ice roughly the size of Jamaica. Before it starting melting in the early 1990's, Wilkins Ice Shelf had an area of...
A robot submarine studying the underbelly of an Antarctic ice shelf has found evidence of rising sea levels, scientists reported on Tuesday.Developed by UK's National Oceanography Center of Southampton, Autosub is an Automated Underwater Vehicle (AUV). It has completed six missions traveling under Pine Island Glacier, an extension of the West Antarctic ice sheet in the Amundsen Sea.The sub uses sonar to create a three-dimensional map of the seabed and the underside of the ice. Scientists hope...
Increased rainfall on the Antarctic Peninsula is rapidly melting glaciers like the Sheldon, which has recoiled 1.2 miles in 20 years and is raising world sea levels, a leading expert announced."Rain is very corrosive to glaciers and at least in part the reason this glacier is retreating," said David Vaughan, a British Antarctic Survey glaciologist."The glacier has retreated since 1989 and left this open water. That's the same pattern for 87 percent of 400 glaciers along the...
