West Antarctic Ice Sheet formed earlier than thought

West Antarctic Ice Sheet Initiative

The ocean's influence upon and response to Antarctic ice sheet changes is considered in relation to sea level rise over recent and future decades. Assuming present-day ice fronts are in approximate equilibrium, a preliminary budget for the ice sheet is estimated from accumulation vs. iceberg calving and the basal melting that occurs beneath floating ice shelves. Iceberg calving is derived from ...

Bacteria beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet.

Subglacial environments, particularly those that lie beneath polar ice sheets, are beginning to be recognized as an important part of Earth's biosphere. However, except for indirect indications of microbial assemblages in subglacial Lake Vostok, Antarctica, no sub-ice sheet environments have been shown to support microbial ecosystems. Here we report 16S rRNA gene and isolate diversity in sedime...

Warm ocean is eroding West Antarctic Ice Sheet

[1] Satellite radar measurements show that ice shelves in Pine Island Bay have thinned by up to 5.5 m yr 1 over the past decade. The pattern of shelf thinning mirrors that of their grounded tributaries the Pine Island, Thwaites and Smith glaciers and ocean currents on average 0.5 C warmer than freezing appear to be the source. The synchronised imbalance of the inland glaciers is the result of r...

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Sea Level Rise

Ice flow of the Antarctic ice sheet.

We present a reference, comprehensive, high-resolution, digital mosaic of ice motion in Antarctica assembled from multiple satellite interferometric synthetic-aperture radar data acquired during the International Polar Year 2007 to 2009. The data reveal widespread, patterned, enhanced flow with tributary glaciers reaching hundreds to thousands of kilometers inland over the entire continent. Thi...