The data indicate that seawater penetrates several kilometers beneath grounded ice and lifts it during tidal cycles, flushing the ice with pressurized, warm seawater being pushed to the Antarctic coastline by currents that have been altered by climate change.
CorroboratedContext
The UC Irvine-led team worked to calibrate ice sheet models against observations spanning more than 20 years. Using synthetic aperture radar readings from the Finnish ICEYE satellite constellation, the researchers have been able to detect kilometer-scale fluctuations in the grounding zone along the main trunk of Thwaites. The data indicate that seawater penetrates several kilometers beneath grounded ice and lifts it during tidal cycles, flushing the ice with pressurized, warm seawater being pushed to the Antarctic coastline by currents that have been altered by climate change.
Evidence
www.sciencenews.org · supports
This inrush of seawater forces its way many kilometers inland as it melts the ice from beneath.
tc.copernicus.org · context
Bulthuis, K., Arnst, M., Sun, S., and Pattyn, F.: Uncertainty quantification of the multi-centennial response of the Antarctic ice sheet to climate change, The Cryosphere, 13, 1349–1380, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1349-2019, 2019. a
History
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