For the first time, scientists have directly observed the melting underside of an Antarctic ice shelf, Earth.com reported. An international team sent an unmanned craft beneath the Dotson ice shelf to gather data about how it is melting in real time.
While it confirmed the theory that strong water currents are eroding the ice more quickly than passive melting can account for, it also produced baffling images that suggest our models of glacial melt are not yet capturing the full picture.
What's happening?
This was part of the TARSAN project, which also studied the Thwaites Glacier — also known as the "Doomsday Glacier."
The unmanned submarine, named Ran, spent 27 days traveling over 1,000 km (621 miles) to reach 17 km (10.6 miles) into the cavity under the Dotson ice shelf in West Antarctica. Over that time, it created a detailed map of the underside of the glacier, taking photos of a part of the Earth that has never been seen before.
"By navigating the submersible into the cavity, we were able to get high-resolution maps of the ice underside," said lead author Anna Wåhlin, Professor of Oceanography at the University of Gothenburg, per Earth.com. "It's a bit like seeing the back of the moon."
Previous predictions held that the ice would be smooth. To the team's surprise, there were numerous cracks, hills and valleys, layered structures, and formations like sand dunes all over the underside of the glacier. One initial theory is that these shapes have been influenced by the Earth's rotation.
Why is a melting ice shelf important?
Ice shelves float in the water, so they don't change the sea level as they melt. However, they do affect land-based glaciers, destabilizing them and speeding their melting, and that raises the sea level.
Higher sea levels threaten island and coastal communities worldwide. They're already causing damage, especially during rough weather.
This discovery about the melting ice shelves not only highlights the issue of rising sea levels, but also complicates our understanding of the phenomenon.
"For us, it's not just a new discovery, but also a wake-up call that many previous assumptions about melting of glacier undersides are falling short," Professor Wåhlin said, per Earth.com.
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Definitely 👍 What's being done about rising sea levels?
Missions like this one to study melting glaciers and ice shelves are improving our understanding of Antarctic ice and what can be done to slow its melting.
Some organizations are looking for ways to generate more ice, and others are working to reduce heat-trapping air pollution in an effort to keep the ice from melting in the first place.
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