ice shelves

The new research reports that these lakes form intricate networks that are spread out over large swathes of ice shelves and they are getting bigger as the weather warms. Considering the fact that this February, the temperatures were about 50 degrees over the normal winter levels and there is no sunlight ...

Under the ice shelves there are significant tidal currents and the high southerly latitudes pose difficulties for the AUV's underwater navigation. Once in the ice shelf cavity we had neither detailed information on the thickness of the ice, nor the depth of the water. We had no communication with the AUV for ...

But we have also stood on ice shelves that are now open ocean. If the world does nothing, ice sheets will keep shrinking and the losses will accelerate. Even if greenhouse-gas emissions are slashed, which looks unlikely, it would take decades for the climate to stabilize. Is allowing a 'pristine' glacier to ...

“We knew that the environment was harsh, with -20 Celsius [-4 degrees F] air temperatures and sea temperatures very close to the freezing point of seawater,” said Steve McPhail, head of AUV Development at the NOC, in a statement. “Under the ice shelves there are significant tidal currents and the high ...

As this map shows, ice loss in western Antarctica is faster and more extensive than in the east, particularly in the Ronne (upper) and Ross (lower) ice shelves. The data underlying this map that depicts recent Antarctic ice flow are from a 13 February study published in The Cryosphere. However, the map ...

If more warm salty water is reaching the bottom of the ice shelves than in previous years, this could fuel an increase in ice-shelf melt. Dr Laura Herraiz Borreguero of ... 'If we lose (the ice shelves), the speed of the glaciers could be four to five times faster,' said Dr Herraiz Borreguero. Her next challenge is to ...

Ice shelves are constantly changing, internally and externally. Although the process is not yet perfectly understood, it's suspected that lower layers are somewhat melted due to warm oceanic waters flowing towards and chipping away at them. This process, one of many, contributes to the instability of ice ...

It is stabilized, at least for the time being, by a phalanx of floating ice shelves, that hang off its outer edges—of which the Ross Ice Shelf is by far the largest. Those floating shelves provide a buttress; they “are holding back a very big amount of ice,” says Craig Stevens, an oceanographer from the National ...

But unlike other Antarctic ice shelves such as Larsen C, which recently calved a 1-trillion-metric-ton iceberg, the Ross Ice Shelf's mass has remained roughly constant over the last several decades, even in the face of rising global temperatures. Now, researchers have dug into this mystery by drilling over ...