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Hidden lakes drain below West Antarcticas Thwaites Glacier (but don't explain its current speed)
http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/02/08/hidden-lakes-drained-under-west-antarcticas-thwaites-glacier/[font face=Serif]February 8, 2017
[font size=5]Hidden lakes drain below West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier[/font]
Hannah Hickey
[font size=3]Thwaites Glacier on the edge of West Antarctica is one of the planet’s fastest-moving glaciers. Research shows that it is sliding unstoppably into the ocean, mainly due to warmer seawater lapping at its underside.
But the details of its collapse remain uncertain. The details are necessary to provide a timeline for when to expect 2 feet of global sea level rise, and when this glacier’s loss will help destabilize the much larger West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Recent efforts have used satellites to map the underlying terrain, which affects how quickly the ice mass will move, and measure the glacier’s thickness and speed to understand the physics of its changes.
Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh used data from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 to identify a sudden drainage of large pools below Thwaites Glacier, one of two fast-moving glaciers at the edge of the ice sheet. The study published Feb. 8 in The Cryosphere finds four interconnected lakes drained in the eight months from June 2013 and January 2014. The glacier sped up by about 10 percent during that time, showing that the glacier’s long-term movement is fairly oblivious to trickles at its underside.
“This was a big event, and it confirms that the long-term speed-up that we’re observing for this glacier is probably driven by other factors, most likely in the ocean,” said corresponding author Ben Smith, a glaciologist with the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “The water flow at the bed is probably not controlling the speed.”
…[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-451-2017[font size=5]Hidden lakes drain below West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier[/font]
Hannah Hickey
[font size=3]Thwaites Glacier on the edge of West Antarctica is one of the planet’s fastest-moving glaciers. Research shows that it is sliding unstoppably into the ocean, mainly due to warmer seawater lapping at its underside.
But the details of its collapse remain uncertain. The details are necessary to provide a timeline for when to expect 2 feet of global sea level rise, and when this glacier’s loss will help destabilize the much larger West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Recent efforts have used satellites to map the underlying terrain, which affects how quickly the ice mass will move, and measure the glacier’s thickness and speed to understand the physics of its changes.
Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh used data from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 to identify a sudden drainage of large pools below Thwaites Glacier, one of two fast-moving glaciers at the edge of the ice sheet. The study published Feb. 8 in The Cryosphere finds four interconnected lakes drained in the eight months from June 2013 and January 2014. The glacier sped up by about 10 percent during that time, showing that the glacier’s long-term movement is fairly oblivious to trickles at its underside.
“This was a big event, and it confirms that the long-term speed-up that we’re observing for this glacier is probably driven by other factors, most likely in the ocean,” said corresponding author Ben Smith, a glaciologist with the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “The water flow at the bed is probably not controlling the speed.”
…[/font][/font]
