The mystery of Antarctica's speeding glacier: … Pine Island Glacier … robot submarine …

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/4126979/The-mystery-of-Antarcticas-speeding-glacier.html

The mystery of Antarctica's speeding glacier

The 30 trillion litres of the Pine Island Glacier are melting far faster than the rest of the western Antarctic. Now a British team are sending a robot submarine under the ice to discover precisely why

By Richard Gray and Richard Alleyne
Last Updated: 6:55PM GMT 05 Jan 2009

With the possible exception of the ice that covers Greenland, the West Antarctic ice shelf is the most important body of water in the world. If it thaws, the results will be disastrous for millions, raising sea levels and flooding coastal cities such as London, New York, Tokyo and Calcutta. So it is understandable that scientists are alarmed as to why one particular section of it - Pine Island Glacier - is melting so much faster than the rest.

Pine Island, which contains around 30 trillion litres of water, is slipping into the sea at an ever accelerating rate, a development that alone could raise sea levels by as much as 10cm over the next century. Starting at an altitude of 2,500m, the glacier is 95 miles long and 18 miles wide, reaching the sea as an ice wall 750m high. Even before it began to speed up, it was one of the fastest-flowing glaciers in the world, at nine yards a day.

Scientists believe that the thinning of the glacier, and its acceleration, are due to unusual melting under the base as it enters the ocean. This is caused by either global warming or a hitherto unknown factor, such as an underwater volcano.

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Now, though, a team of British scientists plans to attack the continent's "weak underbelly" – the watery realms below the massive glaciers. Using a robot submarine nicknamed "Autosub", researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) hope to explore this previously inaccessible part of the glacier, to discover what is happening.

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[FSogol]

1. I hope its not melting due to the heat given off by robot submarines.

Good article, btw.