Bad news, and worse coming. Scientists find record warm water in Antarctica,
pointing to cause behind troubling glacier melt -- ScienceDaily
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A team of scientists has observed, for the first time, the presence of warm water
at a vital point underneath a glacier in Antarctica -- an alarming discovery that
points to the cause behind the gradual melting of this ice shelf while also raising
concerns about sea-level rise around the globe.
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A team of scientists has observed, for the first time, the presence of warm water
at a vital point underneath a glacier in Antarctica -- an alarming discovery that
points to the cause behind the gradual melting of this ice shelf while also raising
concerns about sea-level rise around the globe.
"Warm waters in this part of the world, as remote as they may seem, should serve as
a warning to all of us about the potential dire changes to the planet brought about
by climate change," explains David Holland, director of New York University's
Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and NYU Abu Dhabi's Center for Global Sea
Level Change, which conducted the research. "If these waters are causing glacier
melt in Antarctica, resulting changes in sea level would be felt in more inhabited
parts of the world."
The recorded warm waters -- more than two degrees above freezing -- flow beneath the
Thwaites Glacier, which is part of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet. The discovery was
made at the glacier's grounding zone -- the place at which the ice transitions between
resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf and which is key
to the overall rate of retreat of a glacier.
Thwaites' demise alone could have significant impact globally.
It would drain a mass of water that is roughly the size of Great Britain or the state
of Florida and currently accounts for approximately 4 percent of global sea-level rise.
Some scientists see Thwaites as the most vulnerable and most significant glacier in
the world in terms of future global sea-level rise -- its collapse would raise global
sea levels by nearly one meter, perhaps overwhelming existing populated areas.
While the glacier's recession has been observed over the past decade, the causes
behind this change had previously not been determined.
"The fact that such warm water was just now recorded by our team along a section of
Thwaites grounding zone where we have known the glacier is melting suggests that it
may be undergoing an unstoppable retreat that has huge implications for global sea
level rise," notes Holland, a professor at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical
Sciences.
The scientists' measurements were made in early January, after the research team
created a 600-meter deep and 35-centimeter wide access hole and deployed an ocean-
sensing device to measure the waters moving below the glacier's surface. This device
gauges the turbulence of the water as well as other properties such as temperature.
The result of turbulence is the mixing of fresh meltwater from the glacier and salty
water from the ocean.
It marks the first time that ocean activity beneath the Thwaites Glacier has been
accessed through a bore hole and that a scientific instrument measuring underlying
ocean turbulence and mixing has been deployed. The hole was opened on January 8 and 9
and the waters beneath the glacier measured January 10 and 11.
Aurora Basinski, an NYU graduate student who made the turbulence measurement, said,
"From our observations into the ocean cavity at the grounding zone we observed not
only the presence of warm water, but also its turbulence level and thus its efficiency
to melt the ice shelf base."
Another researcher, Keith Nicholls, a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey,
added, "This is an important result as this is the first time turbulent dissipation
measurements have been made in the critical grounding zone of the West Antarctic
Ice Sheet."
I can hear the Johnny Carson's audience shouting, "How warm was it?"
Click on the original link, or read it above, to see if you can find out how warm it was.
You know, in degrees Celsius, Fahrenheit or Kelvin. Do you guys find it even remotely
curious that the important fact of what the temperature of the water actually was is
missing from the story? It's first thing I looked for, how 'bout you?
