There is a new piece of research out this week in Science on channelized melting effects on the PIG. See:
Channelized Ice Melting in the Ocean Boundary Layer Beneath Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica
T. P. Stanton1,*,
W. J. Shaw1,
M. Truffer2,
H. F. J. Corr3,
L. E. Peters4,
K. L. Riverman4,
R. Bindschadler5,
D. M. Holland6,
S. Anandakrishnan4
+ Author Affiliations
1Department of Oceanography, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943, USA.
2Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK 99775–7320, USA.
3British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, CB3OET, UK.
4Department of Geosciences and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802–2711, USA.
5Emeritus Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
6Department of Mathematics, New York University, NY 10012, USA.
↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: stanton@nps.edu
Abstract
Editor's Summary
Ice shelves play a key role in the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheets by buttressing their seaward-flowing outlet glaciers; however, they are exposed to the underlying ocean and may weaken if ocean thermal forcing increases. An expedition to the ice shelf of the remote Pine Island Glacier, a major outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that has rapidly thinned and accelerated in recent decades, has been completed. Observations from geophysical surveys and long-term oceanographic instruments deployed down bore holes into the ocean cavity reveal a buoyancy-driven boundary layer within a basal channel that melts the channel apex by 0.06 meter per day, with near-zero melt rates along the flanks of the channel. A complex pattern of such channels is visible throughout the Pine Island Glacier shelf.
