Rapidity of Arctic, Antarctic glacial thinning surprises scientists
September 25th, 2009A new study published in the journal Nature reports that glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are rapidly thinning.
Lead author Dr Hamish Pritchard from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said:
We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across such large areas of coastline — it’s widespread and in some cases thinning extends hundreds of kilometres inland. We think that warm ocean currents reaching the coast and melting the glacier front is the most likely cause of faster glacier flow. This kind of ice loss is so poorly understood that it remains the most unpredictable part of future sea level rise.
The authors conclude that this ‘dynamic thinning’ of glaciers now reaches all latitudes in Greenland, has intensified on key Antarctic coastlines, is penetrating far into the ice sheets’ interior and is spreading as ice shelves thin by ocean-driven melt. Ice shelf collapse has triggered particularly strong thinning that has endured for decades.