(K.M. under contract from Intermap Technologies Ltd.)

• Main Authors: Ian Joughin, Laurence Gray, Robert Bindschadler, Christina Hulbe, Stephen Price, Karim Mattaf, Charles Werner, Ice Branch
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1999
• Subjects: Antarctic; Arctic; Greenland; West Antarctic Ice Sheet; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Stream C
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.624.9066; http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/17501/1/99-0955.pdf

ABSTRACT Interferometric RADARSAT data are used to map ice motion in the source areas of four West Antarctic ice streams. Newly discovered inland tributaries, coincident with subglacial valleys provide a spatially extensive transition between slow, inland flow and rapid, ice-stream flow. Adjacent ice streams are observed to draw from shared source regions suggesting more interactions between ice streams than previously envisaged. Two tributaries flow into the stagnant ice stream C, creating an extensive region of thickening at an average rate of 0.49 meters per year, one of the largest rates of thickening ever reported for Antarctica. With a reservoir of ice sufficient to raise sea level by 5-6 meters, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been a subject of intense glaciological study since the early 1970’s when doubts about its stability were first raised (1). Unlike the Greenland ice sheet and the majority of the East Ant-arctic ice sheet, much of the West Antarctic ice sheet is grounded well below sea level and under-lain by marine sediments deposited when the ice sheet was absent. When saturated with water, these sediments change the dynamics of ice motion, allowing very fast motion. While the proba-bility that these factors could contribute to a catastrophic collapse of the ice sheet is under debate