Suppressed basal melting in the eastern Thwaites Glacier grounding zone
Thwaites Glacier is one of the fastest-changing ice–ocean systems in Antarctica(1–3). Much of the ice sheet within the catchment of Thwaites Glacier is grounded below sea level on bedrock that deepens inland(4), making it susceptible to rapid and irreversible ice loss that could raise the global sea...
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Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9931584/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36792735 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05586-0 |
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9931584 2023-05-15T13:38:47+02:00 Suppressed basal melting in the eastern Thwaites Glacier grounding zone Davis, Peter E. D. Nicholls, Keith W. Holland, David M. Schmidt, Britney E. Washam, Peter Riverman, Kiya L. Arthern, Robert J. Vaňková, Irena Eayrs, Clare Smith, James A. Anker, Paul G. D. Mullen, Andrew D. Dichek, Daniel Lawrence, Justin D. Meister, Matthew M. Clyne, Elisabeth Basinski-Ferris, Aurora Rignot, Eric Queste, Bastien Y. Boehme, Lars Heywood, Karen J. Anandakrishnan, Sridhar Makinson, Keith 2023-02-15 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9931584/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36792735 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05586-0 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9931584/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36792735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05586-0 © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Nature Article Text 2023 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05586-0 2023-02-19T02:16:04Z Thwaites Glacier is one of the fastest-changing ice–ocean systems in Antarctica(1–3). Much of the ice sheet within the catchment of Thwaites Glacier is grounded below sea level on bedrock that deepens inland(4), making it susceptible to rapid and irreversible ice loss that could raise the global sea level by more than half a metre(2,3,5). The rate and extent of ice loss, and whether it proceeds irreversibly, are set by the ocean conditions and basal melting within the grounding-zone region where Thwaites Glacier first goes afloat(3,6), both of which are largely unknown. Here we show—using observations from a hot-water-drilled access hole—that the grounding zone of Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf (TEIS) is characterized by a warm and highly stable water column with temperatures substantially higher than the in situ freezing point. Despite these warm conditions, low current speeds and strong density stratification in the ice–ocean boundary layer actively restrict the vertical mixing of heat towards the ice base(7,8), resulting in strongly suppressed basal melting. Our results demonstrate that the canonical model of ice-shelf basal melting used to generate sea-level projections cannot reproduce observed melt rates beneath this critically important glacier, and that rapid and possibly unstable grounding-line retreat may be associated with relatively modest basal melt rates. Text Antarc* Antarctica Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Thwaites Glacier PubMed Central (PMC) Thwaites Glacier ENVELOPE(-106.750,-106.750,-75.500,-75.500) Nature 614 7948 479 485 |
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Article Davis, Peter E. D. Nicholls, Keith W. Holland, David M. Schmidt, Britney E. Washam, Peter Riverman, Kiya L. Arthern, Robert J. Vaňková, Irena Eayrs, Clare Smith, James A. Anker, Paul G. D. Mullen, Andrew D. Dichek, Daniel Lawrence, Justin D. Meister, Matthew M. Clyne, Elisabeth Basinski-Ferris, Aurora Rignot, Eric Queste, Bastien Y. Boehme, Lars Heywood, Karen J. Anandakrishnan, Sridhar Makinson, Keith Suppressed basal melting in the eastern Thwaites Glacier grounding zone |
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Article |
description |
Thwaites Glacier is one of the fastest-changing ice–ocean systems in Antarctica(1–3). Much of the ice sheet within the catchment of Thwaites Glacier is grounded below sea level on bedrock that deepens inland(4), making it susceptible to rapid and irreversible ice loss that could raise the global sea level by more than half a metre(2,3,5). The rate and extent of ice loss, and whether it proceeds irreversibly, are set by the ocean conditions and basal melting within the grounding-zone region where Thwaites Glacier first goes afloat(3,6), both of which are largely unknown. Here we show—using observations from a hot-water-drilled access hole—that the grounding zone of Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf (TEIS) is characterized by a warm and highly stable water column with temperatures substantially higher than the in situ freezing point. Despite these warm conditions, low current speeds and strong density stratification in the ice–ocean boundary layer actively restrict the vertical mixing of heat towards the ice base(7,8), resulting in strongly suppressed basal melting. Our results demonstrate that the canonical model of ice-shelf basal melting used to generate sea-level projections cannot reproduce observed melt rates beneath this critically important glacier, and that rapid and possibly unstable grounding-line retreat may be associated with relatively modest basal melt rates. |
format |
Text |
author |
Davis, Peter E. D. Nicholls, Keith W. Holland, David M. Schmidt, Britney E. Washam, Peter Riverman, Kiya L. Arthern, Robert J. Vaňková, Irena Eayrs, Clare Smith, James A. Anker, Paul G. D. Mullen, Andrew D. Dichek, Daniel Lawrence, Justin D. Meister, Matthew M. Clyne, Elisabeth Basinski-Ferris, Aurora Rignot, Eric Queste, Bastien Y. Boehme, Lars Heywood, Karen J. Anandakrishnan, Sridhar Makinson, Keith |
author_facet |
Davis, Peter E. D. Nicholls, Keith W. Holland, David M. Schmidt, Britney E. Washam, Peter Riverman, Kiya L. Arthern, Robert J. Vaňková, Irena Eayrs, Clare Smith, James A. Anker, Paul G. D. Mullen, Andrew D. Dichek, Daniel Lawrence, Justin D. Meister, Matthew M. Clyne, Elisabeth Basinski-Ferris, Aurora Rignot, Eric Queste, Bastien Y. Boehme, Lars Heywood, Karen J. Anandakrishnan, Sridhar Makinson, Keith |
author_sort |
Davis, Peter E. D. |
title |
Suppressed basal melting in the eastern Thwaites Glacier grounding zone |
title_short |
Suppressed basal melting in the eastern Thwaites Glacier grounding zone |
title_full |
Suppressed basal melting in the eastern Thwaites Glacier grounding zone |
title_fullStr |
Suppressed basal melting in the eastern Thwaites Glacier grounding zone |
title_full_unstemmed |
Suppressed basal melting in the eastern Thwaites Glacier grounding zone |
title_sort |
suppressed basal melting in the eastern thwaites glacier grounding zone |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9931584/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36792735 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05586-0 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-106.750,-106.750,-75.500,-75.500) |
geographic |
Thwaites Glacier |
geographic_facet |
Thwaites Glacier |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Thwaites Glacier |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica Ice Sheet Ice Shelf Thwaites Glacier |
op_source |
Nature |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9931584/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36792735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05586-0 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05586-0 |
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Nature |
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614 |
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7948 |
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479 |
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485 |
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