Continued deceleration of Whillans Ice Stream, West Antarctica

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Joughin, Ian, Bindschadler, R. A., King, Matt A., Voigt, Donald E., Alley, Richard B., Anandakrishnan, Sridhar, Horgan, H., Peters, L., Winberry, J. Paul, Das, Sarah B., Catania, Ginny
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2005
• Subjects: West Antarctica; Whillans; Whillans Ice Stream; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/3321

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 32 (2005): L22501, doi:10.1029/2005GL024319. Earlier observations indicated that Whillans Ice Stream slowed from 1973 to 1997. We collected new GPS observations of the ice stream's speed in 2003 and 2004. These data show that the ice stream is continuing to decelerate at rates of about 0.6%/yr2, with faster rates near the grounding line. Our data also indicate that the deceleration extends over the full width of the ice plain. Extrapolation of the deceleration trend suggests the ice stream could stagnate sometime between the middle of the 21st and 22nd Centuries. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF-OPP-0229659). IJ’s contribution was supported by the Cryospheric Sciences Program of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise.