Rise Tag

Recent efforts using computational modeling to understand how melting ice in Antarctica will impact the planet's oceans have focused on ice-sheet geometry, fracture, and surface melting -- processes that could potentially trigger or accelerate ice-sheet mass loss. Now, researchers have identified an additional process that could have a similarly significant effect on the ice sheet's future: thawing of the bed, known as basal thaw, at the interface of the land and the miles-thick ice sheet above it. The new study identifies areas that are not currently losing large amounts of mass but could be poised to match some of the largest contributors to sea-level rise -- such as Thwaites Glacier -- if they thawed. Antarctica is roughly the size of the...