"the first...consequence of the human race's trip out of the Goldilocks Zone will be the widening of the thermal divide, the invisible but very real line that separates the cool from the suffering, the lucky from the damned." Jeff Goodell
A new study from Caltech has discovered a new meltwater current flowing out of the Bellingshausen Sea. This understudied body of water between the Antarctic Peninsula and South America plays an outsized role in melting the underbellies of the massive ice shelves in West Antarctica, particularly in the Amundsen Bay Embayment, which includes Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers.
From the Caltech presser:
Due to warming caused by climate change, the Antarctic ice shelves are melting at an accelerated rate. Most of the melt comes from below the ice shelves, a result of warm water flowing underneath them. However, the process does not stop there—as the meltwater enters the ocean, it is carried around the coast of Antarctica by ocean currents, modifying melt rates at ice shelves farther downstream. Mapping these meltwater pathways is needed to better understand and predict melting and resulting sea level rise.
"We used to think about ice shelves as isolated systems, but we now understand that multiple ice shelves are connected by currents along the Antarctic coast," says Caltech's Andy Thompson, John S. and Sherry Chen Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering. "What happens in one ice shelf changes the processes at another. To accurately predict changes, we have to understand the domino effect they have on one another."
For over a decade, researchers in Thompson's laboratory have studied the Antarctic seas using a combination of techniques. A new study led by senior research scientist Mar Flexas examines data collected by an underwater autonomous vehicle as well as seals equipped with sensors on their heads. Through these data, the team discovered a new current that meltwater follows through a region known as the Bellingshausen Sea, on the side of Antarctica nearest to South America.
"The Bellingshausen Sea is not a well-studied region, but it's the first place where warm water from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans reaches the ice shelves," says Thompson, who is also the director of the Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science and executive officer for environmental science. "As it melts the ice shelves, the water becomes cooler and fresher, decreasing its capacity to melt."
Interesting Engineering:
The team identified two distinct meltwater pathways that originate from different ice shelves. One follows the coast and can increase melting at downstream ice shelves by trapping warm waters at depth, while the other path returns to the open ocean.
Interestingly, the seal data revealed a previously unknown trough, or canyon, in the seafloor, which the team dubbed, appropriately enough, Seal Trough.
Underwater topographic features like Seal Trough influence the flow of currents similarly to how canyons on dry land guide the flow of rivers.
Thwaites winter damage.
Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf
Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf — Notice the tongue is also cracking and shedding ice.
There has not been one peep from the media on these terrifying developments in West Antarctica.
