Past the point of no return

West Antarctic Glaciers and Ice Sheet in an 'irreversible state of decline'

NASA-JPL West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable
Videos top right Article - "This sector will be a major contributor to sea level rise in the decades and
centuries to come," Rignot said. "A conservative estimate is it could take several centuries for all of
the ice to flow into the sea." http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-148
Runaway Glaciers in West Antarctica http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/?id=1301 West Antarctica
Glaciers: Past the Point of No Return http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.php?id=1302
A new study by researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, finds a rapidly melting
section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in an irreversible state of decline, with nothing
to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060140/abstract;jsessionid=DFE55610AC63021D
4925D30BC0C388CC.f04t04 ($pay)
The study presents multiple lines of evidence, incorporating 40 years of observations that indicate
the glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica "have passed the point of no return,"
according to glaciologist and lead author Eric Rignot, of UC Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The new study has been accepted for publication in the journal
Geophysical Research Letters.
These glaciers already contribute significantly to sea level rise, releasing almost as much ice into the
ocean annually as the entire Greenland Ice Sheet. They contain enough ice to raise global sea level
by 4 feet (1.2 meters) and are melting faster than most scientists had expected. Rignot said these
findings will require an upward revision to current predictions of sea level rise.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140512134613.htm
Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith and Kohler glaciers, West
Antarctica from 1992 to 2011. E. Rignot et al. Keywords: Antarctica; Mass balance; interferometry;
Glacier dynamics; Marine instability
But "what we have shown is this glacier is really in the early stages of collapse," says Joughin, lead
author of a study published separately in the journal Science on Monday. "If the whole glacier
system melts, Joughin says, it would raise global sea levels about 24 inches (60 centimeters), he
adds. The process will take a while, roughly 200 to 900 years, Joughin and colleagues estimate,
depending on how fast temperatures rise and how much snow falls in the area."
Abstract -- We measure the grounding line retreat of glaciers draining the Amundsen Sea
Embayment of West Antarctica using Earth Remote Sensing (ERS-1/2) satellite radar interferometry
from 1992 to 2011. Pine Island Glacier retreated 31km at its center, with most retreat in 20052009
when the glacier un-grounded from its ice plain. Thwaites Glacier retreated 14km along its fast-flow
core and 1 to 9km along the sides. Haynes Glacier retreated 10km along its flanks. Smith/Kohler
glaciers retreated the most, 35km along its ice plain, and its ice shelf pinning points are vanishing.
These rapid retreats proceed along regions of retrograde bed elevation mapped at a high spatial
resolution using a mass conservation technique (MC) that removes residual ambiguities from prior
mappings. Upstream of the 2011 grounding line positions, we find no major bed obstacle that would
prevent the glaciers from further retreat and draw down the entire basin.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060140/abstract;jsessionid=DFE55610AC63021D
4925D30BC0C388CC.f04t04 ($pay)
Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Underway for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica
Abstract:- Resting atop a deep marine basin, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has long been considered
prone to instability. Using a numerical model, we investigate the sensitivity of Thwaites Glacier to
ocean melt and whether unstable retreat is already underway. Our model reproduces observed
losses when forced with ocean melt comparable to estimates. Simulated losses are moderate (<0.25
mm per year sea level) over the 21st Century, but generally increase thereafter. Except possibly for
the lowest-melt scenario, the simulations indicate early-stage collapse has begun.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/05/12/science.1249055 ($pay)
Pine Island Glacier calving satelite visual - FigS7_Pig_anim.gif (8Mb)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1002/2014GL060140/asset/supinfo/FigS7_Pig_anim.gif?v=1
&s=5868da8bd5bc322c054116b0229995f64c54a1e2
Maps Graphics article Ian Joughin, who studies the physics of glaciers at the University of
Washington, Seattle, says that the Thwaites glacier on Antarctica's Amundsen Sea was thought to be
"stabilized for a few thousand years." But "what we have shown is this glacier is really in the early
stages of collapse," says Joughin, lead author of a study published separately in the journal Science
on Monday. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140512-thwaites-glacier-melting-
collapse-west-antarctica-ice-warming/

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Last Updated 2014-05-13
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