Erosion from beneath could lead to more sea-level rise

If floating Antarctic ice sheets disintegrate, land-based glaciers and ice sheets will flow much faster to the sea, speeding sea level rise. @bberwyn photo.

Staff Report

Oceans warming under a thickening blanket of greenhouse gases are licking at the edge of Antarctica and carving new channels in the bottom of ice shelves all around the frozen continent, researchers said this week in a new study led by scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Those channels, characterized as “upside-down rivers” by the scientists, may make the ice shelves more prone to collapsing, which could speed up the flow of ice and the increase the rate of sea-level rise. Overall, some Antarctic ice sheets have thinned by about 18 percent and the rate of melting is accelerating, other research shows.

The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, are based on…