Pine Island Glacier: NASA, NSF to Measure Ocean Heat
Filed under: Discovery,News & Resources
(Click to enlarge) The picture shows a 2008 British Antarctic Survey field camp on the glacier. (Photo: Public Domain)
A new scientific project tries to determine how much heat ocean currents deliver to the underside of the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) as it discharges into the sea.
Antarctica (From global-adventures.us) – The extremely remote glacier is part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that has a greater net contribution of ice to the sea than any other ice drainage basin in the world. In October 2011, scientists discovered a major rift in the PIG. The area beyond the crack that could calve in the coming months covers about 310 square miles (800 square kilometers).
An international team of researchers, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA, plans to helicopter onto the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf in mid-December 2011 to investigate the developments.
“Pine Island Glacier has begun to flow more rapidly, discharging more ice into the ocean, which could have a significant impact on global sea-level rise over the coming century,” said Scott Borg, director of the Division of Antarctic Sciences at the NSF. “This project, which aims to determine the underlying causes of this phenomenon, illustrates the fact that research conducted in Antarctica contributes to knowledge that benefits society in general.”
The multidisciplinary group of scientists will use a combination of traditional tools and sophisticated new oceanographic instruments to measure the ocean cavity shape underneath the ice shelf and determine how streams of relatively warmer ocean water enter this cavity, move toward the very bottom of the glacier and melt its underbelly, causing it to release more than 19 cubic miles of ice into the ocean each year. If all goes as planned, the 13-person team will depart from McMurdo Station, the National Science Foundation’s logistics hub on Ross Island, in mid-December and spend six weeks on the ice shelf.
Facilitating this work is difficult – Pine Island Glacier is almost 1,400 miles (2,200 kilometers) from McMurdo Station – about the distance from Washington, D.C. to Bismarck, North Dakota. Everything needed to support the research and the scientists at this remote site has to be airlifted to the camp or transported by an overland traverse. Extreme hazards like cold, harsh, stormy climate, as well as crevasses in the region present further challenges. Transporting supplies and personnel to the site is a major undertaking and one that has taken several years to master.
“The scale of a project required to comprehend the dynamics of something as large and complex as the forces acting on the Pine Island Glacier also emphasizes the increasing need for agencies such as NASA and NSF to collectively bring their expertise to bear on common goals. It also highlights the important work done by the nation’s colleges and universities with NSF support,” said Borg. “This is a major undertaking but it promises very interesting and very important results.”
As part of Operation IceBridge, NASA used a DC-8 to investigate the crack along PIG in October 2011. During the mission, the agency was able to shoot a series of pictures available on flickr here.
Pine Island Glacier has been the target of several scientific expeditions.
