Widespread persistent thickening of the East Antarctic ice sheet by freezing from the base

An International Polar Year aerogeophysical investigation of the high interior of East Antarctica reveals widespread freeze-on that drives substantial mass redistribution at the bottom of the ice sheet. Although the surface accumulation of snow remains the primary mechanism for ice sheet growth, beneath Dome A, 24% of the base by area is frozen-on ice. In some places, up to half of the ice thickness has been added from below. These ice packages result from the conductive cooling of water ponded near the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountain ridges and the supercooling of water forced up steep valley walls. Persistent freeze-on thickens the ice column, alters basal ice rheology and fabric, and upwarps the overlying ice sheet, including the oldest atmospheric climate archive, and drives flow behavior not captured in present models.     

Ice flow of the Antarctic ice sheet

We present a reference, comprehensive, high-resolution, digital mosaic of ice motion in Antarctica assembled from multiple satellite interferometric synthetic-aperture radar data acquired during the International Polar Year 2007 to 2009. The data reveal widespread, patterned, enhanced flow with tributary glaciers reaching hundreds to thousands of kilometers inland over the entire continent. This view of ice sheet motion emphasizes the importance of basal-slip-dominated tributary flow over deformation-dominated ice sheet flow, redefines our understanding of ice sheet dynamics, and has far-reaching implications for the reconstruction and prediction of ice sheet evolution.     

Recent sea-level contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets

After a century of polar exploration, the past decade of satellite measurements has painted an altogether new picture of how Earth's ice sheets are changing. As global temperatures have risen, so have rates of snowfall, ice melting, and glacier flow. Although the balance between these opposing processes has varied considerably on a regional scale, data show that Antarctica and Greenland are each losing mass overall. Our best estimate of their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year of ice, enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters per year. This is only a modest contribution to the present rate of sea-level rise of 3.0 millimeters per year. However, much of the loss from Antarctica and Greenland is the result of the flow of ice to the ocean from ice streams and glaciers, which has accelerated over the past decade. In both continents, there are suspected triggers for the accelerated ice discharge-surface and ocean warming, respectively-and, over the course of the 21st century, these processes could rapidly counteract the snowfall gains predicted by present coupled climate models.     

Antarctic ice sheet: preliminary results of first core hole to bedrock

The Antarctic ice sheet at Byrd Station has been core-drilled to bedrock; the vertical thickness of the ice is 2164 meters. Liquid water-indicative of pressure melting-was encountered at the bed. Heat flow through the base of the ice sheet is estimated at 1.8 microcalories per square centimeter per second. The minimum temperature was -28.8 degrees C at 800 meters; maximum ice density, 0.9206 at 1000 meters. Core studies reveal the existence of a chemically pure, structurally stratified sheet comprising bubbly ice to 900 meters that transforms to bubble-free deformed ice, with substantially vertically orientated c-axis structure, below 1200 meters. Below 1800 meters the deformed ice structure gives way to large annealed crystals. Several thin layers of dirt between 1300 and 1700 meters are tentatively identified as volcanic ash, and horizontally banded debris, including fragments of granite, is present in the basal ice.     

Antarctic timing of surface water changes off Chile and Patagonian ice sheet response

Marine sediments from the Chilean continental margin are used to infer millennial-scale changes in southeast Pacific surface ocean water properties and Patagonian ice sheet extent since the last glacial period. Our data show a clear "Antarctic" timing of sea surface temperature changes, which appear systematically linked to meridional displacements in sea ice, westerly winds, and the circumpolar current system. Proxy data for ice sheet changes show a similar pattern as oceanographic variations offshore, but reveal a variable glacier-response time of up to approximately 1000 years, which may explain some of the current discrepancies among terrestrial records in southern South America.     

Mercury in a Greenland ice sheet: evidence of recent input by man

The increased mercury content in a Greenland ice sheet over the last several decades suggests the dissemination of this element about the earth's atmosphere through the activities of man. The mercury content in the atmosphere appears to result primarily from the degassing of the earth's crust. Increased flux may come about as a result of the enhancement of this degassing process through the actions of man.     

Antarctic ice sheet: stable isotope analyses of byrd station cores and interhemispheric climatic implications

Oxygen- and hydrogen-isotope analyses from the core hole through the Antarctic Ice Sheet at Byrd Station define temperature variations over more than 75,000 years. Synchronism between major climatic changes in Antarctica and the Northern Hemisphere is strongly indicated. The Wisconsin cold interval extended from 75,000 to 11,000 years ago. Three intra-Wisconsin warmer phases were all colder than pre- or post-Wisconsin times, which suggests that North American and Eurasian continental ice sheets did not disappear at any time during the Wisconsin.     

Glaciers dominate eustatic sea-level rise in the 21st century

Ice loss to the sea currently accounts for virtually all of the sea-level rise that is not attributable to ocean warming, and about 60% of the ice loss is from glaciers and ice caps rather than from the two ice sheets. The contribution of these smaller glaciers has accelerated over the past decade, in part due to marked thinning and retreat of marine-terminating glaciers associated with a dynamic instability that is generally not considered in mass-balance and climate modeling. This acceleration of glacier melt may cause 0.1 to 0.25 meter of additional sea-level rise by 2100.     

Convection in the antarctic ice sheet leading to a surge of the ice sheet and possibly to a new ice age

The Antarctic surge theory of Pleistocene glaciation is reexamined in the context of thermal convection theory applied to the Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet surges when a water layer at the base of the ice sheet reaches the edge of the ice sheet over broad fronts and has a thickness sufficient to drown the projections from the bed that most strongly hinder basal ice flow. Frictional heat from convection flow promotes basal melting, and, as the ice sheet grows to the continental shelf of Antarctica, a surge of the ice sheet appears likely.     

Changes in the west antarctic ice sheet

The portion of the West Antarctic ice sheet that flows into the Ross Sea is thinning in some places and thickening in others. These changes are not caused by any current climatic change, but by the combination of a delayed response to the end of the last global glacial cycle and an internal instability. The near-future impact of the ice sheet on global sea level is largely due to processes internal to the movement of the ice sheet, and not so much to the threat of a possible greenhouse warming. Thus the near-term future of the ice sheet is already determined. However, too little of the ice sheet has been surveyed to predict its overall future behavior.     

30,000 years of cosmic dust in Antarctic ice

Polar ice provides an archive for the influx of cosmic dust. Here, we present a high-resolution, glacial-to-interglacial record of cosmic dust using helium isotope analysis of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) ice core drilled in Dronning Maud Land. We obtained a relatively constant 3He flux over the past 30,000 years. This finding excludes 3He as a pacemaker of late Pleistocene glacial cycles. Rather, it supports 3He as a constant flux parameter in paleoclimatic studies. A last glacial-to-Holocene shift of the 4He/non-sea salt Ca2+ ratio appears to indicate a glacial-to-interglacial change in the terrestrial dust source.     

Early miocene subglacial basalts, the East antarctic ice sheet, and uplift of the transantarctic mountains

Subglacially erupted volcanic rocks from Mount Early and Sheridan Bluff, Antarctica, yield whole-rock potassium-argon dates and argon-40/argon-39 release spectra of Early Miocene age. Field associations suggest the existence of the East Antarctic ice sheet and significant uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains by that time.     

Mercury in the greenland ice sheet: further data

New data support the contention that the mercury content of Greenland glacial ices has not increased dramatically in recent years but rather is distributed nonhomogeneously through the ice sheet.     

Antarctic krill under sea ice: elevated abundance in a narrow band just south of ice edge

We surveyed Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) under sea ice using the autonomous underwater vehicle Autosub-2. Krill were concentrated within a band under ice between 1 and 13 kilometers south of the ice edge. Within this band, krill densities were fivefold greater than that of open water. The under-ice environment has long been considered an important habitat for krill, but sampling difficulties have previously prevented direct observations under ice over the scale necessary for robust krill density estimation. Autosub-2 enabled us to make continuous high-resolution measurements of krill density under ice reaching 27 kilometers beyond the ice edge.     

Widespread complex flow in the interior of the antarctic ice sheet

It has been suggested that as much as 90% of the discharge from the Antarctic Ice Sheet is drained through a small number of fast-moving ice streams and outlet glaciers fed by relatively stable and inactive catchment areas. Here, evidence obtained from balance velocity estimates suggests that each major drainage basin is fed by complex systems of tributaries that penetrate up to 1000 kilometers from the grounding line into the interior of the ice sheet. This finding has important consequences for the modeled or estimated dynamic response time of past and present ice sheets to climate forcing.     

Laurentide ice sheet meltwater recorded in gulf of Mexico deep-sea cores

Oxygen isotopic measurements in three Late Quaternary deep-sea cores from the Gulf of Mexico record a major anomaly between about 15,000 and 12,000 years ago superimposed on a more characteristic oceanic oxygen isotopic curve. This resulted from major influx of isotopically light glacial meltwater via the Mississippi River from the disintegrating Late Wisconsin Laurentide Ice Sheet 2000 kilometers to the north.     

Changes in the west antarctic ice sheet since 1963 from declassified satellite photography

Comparison of declassified satellite photography taken in 1963 with more recent satellite imagery reveals that large changes have occurred in the region where an active ice stream enters the Ross Ice Shelf. Ice stream B has widened by 4 kilometers, at a rate much faster than suggested by models, and has decreased in speed by 50 percent. The ice ridge between ice streams B and C has eroded 14 kilometers. These changes, along with changes in the crevassing around Crary Ice Rise, imply that this region's velocity field shifted during this century.