Peering under the ice of a collapsing polar coast
Low-level aerial surveys aim to understand rapid Antarctic melting
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  IMAGE: The cabin of a DC-8 aircraft has been converted for instruments and engineers.
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Starting this month, a giant NASA DC-8 aircraft loaded with geophysical instruments and scientists will buzz at low level over the coasts of West Antarctica, where ice sheets are collapsing at a pace far beyond what scientists expected a few years ago. The flights, dubbed Operation Ice Bridge, are an effort by NASA in cooperation with university researchers to image what is happening on, and under, the ice, in order to estimate future sea-level rises that might result.
Since 2003, laser measurements of ice surfaces from NASA’s ICESat satellite have shown that vast ice masses in Greenland and West Antarctica are thinning and flowing quickly seaward. Last month, a report in the journal Nature based on the satellite’s measurements showed that some parts of the Antarctic area to be surveyed have been sinking 9 meters (27) feet a year; in 2002, one great glacial ice shelf jutting from land over the ocean on the Antarctic Peninsula simply disintegrated and floated away within days.
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 IMAGE: Antarctica’ Larsen Ice Shelf has deteriorated in recent years, and it is one target of the flights.
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NASA’s satellite reaches the end of its life this year, and another will not go up until 2015; in the interim, Operation Ice Bridge flights will continue and expand upon the satellite mission. In addition to lasers, the plane will carry penetrating radars to measure snow cover and the thickness of ice to bedrock, and a gravity-measuring system run by Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory that will, for the first time, plot the geometry and depth of ocean waters under the ice shelves. The gravity study is seen as key because many scientists believe warm ocean currents may be the main force pulling the ice sheets seaward, melting the undersides of ice shelves and thus removing the buttresses that hold back the far greater masses of ice on land.
“What our colleagues see from modeling of these glaciers is that warm ocean water is providing the thermal energy to melt the ice,” said Lamont geophysicist Michael Studinger, a co-leader of the gravity team who will be on some of the flights. “To really understand how the glaciers are going to behave, we need the firsthand measurements of water shape and depth.” Earlier this year, an icebreaker cruise co-led by another Lamont scientist, Stan Jacobs, sent an automated submarine to look under the region’s Pine Island Glacier, which has been moving forward rapidly in recent years. Its bed, where the ice contacts rock, is below sea level, and scientists are concerned about what would happen if a sudden large movement were to introduce seawater underneath. The plane flights, over some six weeks starting Oct. 15, are aimed at providing a wider-scale picture of Pine Island and other targets.
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 IMAGE: Ice shelves, extending from land over the ocean, form the ends of many Antarctic glaciers, making them vulnerable to warm ocean currents. Radar signals can measure the depth of ice,…
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For each of some 17 flights, the 157-foot DC-8–too big for runways on Antarctic bases–will make an 11-hour round trip from Punta Arenas, Chile, with two-thirds of each trip spent getting to Antarctica. There, the plane will fly survey lines as low as 1,000 feet, some of them along sinuous glacial valleys that may test the nerves of both pilots and scientists. Some flights will investigate the region’s open sea ice, which also seems to be in decline. The campaign will cost about $7 million.
“We learned how fast the ice sheets are changing from NASA satellites,” said Lamont geophysicist Robin Bell, who is helping lead the project. “These flights are a unique opportunity to see through the ice, and address the question of why the ice sheets are changing.”
“A remarkable change is happening on Earth, truly one of the biggest changes in environmental conditions since the end of the ice age,” said Tom Wagner, cryosphere program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington. “It’s not an easy thing to observe, let alone predict what might happen next. Studies like this one are key.”
Investigators from the University of Washington and University of Kansas will run their own suites of instruments. The scientists and engineers will narrate the progress of the mission on several blogs, including one hosted by NASA, and another by Lamont, as well as via twitter.
Wesbite here: http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/blog/category/ice-bridge/
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Hey, that looks like fun! How can I get a seat on one of those 17 flights over the Antarctic? 😉
Anybody see this?: The ice melt across during the Antarctic summer (October-January) of 2008-2009 was the lowest ever recorded in the satellite history.
Okay, that’s it. I want my money back.
said Lamont geophysicist Michael Studinger,
Uh…Duh?
DC-8’s are good planes,(partial to Douglas products),but a Stretch Eight?
here’s the NASA page on it:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-050-DFRC.html
Sometimes I wish NASA would simply go back to the moon…
Under-Ice Volcano Eruption Spewed Ash Over Antarctica:
“Heat from the volcano likely melted a large amount of ice around it, and this meltwater probably ran under the base of the ice sheet and out to sea, the researchers say.
The volcano could continue to melt ice around it, and the meltwater could lubricate the base of the ice sheet, speeding up the movement of the nearby Pine Island Glacier, helping make it today one of Antarctica’s fastest-flowing glaciers.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080121-antarctica-volcano_2.html
As a pilot and long time observer of the aerospace scene I wonder where they found a “Giant DC-8.” And how much bigger is a Giant DC-8 than a normal one?
Some where is the lower recesses of my mind i remember a story of a recent research vessel getting behind a recently collapsed ice sheet aand claiming that they had been furthur south than any other vessel. A few days later someone noted that a polar research vessel had been furthur south in the early 1900″s. The first story got the headlines the second may have been on the back page.
These people have been educated far beyond their intellectual capacity and of necessity have created and populated a parallel landscape where they can play at being scientists. In that they are abetted by professional politicians who know very little about anything, having never worked in the real world, and whose grasp of the meaning of the words democracy and freedom is becoming frighteningly similar to that of the early 20thC leaders of -isms.
John Stover: Here is an ad for one: http://cgi.ebay.com/1967-Delta-Airlines-Super-DC-8-DC8-Giant-Jet-Ad_W0QQitemZ260481263591QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090924?IMSfp=TL090924183003r9196
“For each of some 17 flights, the 157-foot DC-8–too big for runways on Antarctic bases–will make an 11-hour round trip from Punta Arenas, Chile, with two-thirds of each trip spent getting to Antarctica.”
… and how do they get back?
Jonathan Drake (11:28:27)
Thanks for the link. It was an interesting story, made somewhat disappointing by the ambiguousness of what seems to me to be the accompanying photo with the headline: “Photo: Under-Ice Volcano Eruption Spewed Ash Over Antarctica”. The headline and caption for the photo certainly makes me think this is the subject volcano and the fast moving glacier in the photo certainly looks fast moving, yet the looking at the photo, the glacier is the Koettlitz Glacier.
Anyway, so I thought the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) must be “nearby” as they state. Nearby, though, is 1,350 miles to the west of the photo. So, either a) the volcano is somewhere else, and they used this photo to improperly accentuate the story, or b) there is/was a volcano here and there’s another one 1,350 miles away at Pine Island Glacier, because I don’t see how steam from a volcano at Koettlitz Glacier, 1,350 miles to the west of PIG, and with a long, large mountain ridge in between, is going to lubricate PIG.
So, this is one of the “biggest change in environmental conditions since the end of the last ice age!”
Is it me or does this sound like a complete load of garbage? I mean, what sense is there in that statement? They report that the ice that floats in the sea is melting in the summer and in the same sentence they then imply that this has never happened since the end of the last ice age. At the end of the last ice age thousands of cubic kilometers of ice began to melt, raising sea levels by tens of meters, and they are comparing this with that!
I should file this research, if indeed it can be dignified with such a term, into the same file as the one about climate change altering the tilt of the earth’s axis and AIT.
LOL! I wondered about that!
Anyway, assuming Tom Wagner and company make it back to Chile, Anthony, maybe you could invite him to post a response here to the questions posed in this thread, in particular the reason for his alarmist a priori ‘global warming’ conclusions in the face of increasing sea-ice area and increasingly colder temperatures for the Antarctic continent as a whole.
/Mr Lynn
Velicogna and Wahr (2006) used high resolution gravity data (GRACE) to determine that the WAIS was losing 148 ± 21 km3/year of ice mass from 2002-2005 and that the EAIS (the vastly larger bit of Antarctica) was stable or even possibly gaining ice mass.
Sea level didn’t rise at all from 2005-2008 according to the CU satellite altimetry data… So I kind of doubt the ice mass loss accelerated after 2005.
Antarctica’s ice volume is about 25 million km3… The WAIS comprises about 10% of the total ice volume (~2.5 million km3).
148 is 0.0059% of 2.5 million and 0.00059% of 25 million. At the 2002-2005 melt rate, the WAIS will be gone in 17,000 years… That’ll only leave about 22.5 million km3 of ice mass in Antarctica (EAIS). If the EAIS starts to melt at the same rate as the WAIS, the Antarctic may become ice-free in only 170,000 years.
Anyway, so I thought the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) must be “nearby” as they state. Nearby, though, is 1,350 miles to the west of the photo. So, either a) the volcano is somewhere else, and they used this photo to improperly accentuate the story, or b) there is/was a volcano here and there’s another one 1,350 miles away at Pine Island Glacier, because I don’t see how steam from a volcano at Koettlitz Glacier, 1,350 miles to the west of PIG, and with a long, large mountain ridge in between, is going to lubricate PIG.
Not only that but the volcano erupted 1700 years ago.
In my day Columbia was an institution noted for its scholarship and objectivity.
How are the mighty fallen!
A potentially relevant paper – “Inferring surface heat flux distributions guided by a global seismic model: particular application to Antarctica” by Nikolai M. Shapiro and Michael H. Ritzwoller (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V61-4CMNSXC-6&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1040502749&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=26fbf0236fcbdce1db45bbdf6b3a130b).
This is behind a paywall, but the abstract concludes with – “Mean heat flow in West Antarctica is expected to be nearly three times higher than in East Antarctica and much more variable. This high heat flow may affect the dynamics of West Antarctic ice streams and the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.”
“Studies like this one are key”… no kidding, really? It’s the case of the blinds scientists describing an elephant and one of them trying to convince the rest that the ear is the elephant despite reports of the contrary…
P. Gosselin,
Thanks for the link! Wow!
“Damocles” states The Arctic sea ice cover in 2007 was the lowest ever recorded. In 2008, the sea ice extent was slightly bigger than 2007, but still dramatically low. The 2009 data shows that the sea ice extent is bigger than the two previous years. However, this does not mean that the Arctic sea ice is recovering, rather the opposite.
Good grief. “This does not mean that the Arctic sea ice is recovering, rather the opposite.” What is this poppycock? (comes from the Dutch word for diarrhea and seems quite appropriate)
DAMOCLES research project was launched in Finland in Arctic centre of Lapland University. It is expected to end in 2009. Project’s budget is about 30 million euro – funded by the EU and EU members!!
The main technological objective of DAMOCLES is to develop a prototype for an Arctic Ocean Observing System (AOOS) including major innovations and breakthrough in High Technology instrumentation adapted to a remote and harsh environment such as the Arctic Ocean.
However if you peruse their website it is all too abundantly clear – it’s another science boondogle – meetings, conventions etc. and you need read no further than the project title “DAMOCLES” to know what is the only possible outcome or conclusion from this organization – yes siree – it is all confirmed – the Arctic faces a total catastrophe – oh and …errr yes…we spent all the money and BTW we need a lot more money to even begin to complete our endless-do-loop-modelling and research!
I don’t think I’d call a DC-8 “giant”. It wasn’t a wide-body like the DC-10, L-1011, or 747. There was a stretch DC-8 version, longer than the normal version, but I still wouldn’t call it “giant”.
Just noting that there is a point whereby the weight of a large glacier over a landmass will cause the continent and the continental margins to sink so much that the ocean is able to underpin the glaciers and flood the continent and cause the glaciers to melt.
This does not seem to be much of an issue for Antarctica right now, it is already well below sea level in most parts (and certainly not in Greenland’s case since the edges are well above sea level) but it does seem that this has happened in the paleoclimate.
This seems to have occured in northwest Africa about 430 million years ago and in southern South America 390 to 360 million years ago. These areas were right over the south pole at the time periods mentioned and there seems to be periods whereby there was a rapid melt of the glaciers which had built up over the landmasses (and the sedimentary records show the areas had become flooded by the ocean.)
In a way, this is not much different that the Arctic Ocean basin is right now. The majority of it is within the continental shelves of North America and EuroAsia but since it is well below sea level, there is no land glaciers on these continental shelves. This situation also exists for Hudson Bay which was under 3 kms of ice during the last ice age. It was depressed so much that it is still below sea level.
This issue might also explain why Antarctica half-deglaciated 27 million years ago. There was no change in GHGs or any continental drift arrangements to explain it, but the glaciers melted back from convering the entire continent in the 8 million years previous. As mentioned, even today, much of Antarctica is well below sea level.
A little off-topic I know, but the data I have shows this seems to actually happen.
OT, but SH I guess, more cold is just “weather”;
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/sydney-weather-cold-snap-here-to-stay-20091009-gpc8.html
Mr. Drake, Dusty et al.
As I pointed out in a letter to the Times of London which they published the Antarctic peninsular is a volcanically active region. Beyond realising that if you have a glacier atop a more or less active volcano, the ice is likely to melt from the underside of the glacier we know so little about the process that we cannot predict what is likely to happen.
We certainly cannot stop it.
And it has nothing whatsoever to do with global temperatures or anything else.
Fascinating to study it of course, but presumably since it has been doing it, on and off, for many thousand years I don’t see that has anything to do with AGW.
Kindest Regards.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is unique in that it is the only oscillating current that circles the globe. It splits at the ridge between Antarctica and South America, with much of the current traveling North while the remaining segment continues to circle the globe. The current is amazingly strong, probably the strongest current in the oceans proper. It also has a Circumpolar Current Wave that oscillates about every 8 years and changes weather within the Antarctic climate zones.