Antarctic glaciers vulnerable to rising temperatures
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2022 6:29 pm
Antarctic glaciers vulnerable to rising temperatures
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-antarctic ... tures.html
On the East Antarctic Plateau there are huge glaciers under the sea. In order to improve future scenarios related to rising sea levels, scientists need to understand the ways in which these glaciers will respond to rising temperatures in the atmosphere and in the ocean.
An international study has just been published in Nature Communications by Ca' Foscari University of Venice, in collaboration with the French research center LSCE, CNRS, and Roma Tre University. It reveals that coastal glaciers in East Antarctica during past warm climatic periods when temperatures were comparable to, or warmer than, modern conditions, were not stable, contrary to what is reported in the majority of current academic literature.
The study focused on coastal glaciers in the Wilkes Subglacial Basin, whose melting could make the global sea level rise by 3 meters. The research shows that during past warm climatic periods these subglacial basin ice sheets were much more sensitive to rising temperatures in the Southern Ocean than had hitherto been hypothesized.
Researchers reached this conclusion by analyzing the isotopic composition of water molecules of the TALDICE ice core from Talos Dome, a semi-coastal area in East Antarctica. Water isotopes allow scientists to reconstruct past temperatures.
Researchers compared the TALDICE ice core with other Antarctic ice cores, such as the one extracted at the Dome C site for EPICA, and found important differences. The TALDICE ice core showed the consequences of events that other ice cores did not show—especially events that occurred during past warm climatic periods up to 340 thousand years ago.
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-antarctic ... tures.html
On the East Antarctic Plateau there are huge glaciers under the sea. In order to improve future scenarios related to rising sea levels, scientists need to understand the ways in which these glaciers will respond to rising temperatures in the atmosphere and in the ocean.
An international study has just been published in Nature Communications by Ca' Foscari University of Venice, in collaboration with the French research center LSCE, CNRS, and Roma Tre University. It reveals that coastal glaciers in East Antarctica during past warm climatic periods when temperatures were comparable to, or warmer than, modern conditions, were not stable, contrary to what is reported in the majority of current academic literature.
The study focused on coastal glaciers in the Wilkes Subglacial Basin, whose melting could make the global sea level rise by 3 meters. The research shows that during past warm climatic periods these subglacial basin ice sheets were much more sensitive to rising temperatures in the Southern Ocean than had hitherto been hypothesized.
Researchers reached this conclusion by analyzing the isotopic composition of water molecules of the TALDICE ice core from Talos Dome, a semi-coastal area in East Antarctica. Water isotopes allow scientists to reconstruct past temperatures.
Researchers compared the TALDICE ice core with other Antarctic ice cores, such as the one extracted at the Dome C site for EPICA, and found important differences. The TALDICE ice core showed the consequences of events that other ice cores did not show—especially events that occurred during past warm climatic periods up to 340 thousand years ago.