Surprise! The Ross Ice Shelf is Freezing, Not Melting
In November, scientists from New Zealand used a hot water drill to go deep into Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf. The shelf, which can be up to 10,000 feet thick, is the largest of several that hold back West Antarctica’s massive amounts of ice. If these were to collapse, global sea level would rise by ten feet.
Drilling a hole and lowering a camera and thermometer inside is a way for researchers to understand the history of the shelf, and what is happening to it now. In measuring the temperature and currents below the shelf, they expected to find that the ice was melting.
Instead, the water appeared to be crystalizing and freezing. In the video from National Geographic below, you can see the white dots of ice crystals as the camera is lowered towards the dark sea below. If the shelf was melting, the hole at that level would have smooth sides.
“It blew our minds,” Christina Hulbe, the glaciologist from the University of Otago in New Zealand, who co-led the project, told National Geographic.
Scientists have left instruments deep in the hole to measure currents and temperatures below the shelf for the next few years. Though the freezing seems to be a promising sign for the shelf’s stability, it doesn’t tell the whole picture. Scientists also hope to learn whether the ice shelf has melted in the past due to other climate shifts.
Read more at Popular Mechanics
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Dr Pete Sudbury
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Your headline seems to be untrue. The article is a lot less clear than the headline, so I traced back to the abstract, which states that there is “net melting at the ice shelf base”:
Circulation and Melting Beneath the Ross Ice Shelf
STANLEY S. JACOBS1, ARNOLD L. GORDON1, J. L. ARDAI JR.1
See all authors and affiliations
Science 02 Feb 1979:
Vol. 203, Issue 4379, pp. 439-443
DOI: 10.1126/science.203.4379.439
Abstract
Thermohaline observations in the water column beneath the Ross Ice Shelf and along its terminal face show significant vertical stratification, active horizontal circulation, and net melting at the ice shelf base. Heat is supplied by seawater that moves southward beneath the ice shelf from a central warm core and from a western region of high salinity. The near-freezing Ice Shelf Water produced flows northward into the Ross Sea.
I think you may have been confused by the mention of ice crystals forming on the base of the ice sheet.
Another article (https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-explore-hidden-ocean-beneath-antarcticas-largest-ice-shelf-90006) also mentions that the water is less saline (ie more freshwater has been added by melting) and warmer than when the only previous set of measurements was done in the ’70s.
Have a great day!
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Nicholas Schroeder, BSME, PE
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Is this shelf above land? or ocean? Is it somehow cantilevered above the sea?
If its already floating on the water, how, exactly does its melting raise sea levels by 10 feet?
From Wiki
“The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica. It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than 600 kilometres long, and between 15 and 50 metres high above the water surface.
Ninety percent!!!!!!!
of the floating ice, however, is below!!!!!!! the water surface.
More actual professional responsible research would certainly & severely reduce the “OH, GOD, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DROWN/DIE!!!!” hysteria.
But no grant money or NWO power in that, right?
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4TimesAYear
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“Scientists also hope to learn whether the ice shelf has melted in the past due to other climate shifts.”
No study needed. Antarctica used to be a tropical paradise. Pretty sure that shelf wasn’t there then. Which means if it melts again, it will also grow back.
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tom0mason
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So Dr Pete Sudbury, has to reference the BS spouted at the website conversation·com because the science paper was not good enough, eh?
No doubt Dr Pete Sudbury can explain how atmospheric CO2 can heat water next.
hahahahaha, Dr Pete Sudbury paid advocate for the cAGW church
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