Massive ice sheets in Antarctica are capable of shrinking at a rate that is significantly faster than previous thought — 20 times faster, depending on the period of climate warming and the state of the seafloor, according to a new study.
, looked at data pertaining to a former ice sheet that extended out from Norway until it retreated around 20,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age.
Called “corrugation ridges,” these patterns in the sea floor are less than 2.5 metres in height and can be as close as 25 metres apart or as far as 300 metres. According to scientists, these ridges were formed by the tides as the edge of the ice sheet moved, with each low tide depositing seafloor sediments into a ridge. Since the tide came in and out twice a day in this area, scientists were able to measure how far the ice sheet had retreated in a day by looking at the ridges in pairs of two.
This information helps to inform models which lay out how the globe’s ice sheets could change in future warming events. It’s invaluable to know what degree of warming could cause such a rapid retreat of ice sheets as the planet continues to warm due to human-driven climate change. Looking at images of the seafloor for this study also gave researchers an insight into how the seafloor itself plays a role in ice sheet retreat. Researchers observed that the periods of fastest daily retreat occurred where the seafloor was flattest, meaning the ice sheet would’ve experienced the least amount of challenge to its movement, and could almost just float along.
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