An 11-foot tube-like underwater robot called Icefin is offering us a detailed look deep under the ice at how the vulnerable ice shelf in Antarctica is melting.
In 2020, through a nearly 2,000-foot-deep borehole drilled in the ice, Icefin ventured out across the ocean to the critical point where the Thwaites Glacier joins the Amundsen Sea and the. Data gathered by Icefin, and analyzed by human researchers, showed that the glacier had retreated up the ocean floor, thinning at the base, and melting outwards quickly.
These new insights, as foreboding as they are, may improve older models that have been used to predict the changes in Thwaites, and in the rates of possible sea level rise if it collapses. “Icefin is collecting data as close to the ice as possible in locations no other tool can currently reach,” Peter Washam, a research scientist from Cornell University who led analysis of Icefin data used to calculate melt rates, said in a
. “It’s showing us that this system is very complex and requires a rethinking of how the ocean is melting the ice, especially in a location like Thwaites.”
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