Grounding zone discovery explains accelerated melting under Greenland's glaciers

Researchers have conducted the first large-scale observation and modeling study of northwest Greenland's Petermann Glacier. Their findings reveal the intrusion of warm ocean water beneath the ice as the culprit in the accelerated melting it has experienced since the turn of the century, and their computer predictions indicate that potential sea level rise will be much worse than previously estimated.

Senior co-author Eric Rignot, UCI professor of Earth system science, said that this and other studies conducted by his team in recent years have caused a fundamental shift in polar ice researchers' thinking about ocean and glacier interactions. According to the study, the elongated shape of the grounding zone cavity is a major contributor to accelerated ice melting. In a run of the numerical model taking into account just warmer ocean temperature, the team found thinning of about 40 meters. In a second modeling exercise, an increase in the grounding zone cavity from 2 to 6 kilometers was included, and in that case, ice thinning grew to 140 meters.

"The results published in this paper have major implications for ice sheet modeling and projections of sea level rise," Rignot said."Earlier numerical studies indicated that including melt in the grounding zone would double the projections of glacier mass loss. The modeling work in this study confirms these fears. Glaciers melt much faster in the ocean than assumed previously."

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