4 maps of Antarctica with different model results projected onto them.
Results from a state-of-the-art Antarctic subglacial hydrology model: (a) the difference between ice overburden pressure and basal water pressure; (b) the proportion of water pressure relative to ice overburden pressure; (c) the maximum subglacial water depth on a log scale; and (d) steady-state water discharge in the channelized hydrologic system plotted on top of basal topography. Credit: Ehrenfeucht et al. [2025], Figure 2
Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters

The melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is a significant factor in determining the rate of future sea level rise due to global warming. Yet, our understanding of the dynamics and melting of this ice sheet is very limited.

For the first time, Ehrenfeucht et al. [2025] provide the continental-scale subglacial hydrology under the Antarctic Ice Sheet by using a latest-generation subglacial drainage model.  Both the distributed and channelized drainage under the Antarctic ice sheets are simulated and compared with available estimates.

Technically, this is an impressive achievement as convergence on such a big domain is hard to obtain with such a model. Scientifically, this is an equally impressive achievement as this paves the way for fully coupled ice sheet-hydrology simulations of Antarctica. Their results offer important insights into the distribution of water pressure fields which will allow them to be incorporated off-line into ice sheet simulations and sea level rise under global warming. 

Citation: Ehrenfeucht, S., Dow, C., McArthur, K., Morlighem, M., & McCormack, F. S. (2025). Antarctic wide subglacial hydrology modeling. Geophysical Research Letters, 52, e2024GL111386. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL111386

—Minghua Zhang, Former Editor-in-Chief, Geophysical Research Letters

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