Firn aquifers—pockets of meltwater beneath the surface of an ice sheet—could have far-reaching impacts on subglacial hydrology, a new study finds.
glaciers & ice sheets
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Creating Icebergs in Ocean Models Coupled to Ice Shelves
Modeling icebergs as Lagrangian elements held together by numerical bonds provides insights into coupled exchanges of heat, freshwater, and momentum between large icebergs and the ocean.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Missing Lakes Under Antarctic Ice Sheets
New radio sounding study finds little evidence of lakes under Antarctica’s Recovery Glacier.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Mapping Subglacial Meltwater Channels
Researchers find that past studies underestimate the friction meltwater channels exert on glaciers by orders of magnitude.
Posted inNews
Seismic Clues to Surging Glaciers
Measuring seismic waves passing through a glacier suggests that not only is liquid water playing a role in periodic surging but the water is channeled into cracks from across the ice.
Posted inNews
Warm Water Is Rapidly Eroding Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf
The underside of the world’s largest ice shelf is melting—by meters per year in some places—because of the seasonal inflow of water heated by the Sun, observations of the White Continent reveal.
Posted inNews
Plastic Fragments Found for the First Time on a Glacier
The discovery, made in the Italian Alps, confirms the ubiquity of plastic pollution worldwide.
Posted inNews
Fast-Melting Mountain Glaciers Speed Up Sea Level Rise
Satellites spy on remote alpine glaciers, producing more accurate—and higher—estimates of ice loss over time.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Do Intergranular Particles Affect the Flow of Ice?
Laboratory experiments that indicate rock particles can impede sliding along grain boundaries in ice may help researchers more accurately determine the composition of planetary ice masses.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Decadal Changes in Glacial Discharge in the High Alps
A new statistical analysis of daily, glacial runoff cycles offers a unique way of examining how Alpine glaciers have responded since the onset of rapid regional warming in the 1980s.