Heavy pooling meltwater can fracture ice, potentially leading to ice shelf collapse.
When air temperatures in Antarctica rise and glacier ice melts, water can pool on the surface of floating ice shelves, weighing them down and causing the ice to bend. Now, for the first time in the field, CIRES-led research shows that ice shelves don't just buckle under the weight of meltwater lakes -- they fracture.
To investigate the impacts of surface meltwater on ice shelf stability, Banwell and her colleagues from the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and University of Chicago traveled to the George VI Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula in November 2019. First, the team identified a depression or"doline" in the ice surface that had formed by a previous lake drainage event where they thought meltwater was likely to pool again on the ice.
GPS data indicate that the ice in the center of the lake basin flexed downward about a foot in response to the increased weight from meltwater. That finding builds upon previous work led by Banwell that produced the first direct field measurements of ice shelf buckling caused by meltwater ponding and drainage.
The work supports modeling results that show the immense weight of thousands of meltwater lakes and subsequent draining caused the Larsen B Ice Shelf to bend and break, contributing to its collapse.
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