RIAU24.COM – A new study highlights the role of ocean currents in melting in the Antartika , one of the greatest uncertainties in climate model predictions.
The continent is known to have hidden ocean cavities that are important for assessing future sea level rise.
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The Ross Ice Sheet is one of the floating ice sheets in Antarctica, which is considered the largest on Earth with an area of 480,000 square kilometers . The hidden sea cavity extends 700km south of the Antarctic coast . Scientists have now measured the impact of ocean currents on the same.
Antarctic marine studies
The Ross Ice Sheet is largely unexplored to date. Despite recent research, the only other expedition to the ocean cavity below dates back to the 1970s.
At that time, scientists could tell that the sea cavity was not a static bath. Instead, it has layers of varying water masses, with different temperatures and salinities.
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Although further research has been carried out from the edge or from the top of the ice shelf, direct measurements from below the ice sheet are needed to truly understand how melting ice affects the system.
In 2017, the authors of the report on The Conversation claimed to have used a hot water jet, a British Antarctic Survey design, to drill 350 meters of ice into the ocean below.
The team was able to take detailed ocean measurements. Even left some instruments to continuously monitor ocean currents and temperatures.
More data is still coming in via satellite.
The team found that the ocean hidden under the ice sheet acts like a large estuary with relatively warm (2℃) seawater entering the ocean floor.
Warm ocean water is capable of “circling close to the surface in a combination of meltwater and sub-glacial freshwater escaping from the ice sheets and rocky foundations hidden in Antarctica .”
Although the ice sheet protects such sea cavities from the strong winds and freezing temperatures of Antarctica, there is no way to stop the tides.
New data now suggest that the tides are responsible for pushing hidden ocean cavities back and forth across and mixing parts of ocean cavities.
Because the process works every day, scientists are now dealing with the puzzle of their calculations in projections for centuries. As data proves that daily changes can add up, finding a solution to this problem is a concern.
Antarctic climate change impacts
New data show that each particular parcel of water spends one to three years (previously estimated at 6 years) making its way through the cavity. This is important in understanding the role of these ice sheets in sea level rise over the next few centuries.
Research shows that an increase in atmospheric temperature of more than 2°C will cause Antarctica’s main ice sheet to collapse and further increase sea level rise . With the same temperature rise, sea levels could rise by as much as 3 meters by 2300, the report warns.
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