Climate Change
Study Maps Giant Slush Zones as New Threat to Antarctic Ice
Waterlogged areas could cause more ice shelves to crack or disintegrate, leading to faster sea level rise.
A detailed new analysis of NASA satellite images shows there is much more meltwater sitting atop Antarctica’s ice shelves than previously estimated, much of it in huge slush zones that haven’t been carefully mapped until now. The new information will help determine how vulnerable the shelves are to cracking and disintegration, according to an international team of scientists who published their findings in Nature Geoscience this week.