Antarctic glacier shrank quickly in the past

One of the boulders sampled at Maiash Nunatak.

James Smith, British Antarctic Survey

We recently covered some research on Greenland’s Jakobshavn Ice Stream, the world’s fastest glacier. While nothing on Antarctica can match that speed, the continent has ice streams of its own. Many have been shrinking, too—retreating and thinning as melting at the coast pulls continental ice out to die in the sea.

Of particular note is the Pine Island Glacier (PIG, for short). This massive glacier flows into the Amundsen Sea, and was the source of the 35km wide iceberg that made news last November. The hard-to-access Pine Island Glacier and its even larger neighbor, the Thwaites Glacier, are currently responsible for carrying about two-thirds of the ice lost from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Trying to figure out exactly what the future holds for these glaciers is hard work. Studying the topography beneath them and the warming waters off the coast can enable computer models to more realistically simulate their behavior. Another way to get indications of future behavior is to exame evidence of past behavior.