Glacier Subject to Study Sea Level Rise

Hydro International - 

A team of scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is to survey the largest glacier in the world, Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, to understand how ice is being lost and its likely contribution to future sea-level rise.

This week a team of four (two scientists and two support staff) embarked from BAS Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula to their remote field site on Pine Island Glacier in Western Antarctica where they will spend twelve weeks living in tents.Pine Island Glacier is of great interest to scientists worldwide as it has been thinning at a rate of more than 1 m/year and its flow rate has accelerated over the past 15 years.

The current big research effort to look at the glacier's contribution to sea-level rise began only a decade ago.

The scientific techniques used to study other glaciers were filmed by the Frozen Planet team.

The team is using a number of techniques including GPS (global positioning systems) and seismic measurements to map the conditions beneath the ice and improve our understanding of what allows this massive river of ice to flow at more than two miles per year.

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