Rising temperatures cause the glaciers from Antarctic Peninsula flow up to 22% faster in summer than in winter, a speed never before detected in that area of the planet.
This is clear from an analysis carried out by a team of scientists from the universities of Leeds (United Kingdom) and Utrecht (Netherlands) and published this Monday in an article in the journal ‘Nature Geoscience’.
The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost and warmest region of Antarctica. It has a mountain column some 1,000 kilometers long and is home to a rich marine ecosystem.
Global warming modifies the glaciers of the Antarctic Peninsula
It has enough ice to raise global sea level by regarding three inches and is changing rapidly in response to the climate crisis. Along the west coast of the peninsula, a total of 105 glaciers they drain ice from the ice sheet directly into the Southern Ocean.
Scientists processed more than 10,000 radar images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite mission to measure the speed of those 105 glaciers on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula between 2014 and 2021.
The researchers discovered that the glaciers that experience the greatest seasonal change flow 22% faster in summer than in winter and that all speed up their movement by 12% on average. This finding of faster summer ice velocities has not been seen before in this region of the Antarctica.
Climate models of snow melt and ocean temperature were used to investigate what was driving this summer acceleration.
That acceleration of the glaciers occurs at the same time that snowmelt water and warmer ocean temperatures are present in summer, showing how these ecosystems in this region of Antarctica can respond rapidly to changes in the environment.
seasonal behaviors
“What is exciting regarding this study is that it shows how sensitive the glaciers from Antarctica to the environment. We have known for a long time that these ecosystems in Greenland have seasonal behavior, but only now have satellite data shown similar behavior in Antarctica,” says Ben Wallis of the University of Leeds.
Anna Hogg, also from the University of Leeds, adds: “It is essential to take into account the short-term seasonal change in speeds of glaciers by measuring the amount of ice lost in the Antarctica and that it contributes to global sea level rise.
Craig Donlon, from the European Space Agency (ESA), stresses that this study highlights how high-resolution satellite imagery can help analyze how the environment is changing in remote regions.
