Scientists confirm that warm ocean water is melting the biggest glacier in East Antarctica

The 120km-long Totten Glacier is
showing signs of melting from below.

Scientists at institutions in the US and Australia on Friday published a set of unprecedented ocean observations near the largest glacier of the largest ice sheet in the world: Totten glacier, East Antarctica. And the result was a troubling confirmation of what scientists already feared – Totten is melting from below.

The measurements, sampling ocean temperatures in seas over a kilometre  deep in some places right at the edge of Totten glacier's floating ice shelf, affirmed that warm ocean water is flowing in towards the glacier at the rate of 220,000 cubic metres per second.

These waters, the paper asserts, are causing the ice shelf to lose between 63 and 80 billion tonnes of its mass to the ocean per year, and to lose about 10 metres of thickness annually, a reduction that has been previously noted based on satellite measurements.

Read Chris Mooney’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Scientists confirm that warm ocean water is melting the biggest glacier in East Antarctica.”