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‘Tiger stripes’ underneath Antarctic glaciers slow the flow

By Guest PostNovember 30, 2013Environmentantarctic glaciers, antarctic ice, bed of rock, british antarctic survey, climate change, douglas macayeal, Europe, flow of glaciers, friction zones, massive antarctic glaciers, mathematical modeling, North America, olga sergienko, pattern, pine island glacier, princeton university, richard hindmarsh, satellite measurements, sea-level rise, sediment, thwaites glacier, tiger stripes, university of chicago, warming climate, west antarctica

Narrow stripes of dirt and rock beneath massive Antarctic glaciers create friction zones that slow the flow of ice toward the sea, researchers at Princeton University and the British Antarctic Survey have found. Understanding how these high-friction regions form and subside could help researchers understand how the flow of these glaciers responds to a warming climate.

Just as no-slip strips on flooring prevent people from slipping on a wet floor, these ribs or “tiger stripes” — named in reference to Princeton’s tiger mascot — provide friction that hinders the glaciers from slipping along the underlying bed of rock and sediment, the researchers report online in the journal Science. (more…)

Recent Antarctic climate, glacier changes at the ‘upper bound’ of normal

By Guest PostMay 15, 2013Environmentantarctic glaciers, antarctic peninsula, antarctic warming, Antarctica, climate change, dark layer, eric steig, glaciers, global warming, human caused warming, ice core, ice sheet divide, icy continent, isotope oxygen 18, oxygen 16, qinghua ding, rapid ice loss, sea-level rise, south america, temperature, tropical pacific ocean, university of washington, upper bound, volcanic ash, west antarctic

In the last few decades, glaciers at the edge of the icy continent of Antarctica have been thinning, and research has shown the rate of thinning has accelerated and contributed significantly to sea level rise.

New ice core research suggests that, while the changes are dramatic, they cannot be attributed with confidence to human-caused global warming, said Eric Steig, a University of Washington professor of Earth and space sciences. (more…)

Tag Archives: antarctic glaciers

‘Tiger stripes’ underneath Antarctic glaciers slow the flow

Recent Antarctic climate, glacier changes at the ‘upper bound’ of normal