A Huge Red Flag Just Popped Up in a Little-Studied Region of Antarctica - Gizmodo

The study, published this week in Nature Communications, uses a quarter century of satellite records to observe changes in the Getz Ice Shelf in western Antarctica.

Selley explained that while scientists had previously observed changes to the level of ice in the Getz region, they couldn’t be sure if it was because of atmospheric processes, like less snowfall or surface ice melt, or changes in ice speed.

The Getz Ice Shelf is in an area of massive importance for understanding sea level rise, but comparatively little is known about the region.

“There are only a handful of studies on Getz compared to hundreds on the Amundsen Sea Sector glaciers (Thwaites and Pine Island),” Selley noted.

“This study shows that the percentage speedup of the Getz glaciers is comparable to the speedup measured on Thwaites and Pine Island, showing the importance of the Getz region relative to the most rapidly changing glaciers in Antarctica.”.

Thwaites and Pine Island are among the most imperiled glaciers in Antarctica.

The Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers, for example, are the cork on land ice that, if plopped in the ocean, could push seas 10 feet (3.1 meters) or more higher