The phenomenon of lakes draining on the glacier due to huge cracks can make the ice become more and more unstable.
Cracks on the glacier surface Store.(Photo: Live Science).
Two-thirds of the lake's water on the surface of the Greenland glaciers west of the Greenland flows to the bottom of the ice in just 5 hours on July 7, 2018, which is equivalent to the water of 2,000 Olympic swimming pools. After the lake dried up, the crack through which the water was still empty formed a pipeline from the surface to the bottom at a depth of 1 km. According to Poul Christoffersen, a meteorologist at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, the amount of water that makes the ice bottom melt, promotes movement to the sea, contributing to rising sea levels.
Christoffersen and colleagues found that the level of melting ice lake 028 at the Store Glacier was rapidly declining in a nearby camp."We could see cracks forming on the ice, and water rushing into it when the cracks appeared , " Christoffersen said.
Thomas Chudley, a PhD student at the Scott Polar Research Institute, is using drones to get a close-up of the glacier surface when dehydration occurs. Chudley immediately flew the drone across the lake to collect detailed images. Christoffersen and Chudley published their findings on December 2 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
New observations show more than 4.77 billion liters of water flow from the lake to the bottom of the glacier. The reason lake 028 does not completely dry up is because the crack does not extend to the deepest point of the basin."That means we are underestimating the capacity of the lake to run out of water and creating water paths from the surface to the bottom of the ice sheet. Understanding exactly the cracks that intersect the lake plays an important role. we model better ice shelves , " Christoffersen said.
- A new crack appeared after the trillion-ton ice had just separated from Antarctica
- He closed the research station in Antarctica because the ice broke
