Scientists Bury GPS in Antarctic Ice to Measure Effects of Tides

NASA scientists and ice sheet modelers, Ryan Walker and Christine Dow, traveled to a remote location on the coast of Antarctic to investigate how tides affect the movement and stability of the Nansen Ice Shelf, a 695-mile extension of ice protruding into Antarctica’s Ross Sea. Relatively understudied, Nansen’s manageable size lends itself to becoming a proxy for predicting how larger ice shelves will contribute to sea level rise in the decades and centuries to come. By studying the impact of tides, Walker and Dow are able to determine how the rise and fall of floating ice sheets may impact the likelihood of an eventual ice shelf collapse. [Note: After a successful post-doc at NASA Goddard in 2015, Dow is now at the University of Waterloo where she continues to study ice sheet dynamics.]

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/LK Ward

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