In a new University of Houston study using an advanced remote imaging system known as synthetic aperture radar interferometry, three glaciers at the South Pole are being documented with levels of clarity and completeness never seen before.
In a new University of Houston study using an advanced remote imaging system known as synthetic aperture radar interferometry, three glaciers at the South Pole are being documented with levels of clarity and completeness never seen before. The new remote sensing data system is not just uncovering icy secrets from Earth’s least explored continent, it also is raising alarms about global climate risks – both present and future.
Documentation of the rapid and unprecedented retreat of the Pope, Smith and Kohler glaciers in West Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea Embayment is detailed in an article published in Nature Geosciences.
“Thanks to the new generation of radar satellite, we have been able in recent years to witness retreat rates faster than ever observed among glaciers around the world. That’s a warning sign that things are not settling, not stabilizing at all. This could have severe implications for the equilibrium of the entire glacier system in this area,” said radar scientist Pietro Milillo, assistant professor of civil engineering at UH and the article’s lead author.
In this ongoing international study of data collected via the TanDEM-X and COSMO-SkyMed satellites, Milillo is joined by University of California Irvine researchers and scientists from three national space agencies: NASA, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI).
The research team plans to expand the scientific understanding it gains from the relatively small and less studied Pope, Smith and Kohler glaciers to their giant and fragile West Antarctica neighbors, the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers, as well as to the entire Antarctic glacier system.
“The issue here is that we found such a high retreat rate – so high that we actually see these three smaller glaciers could actually capture the basin from the nearby Thwaites glacier, which would cause Thwaites to lose more mass,” Milillo said. “In Antarctica, glaciers don’t melt because of interaction with the sun. They melt because they accelerate and inject more ice into the ocean. That is one of the principal mechanisms of mass loss.”
Read more at: University of Houston
Pope, Smith and Kohler glaciers in West Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea Embayment are the focus of ongoing research that employs synthetic aperture radar interferometry, an advanced remote imaging system. Researchers are finding the glaciers retreating at rates never recorded before. Above, Pope Glacier with Mount Murphy in background. (Photo Credit: NASA Operation Ice Bridge, 2016)
