This project’s official title is "Ocean-Ice Interaction in the
Amundsen Sea: the Keystone to Ice-Sheet Stability". A real
mouthful, but it captures the essence of what we intend to do,
where we will do it and why we feel it is important to do it.
Various other measurements have captured the West Antarctic ice
sheet changing very rapidly in the region where it flows into
the Amundsen Sea, one of the sectors of the Southern Ocean. The
spatial pattern strongly suggests that the cause of this change
is weaker ice shelves, the floating apron of ice that fringe the
perimeter of the ice sheet. Our hypothesis is that warm water is
melting the undersides of these ice shelves decreasing the "back
pressure" from the ice shelves to help hold the ice sheet. Less
backpressure means the ice sheet can flow faster. Faster flow-
smaller ice sheet-higher sea levels-slow motion coastal flooding
worldwide. Satellite observations have been tremendously
valuable in identifying these changes, but can’t tell us what’s
going on beneath