Deep beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, floods of water from buried lakes can hurry glaciers along on their slow slide towards the sea, according to a new study that tracked recent floods beneath the Byrd Glacier.
"It's like putting in a squirt of oil," says Andy Smith of the British Antarctic Survey, who was not involved in this latest study. "The water lubricates the base of the glacier" [New Scientist].
The findings will help researchers understand the movement of glaciers around the world, a matter of great interest to climate scientists who are investigating how rapidly ice sheets may melt into the ocean due to global warming.
Researchers discovered only recently that inaccessible subglacial lakes in Antarctica periodically shed huge quantities of water. Data collected by a satellite launched in 2003 ... revealed a complex network of subglacial plumbing in which water periodically cascades from one hidden reservoir to another ...
