Findings from a large-scale ice drilling study on the Greenland ice sheet may revise the models used to predict how ice sheets move.
Researchers found their data didn’t match up with the predictions for water flow beneath the ice sheet, leading scientists to conclude there are other critical processes at work. One possibility is that as the ice sheet accelerates, the acceleration itself opens up space between the ice and bedrock and expands the drainage network.
The bed of the Greenland ice sheet, hidden beneath hundreds to thousands of meters of ice, is one of the most isolated locations on earth – making it difficult for scientists to understand just how the second largest ice body on the planet functions.
Read more at University of Montana