Antarctica’s Totten Glacier, twice the size of Victoria, ‘melting from below’
Warm ocean water is melting one of the world’s biggest glaciers from below, potentially leading to a rise in sea levels, Australian scientists have discovered.
Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis recently returned to Hobart from Antarctica, with a team of 23 scientists who had used new technology to collect the first water samples near the Totten Glacier.
At 538,000 square kilometres, Totten is twice the size of Victoria and holds enough water to raise sea levels by six metres.
Steve Rintoul from the Australian Climate and Environment Cooperative Research Centre said the results indicated the glacier was being melted by the sea water beneath it.
“The measurements we collected provide the first evidence that warm water reaches the glacier and may be driving that melt of the glacier from below,” he said.
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