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This is a joint release of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, CIRES, the University of Colorado Boulder and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

鈥淯pside-down rivers鈥� of warm ocean water threaten the stability of floating ice shelves in Antarctica, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder鈥檚 National Snow and Ice Data Center. The study highlights how parts of Antarctica鈥檚 ice sheet may be weakening due to contact with warm ocean water.

鈥淲e found that warm ocean water is carving these 'upside-down rivers,鈥� or basal channels, into the undersides of ice shelves all around the Antarctic continent. In at least some cases these channels weaken the ice shelves, making them more vulnerable to disintegration,鈥� said Karen Alley, a Ph.D. student in CU-Boulder鈥檚 Department of Geological Sciences and lead author of an analysis published today in听Nature Geoscience.

鈥淚ce shelves are really vulnerable parts of the ice sheet, because climate change hits them from above and below,鈥� said NSIDC scientist and study co-author Ted Scambos. 鈥淭hey are really important in braking the ice flow to the ocean.鈥�

The features form as buoyant plumes of warm and fresh water rise and flow along the underside of an ice shelf, carving channels much like upside-down rivers. The channels can be tens of miles long, and up to 800 feet 鈥渄eep.鈥�

When a channel is carved into the base of an ice shelf, the top of the ice shelf sags, leaving a visible depression, or 鈥渨rinkle鈥�, in the relatively smooth ice surface. Alley and her colleagues mapped the locations of these wrinkles all around the Antarctic continent using satellite imagery, as well as radar data that images the channels through the ice, mapping the shape of the ice-ocean boundary.

The team also used satellite laser altimetry, which measures the height of an ice shelf surface with high accuracy, to document how quickly some of the channels were growing. The data show that growing channels on the rapidly melting Getz Ice Shelf in West Antarctica can bore into the ice shelf base at rates of approximately 10 meters (33 feet) each year.

The mapping shows that basal channels have a tendency to form along the edges of islands and peninsulas, which are already weak areas on ice shelves. The team observed two locations where ice shelves are fracturing along basal channels, clear evidence that basal channel presence can weaken ice shelves to the point of breaking in vulnerable areas.

Ice shelves are thick floating plates of ice that have flowed off the continent and out onto the ocean. As ice shelves flow out to sea, they push against islands, peninsulas, and bedrock bumps known as 鈥減inning points鈥�. Contact with these features slows the ice flowing off the continent. If ice shelves disintegrate in the future, loss of contact with pinning points will allow ice to flow more rapidly into the ocean, increasing rates of sea level rise.

While no ice shelves have completely disintegrated due to carving by basal channels, the study points to the need for more observation and study of the features, said co-author Ted Scambos. "It's feasible that increasing ocean temperatures around Antarctica could continue to erode ice shelves from below."

The study, 鈥淚mpacts of warm water on Antarctic ice shelf stability through basal channel formation,鈥� was led by University of Colorado Boulder Ph.D. student Karen Alley, who worked with coauthors Ted Scambos of NSIDC and Matthew Siegfried and Helen Fricker of Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Their work was funded in part by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is part of the听听at the听.