In fact, virtually the whole bed is way below sea level. Antarctica is 50% larger in area than the United States, or 12 million square kilometers. In order to improve our community experience, we are temporarily suspending article commenting. "It'll be the most southerly jacuzzi in the world," jokes Paul Anker, a British Antarctic Survey drilling engineer.The principle is simple - you heat the water with a bank of boilers to just below boiling point and then spray it onto the ice, melting your way down.But drilling a 30cm hole through almost half a mile of ice at the front of the most remote glacier in the world is not easy.The ice is about -25C (-13F) so the hole is liable to freeze over and the whole process is dependent on the vagaries of the weather.By early January, the flubber is full and all the equipment is ready but then we get a warning that yet another storm is on its way.Antarctic storms can be very intense. The mass budget of the Antarctic ice sheet has been largely controlled by the evolution of its outlet glaciers.
The Canadian Space Agency is flying RADARSAT‐1, ‐2, and soon RADARSAT‐3. Melt water is fresh and therefore relatively light.As the glacier melts, the fresh water therefore tends to flow upwards, drawing up the heavier warmer sea water behind it.When the sea water is cold, this process is very slow, the ice pump usually just melts a few dozen centimetres a year - easily balanced by the new ice created by falling snow.But warm water transforms the process, according to the scientists.Evidence from other glaciers shows that if you increase the amount of warm water that is reaching the glacier the ice pump works much faster. Floating ice shelves play a fundamental role in ice sheet stability because they buttress the inland flow of ice. "The fear is these processes will just accelerate," she says. Much of the East Antarctic plateau sits at high elevation and is unlikely to melt for decades to come. The data clearly show an increase mass loss with time, amidst considerable inter‐annual to decadal variations in mass balance driven by the large inter‐annual variability in Antarctic snowfall. In addition, major efforts are still underway to improve our characterization of Antarctic climate and changes in the southern ocean.The Antarctic ice sheet is melting, but not in the way we anticipated. It is not unusual to have hurricane force winds as well as very low temperatures.This one is relatively mild for Antarctica but still involves three days of wind gusting up to 50mph. Antarctica is 50% larger in area than the United States, or 12 million square kilometers. "The small plane takes us to the camp in the middle of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet but more bad weather means more delays and it is nine days before a Hercules comes to take us back to McMurdo.By then we have been joined by some of the scientists.They have confirmed that the deep circumpolar warm water is getting under the glacier and have collected huge amounts of data.Icefin, the robot submarine, has managed to make five missions, taking a host of measurements in the water beneath the glacier and recording some extraordinary images.It will take years to process all the information the team has gathered and incorporate the findings into the models that are used to project future sea level rise.Thwaites is not going to vanish overnight - the scientists say it will take decades, possibly more than a century.A metre of sea level rise may not sound much, particularly when you consider that in some places the tide can rise and fall by three or four metres every day.But sea level has a huge effect on the severity of storm surges, says Prof David Vaughan, the director of science at the British Antarctic Survey.An increase in sea level of 50cm would mean the storm that used to come every thousand years will now come every 100 years.If you increase that to a metre then that millennial storm is likely to come once a decade.