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Humboldt Field Research Institute

Posted Oct. 8, 1999

UMaine Scientists Publish Details of West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse in the Journal Science

University of Maine scientists with expertise in glacial geology and computer science are co-authors of two articles published in the journal Science this week. The articles reveal new details about collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and suggest that complete disintegration may be inevitable.

Brenda Hall and George Denton of the Dept. of Geological Sciences are co-authors of “Past and Future Grounding-Line Retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.” Harold Borns, Jr., also of Geological Sciences, and James Fastook, Dept. of Computer Science, are co-authors of “Measurements of Past Ice Sheet Elevations in Interior West Antarctica.” All are members of the Institute for Quaternary Studies at UMaine.

The WAIS has been thinning and retreating since the height of the last Ice Age about 13,000 years ago. It sits on land below sea level and covers about 360,000 square miles, more than three times the size of New England and New York state combined. Complete collapse is estimated to take about 7,000 years at the present rate of ice retreat. The WAIS contains enough ice to raise sea levels 15 to 20 feet.

The analysis by Hall, Denton and colleagues at the University of Washington concludes that present-day retreat of the WAIS was set in motion by events at the end of the last ice age and is likely to continue. They base their work on examination of ice flows and radio-carbon dates from sea floor sediments.

The lead author is Howard Conway, a University of Washington research associate professor of geophysics, and two other co-authors are Edwin Waddington and Anthony Gades, also of UW.

The article by Borns, Fastook and their colleagues combines glacial geologic evidence from Mount Waesche, an Antarctic volcano, with the results of a computer model of the ice sheet to get a better picture of how the thickness of the WAIS has shrunk since the end of the Ice Age. They conclude that the ice sheet has shrunk at least 45 meters (146 feet) and as much as 85 meters (276 feet) from its highest level on the side of the volcano about 9,000 years ago.

The lead author is Robert P. Ackert, Jr. of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Other co-authors are Mark D. Kurz of WHOI; David J. Barclay of the State University of New York at Cortland; Parker E. Calkin of the University of Colorado; and Eric J. Steig of the University of Pennsylvania.

Research for both reports was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation.

Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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