Scientists Drill for First Time on Remote Antarctic Glacier
This article was originally published inGeomatics World。
来自美国和英国的团队已成功完成了西南arctica最遥远和敌对的地区之一的科学野外工作，这与该大陆发现成立200周年相吻合。这项研究将帮助科学家确定冰川在未来几十年中是否可能崩溃，并影响未来的全球海平面上升。
Thwaites冰川占地192,000平方公里（74,000平方英里）的面积与佛罗里达州或英国的大小相比，特别容易受到气候和海洋变化的影响。在过去的30年中，从Thwaites及其附近的冰川流出的冰量几乎翻了一番。从史蒂斯（Thwaites）流入阿蒙森（Amundsen）海的冰已经占全球海平面上升的4％。冰川失败的崩溃将导致海平面大约65厘米（25英寸），科学家们希望找出这可能发生的速度。
低于冰冻的温度和极风
在过去的两个月中，五个专门的科学家和工程师团队一直在冰冻的温度和极端风中工作。其中两个团队使用热水在300至700米之间通过冰到下面的海洋和沉积物进行钻孔。融化的团队使用热水在冰川下方钻了两个地方，其中包括冰川遇到海的区域的两公里。Tarsan团队在浮动架子上大约30公里处的两个地点钻探，以探索冰下的海洋条件，而GHC团队使用Winkie Drill钻了四个基岩核心。
At the grounding zone site, a series of instruments were fed through the borehole – including the small yellow under-ice robot, Icefin, which collected data on how the glacier interacts with the ocean and the underlying sediments. In mid-January, Icefin swam nearly two kilometres from the drill site, right up to the Thwaites grounding zone, to measure, image, and map the melting and dynamics at this critical part of the glacier. Another team (THOR) also extracted five metre-long cores of soft sediment by lowering a metal tube through the two holes in the ice and driving it into the muddy sediment below. This will reveal the past history of the glacier.
冰川的接地区
Lead scientist for Icefin, Dr Britney Schmidt from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who’s still working in Antarctica, says: “We designed Icefin to be able to access the grounding zones of glaciers, places where observations have been nearly impossible, but where rapid change is taking place. To have the chance to do this at Thwaites Glacier, which is such a critical hinge point in West Antarctica, is a dream come true for me and my team. The data couldn’t be more exciting.”
Keith博士尼科尔斯,海洋学家从英国ntarctic Survey and the UK lead on the MELT team says: “We know that warmer ocean waters are eroding many of West Antarctica’s glaciers, but we’re particularly concerned about Thwaites. This new data will provide a new perspective of the processes taking place so we can predict future change with more certainty.”
Thwaites Glacier Is Extremely Remote
Dr Paul Cutler, who manages the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) at the US National Science Foundation, says: “Thwaites Glacier is extremely remote, with only a handful of people setting foot on it until this year. This has been our first season of land-based fieldwork to get a deeper understanding of this important yet under-studied glacier. It’s amazing to think we’ve only now drilled in this remote region some 200 years after the continent was first sighted.”
超过100名科学家和支持人员参加了Thwaites Glacier的2019/20实地季节，该赛季位于英国的Rothera研究站和McMurdo的美国南极研究站（USAP）站。ITGC旨在通过更好地理解冰盖动态的当前和过去背景，从而改善对西南极洲Thwaites冰川的未来预测。该项目是美国和英国之间五年之间的合作，耗资5000万美元。
