The Pine Island Glacier is really no different than most of the other failed ice shelves, it is exposed to the ocean, but, with a smaller surface area. The warmed ocean waters melt the ice sheets from the inside out. The difference about Pine Island is it's location and the fact when the ice melts it cools the ocean waters for a brief amount of time. So the calving that occurs stops. But, as soon as the warmer ocean mixes with the Pine Island colder waters the ice sheet starts to melt again.
A few years ago the British team believed the Antarctica waters were beginning to stabilize and increase in coldness because there was a larger than normal amount of sea ice. In actuality, the sea ice increased because there was melt water run off in larger measure that then froze in the circulation CLOSEST to the ice continent.
Now, if all this is confusing, it is okay. No one really expects anyone to understand global ice and it's demise. It is somewhat complicated and can appear counter intuitive at times. But, the bottom line is Earth is still hot and the ice structures of Earth are still melting. Humanitarians need to continue to fight the negative feed back loops and that includes the political language that is harmful and not helpful.
November 28, 2016
By Pam Frost Gordor
Columbus, Ohio—A key glacier in Antarctica (click here) is breaking apart from the inside out, suggesting that the ocean is weakening ice on the edges of the continent.
The Pine Island Glacier, part of the ice shelf that bounds the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is one of two glaciers that researchers believe are most likely to undergo rapid retreat, bringing more ice from the interior of the ice sheet to the ocean, where its melting would flood coastlines around the world.
A nearly 225-square-mile iceberg broke off from the glacier in 2015, but it wasn’t until Ohio State University researchers were testing some new image-processing software that they noticed something strange in satellite images taken before the event.
In the images, they saw evidence that a rift formed at the very base of the ice shelf nearly 20 miles inland in 2013. The rift propagated upward over two years, until it broke through the ice surface and set the iceberg adrift over 12 days in late July and early August 2015.....
