Fibre-optic cables usually make us think of ultra-fast internet – or maybe the irritation of new installation works digging up the pavement. But there are now such cables snaking their way through the centre of the planet’s second largest body of ice, the Greenland ice sheet.
Fibre-optic technologies are allowing us to monitor the internal structure of glaciers in unprecedented levels of detail. In our new study, we show how fibre-optics are offering extraordinary new insight into how ice sheets evolve – and how the movement of Greenland’s glaciers is far more complicated than previously thought.
Ice loss from Greenland has increased sixfold since the 1980s, and the melting ice sheet is now the single biggest contributor to global sea level rise. In order to forecast the ice sheet’s future – including its worrying rates of melting – we need to understand the thermodynamic processes at work within it. That means we need to take its temperature as accurately as we can.
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IMAGE: Fibre-optic cable (red) installed in 1 km deep borehole drilled on Store Glacier in Greenland view more
Credit: Poul Christoffersen and RESPONDER team
Scientists have used fibre-optic sensing to obtain the most detailed measurements of ice properties ever taken on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their findings will be used to make more accurate models of the future movement of the world s second-largest ice sheet, as the effects of climate change continue to accelerate.
The research team, led by the University of Cambridge, used a new technique in which laser pulses are transmitted in a fibre-optic cable to obtain highly detailed temperature measurements from the surface of the ice sheet all the way to the base, more than 1000 metres below.
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Fibre-optics help create most detailed picture of Greenland Ice Sheet
Scientists have used a fibre-optic sensor passed deep into a borehole to obtain the most detailed measurements of ice properties ever taken on the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Their findings will be used to make more accurate models of the future movement of the world’s second-largest ice sheet, as the effects of climate change continue to accelerate.
The research team, including Dr Adam Booth from Leeds, used a new technique in which laser pulses are transmitted in a fibre-optic cable to obtain highly detailed measurements of ice properties from the surface of the ice sheet all the way to its base, more than 1,000 metres below.
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Lakes on Greenland Ice Sheet can drain huge amounts of water, even in winter
Using satellite data to ‘see in the dark’, researchers have shown for the first time that lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet drain during winter, a finding with implications for the speed at which the world’s second-largest ice sheet flows to the ocean.
We don’t yet know how widespread this winter lake drainage phenomenon is, but it could have important implications for the Greenland Ice Sheet, as well as elsewhere in the Arctic and Antarctic Ian Willis
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used radar data from a European Space Agency satellite to show that even when the heat from the Sun is absent, these lakes can discharge large amounts of water to the base of the ice sheet. These ‘drainage events’ are thought to play a significant role in accelerating the movement of the ice by lubricating it from below.
Lakes on Greenland Ice Sheet can drain huge amounts of water, even in winter eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.