One of the most consequential places on earth is also one of its least accessible: Antarctica’s icy underbelly. The grounding line is where the terrestrial ice sheet reaches the sea and begins floating, becoming the ice shelf. As global temperatures rise, seawater is eating away at that belly, forcing the grounding line to retreat and speeding the decline of Antarctica’s glaciers. If just one of them melted entirely, it could add several feet to sea levels.
The trouble for scientists is that there are thousands of feet of ice between the surface and the glacial underside they urgently need to study. Two new papers, though, are shining light on this
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