Rice, UH scientists join Antarctic research

Team to study how fast glacier melts to predict sea level rise

A team of Houston-area researchers has received $1 million to study a glacier the size of Florida in Antarctica that could hold the key to understanding future sea level rise.

The researchers from Rice University and the University of Houston will join others from across the U.S. and Great Britain to study Thwaites Glacier, which has experienced significant melting over the past several decades and could cause a dramatic increase in sea level if it collapses.

The five-year study, funded by the National Science Foundation, will help scientists determine how fast and how much more the glacier will melt in the coming decades. And their findings will help international communities better harden themselves against global warming.

“As communities around the world try to respond to global climate change, they can be better prepared if they know what changes are coming,” said Julia Wellner, the study’s principal investigator from UH. “While we know sea levels are rising, we don’t always know the rate and magnitude. Such information could help coastal regions around the world get ready for the future.”

Wellner’s project is one of eight that is part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a $25-million initiative between NSF and the U.K. Natural Environmental Research Council.

One of the growing concerns of climate change is sea level rise, which could put coastal communities such as the Houston-Galveston area at serious risk in the future. Scientists have found that sea level rise is averaging less than one centimeter across the globe each year, though some believe it will have increased to more than 6 feet by 2100, according to a June 2017 Scientific American article.

But estimates vary greatly, in large part due to uncertainty surrounding the melting of glaciers. Scientists at the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi’s Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies recently calculated that sea levels in the area will have risen 2.4 feet by the year 2100.

“The greatest uncertainty in projections of future sea level rise come from the Western Antarctic, and in particular from this glacier,” Wellner said. “We’re concerned that the glacial retreat is accelerating and may be irreversible.”

Scientists hope to clear this up over the next five years. They’ll make multiple trips to Thwaites to collect sediment samples and study the floor of the ocean where the glacier used to sit before it began melting. This will help scientists determine how ice behaved in the past when faced with warming ocean and climate conditions, said Lauren Simkins, a post-doctoral research associate at Rice who also is working on the project.

“We know warm water has accessed the glacier, so what we can do is look at this record to come up with rates of retreat,” Simkins said. “We’ll be able to say, hopefully, ‘given this certain temperature change, this is how the ice has responded.’”

Knowing the history of ice retreat, she added, will help scientists “understand how warm water really drives retreat of the whole system.”

Their first trip to the glacier, located about 1,000 miles from both the U.S. and British research stations, will take place in January. They hope to have results starting in 2020, Wellner said, which will help scientists more accurately predict future sea level rise.