Environmental Science and Engineering Seminar

Ice–ocean interactions at the ice grounding zone—the narrow region where the ice sheet transitions from grounded to floating ice can have seawater intruding beneath ice and remains one of the uncertainties in sea-level projections. In this talk, I show that seawater intrusions, only tens of centimeters thick but extending kilometers beneath grounded ice, produce intense, localized melt that is missing from most ice-sheet models. Using satellite observations, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle measurements (IceFin), and high-resolution MITgcm simulations, I explain ice shelf geometry and tidal flexure control melt rates in West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier. I conclude by showing why explicitly representing grounding-zone cavities fundamentally increases glacier sensitivity to ocean warming, and how emerging 3-D modeling efforts on idealistic ice cavities may reshape projections of glacier retreat."