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Monday, November 23, 2009

Photo: Buried Lakes Send Antarctica's Ice Slipping Faster Into the Sea, Study Shows


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Using two satellites called ICESat and RADARSAT, scientists have detected four lakes (A, B, C, and D) buried deep under an ice stream in Antarctica's remote Recovery Glacier.

The lakes offer the first direct link between under-ice bodies of water and the rate at which ice flows into the ocean—a finding with serious implications for the way ice sheets respond to global warming.

Image courtesy Christopher A. Shuman & Vijay Suchdeo/NASA