Tidewater glaciers, like this one in Alaska, experience underwater melting 100 times faster than scientists previously estimated from theoretical models.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM MONE/ AP
ENVIRONMENT

Putting an old technology to novel use, scientists looked at how tidewater glaciers melt underwater. Their results were startling.
5 MINUTE READ
BY JENNY HOWARD

PUBLISHED JULY 25, 2019

A NEW WAY of measuring how some glaciers melt below the surface of the water has uncovered a surprising realization: Some glaciers are melting a hundred times faster than scientists thought they were.

In a new study published today in Science, a team of oceanographers and glaciologists unpeeled a new layer of understanding of tidewater glaciers—glaciers that end in the ocean—and their dynamic processes.

“They’ve really discovered that the melt that’s happening is fairly dramatically different from some of the assumptions we’ve had,” says Twila Moon, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data…