* Astronomy

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RE: Pine Island Glacier

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Pine_Island_Glacier_on_Sentinel-1A_s_radar_node_full_image_2.jpg

This image combining two scans by Sentinel-1A's radar shows that parts of the Pine Island glacier flowed about 100 m (in pink) between 3 March and 15 March 2015.
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Previous rapid thinning of Pine Island Glacier sheds light on future Antarctic ice loss

New research involving geologists at Durham University suggests that the largest single contributor to global sea level rise, a glacier of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, may continue thinning for decades to come.
Researchers from the UK, USA and Germany found that Pine Island Glacier (PIG), which is rapidly accelerating, thinning and retreating, has thinned rapidly before. The team say their findings, published in the journal Science, demonstrate the potential for current ice loss to continue for several decades yet.
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International Team To Drill Beneath Massive Antarctic Ice Shelf

An international team of researchers funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will travel next month to one of Antarctica's most active, remote and harsh spots to determine how changes in the waters circulating under an active ice sheet are causing a glacier to accelerate and drain into the sea.
The science expedition will be the most extensive ever deployed to Pine Island Glacier. It is the area of the ice-covered continent that concerns scientists most because of its potential to cause a rapid rise in sea level. Satellite measurements have shown this area is losing ice and surrounding glaciers are thinning, raising the possibility the ice could flow rapidly out to sea.
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Major berg forming in Antarctica

Scientists are monitoring the birth of a monster iceberg in West Antarctica.
A rift has formed in the shelf of floating ice in front of the Pine Island Glacier (PIG).
The crack in the PIG runs for almost 30km, is 60m deep and is growing every day.
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Flyover of Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica

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Huge Crack Discovered in Antarctic Glacier

A huge, emerging crack has been discovered in one of Antarctica's glaciers, with a NASA plane mission providing the first-ever detailed airborne measurements of a major iceberg breakup in progress.
NASA's Operation Ice Bridge, the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown, is in the midst of its third field campaign from Punta Arenas, Chile.
The crack was found in Pine Island Glacier, which last calved a significant iceberg in 2001; some scientists have speculated recently that it was primed to calve again. But until an Oct. 14 IceBridge flight, no one had seen any evidence of the ice shelf beginning to break apart. Since then, a more detailed look back at satellite imagery seems to show the first signs of the crack in early October.
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