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Secrets beneath the Ice
Why Should We Care About What Happens in the Accumulation Area?
We were Missing a Big Piece of Information
You’ve just learned how glaciers melt and how water moves through snow, ice, and even deep below the surface.
But here's the thing:
Most sea level rise models don’t account for some of the water moving through the glacier’s upper zones.
Especially not the cracks in the accumulation area. Until recently, we thought water in the upper glacier (where snow usually builds up) either refroze or stayed trapped in a water reservoir beneath the snow.
But…
New research shows that some cracks in the ice in the upper glacier can reach all the way to the bottom. And when they do, they drain meltwater that we didn’t know was reaching the ocean. This means:
More meltwater may be escaping glaciers than we thought
Some of it comes from places we assumed were “safe”
Sea level rise could be underestimated
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