Credit: NASA

Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L17501 doi: 10.1029/2009LL039126 (2009)

The rate of thinning of the Pine Island Glacier (pictured) — the largest stream of fast-moving ice on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet — quadrupled from 1995 to 2006. If the current rate of acceleration continues, the main trunk of the glacier could be afloat within 100 years.

Using satellite radar altimetry to examine the ice thickness, Duncan Wingham of University College London and his colleagues found that the thinning process has rapidly propagated inland since 1995, with the frozen tributaries that flow into the central trunk of the ice stream now losing mass as well.

Scientists think that the imbalance has been triggered by warm waters at the glacier's ocean terminus.