This is bad news.
Glue Job
Scientists looked closely at the other factors that are causing Antarctica's ice shelves and ice shelves to crumble into huge chunks. They found that the glue that holds them together is in alarmingly poor condition.
According to research published in the journal PNAS, Antarctica's ice shelves may have a way of repairing themselves when they begin to crack and split. The icy glue known by mlange, which can be used to fill in cracks and fuse the ice shelf back together, is useful when it starts to thin. NASA and University of California scientists discovered that mlange can be just as susceptible to rising temperatures and changing climates as ice. If it fails, disaster could strike.
Crumbling apart
Three scenarios were tested by the scientists, where either the mlange or the ice shelf would start to thin. The ice shelf could repair itself as long as the mlange was intact. However, if the mlange started to melt, the ice shelf fractures grew faster.
Eric Rignot, a University of California Irvine glaciologist and coauthor of the study, stated in a press release that climate change could cause Antarctica's ice shelves to shrink rapidly. This means that we might need to reconsider our estimates of the time and magnitude of sea level rise due to polar ice loss. It could happen sooner than we expected and at a greater rate.
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Watered Down
Eric Larour, NASA researcher and lead author of the study, stated in a press release that mlange is thinner than shelf ice. It basically becomes a pool of slush once it melts.
The melting of ice, according to the team, can explain many of the major ice shelves fractures that have occurred in recent years. As temperatures rise, Antarctica will have to rely less on its self-repairing glue. This puts the ice shelf at risk.
READ MORE: Large icebergs could be calved by melting slush glue [Live Science]
More about Antarctica: A 500-square-mile iceberg near Antarctica nearly crashes into it
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