About the expedition
Update: 10 November 2011
In November 2010, Ted Scambos, NSIDC researcher Jennifer Bohlander, and Martin Truffer from the University of Fairbanks returned to field sites on the Antarctic Peninsula to repair measurement stations and dig out a snow-bound station.Ted Scambos has returned again this year to continue the repair work and to install one new station.
This work will facilitate continued measurements of changing glacier flow during the most active part of the year.
Colored lines mark the Larsen B Ice Shelf edge in 1947, 1961, 1993, and 2002. Image courtesy Ted Scambos, NSIDC
Overview
In March 2002, a huge portion of the Larsen B Ice Shelf disintegrated in just a few days. Immediately afterward, glaciers in the affected area began to accelerate. Within a few years, they were moving six to ten times faster, and thinning at an astounding rate (up to 500 feet in 6 years). The small portion of the Larsen Ice Shelf remains, but in recent years it, too, has started to melt, thin, and crack apart. What will happen if the last of the ice shelf breaks up?
To answer that question, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded a large interdisciplinary, multi-institute study to explore every aspect of the Larsen Ice Shelf region: the LARISSA Project. This winter, researchers from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder will place automated instruments on the remaining shelf and surrounding glaciers, in anticipation of further retreats and glacier changes. The data they collect may help scientists better understand the factors that lead to ice shelf collapse, and the resulting acceleration in glacial movement. Meanwhile, other researchers from a variety of universities will examine biology, oceanography, and related systems that interact with ice shelves.
From December to March, 2009, NSIDC researchers Ted Scambos, Rob Bauer, and Terry Haran posted updates about their expedition to the Larsen Ice Shelf region. Also traveling with them was Australian electronics consultant Ronald Ross, who designed and built the AMIGOS stations.
