Model pinpoints glaciers at risk of collapse due to climate change

A 2005 photo of a glacier on the southeastern coast of Greenland. Where it terminates in the ocean it is calving icebergs. A new UC Berkeley study shows that thick and fast-flowing glaciers are most vulnerable to sudden speed up and collapse into the ocean because of basal lubrication by meltwater produced by a warming climate. (Photo credit: Steve Jurvetson, Creative Commons license) As climate change warms the planet, glaciers are melting faster, and scientists fear that many will collapse by the end of the century, drastically raising sea level and inundating coastal cities and island nations. A University of California, Berkeley, scientist has now created an improved model of glacial movement that could help pinpoint those glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic most likely to rapidly slide downhill and fall into the ocean. The new model, published last week in the journal The Cryosphere , incorporates the effects of meltwater that percolates to the base of a glacier and lubricates its downhill flow. The new physical model predicts that the most vulnerable glaciers are the thickest ones that have a history of faster flow, even when that rapid flow is periodic.