Glaciers Are Melting Underwater. It’s Worse Than Previously Thought (Source Time)

 Underwater ice melt from glaciers could be happening much faster than previously thought, according to new research published in the journal Science. That’s a dangerous finding as melting glaciers linked to climate change threaten to raise sea levels dramatically by the end of the century, The scientists who worked on the study developed new methods incorporating sonar, time-lapse photography and other tools to monitor how much ice is melting beneath the water surface. For three years, they used the methodology to survey the LeConte Glacier in Alaska. In some places, the researchers recorded the glacier melting 100 times faster than previous, theoretical models predicted.

“The existing theory is wildly inaccurate at one glacier,” says study author Rebecca Jackson, an oceanographer at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, in a press release. That “should lead us to be very skeptical of its current use in studying any tidewater glacier.” A 2014 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nation’s climate science body, found that between 2003 and 2009 glacier melt across the globe caused 0.7 millimeters per year of sea level rise.