Overview
- An autonomous Argo float drifted for about two-and-a-half years across roughly 300 kilometers, returning nearly 200 ocean profiles including eight months beneath the Denman and Shackleton ice shelves.
- Findings indicate the Shackleton Ice Shelf is not currently exposed to warm, melt‑promoting water.
- Measurements show warmer water is already reaching Denman Glacier, raising concern over accelerated melt and a potential contribution of around 1.5 meters to global sea level if destabilized.
- The float sampled the thin under‑ice boundary layer, recording temperature, salinity, pressure, oxygen, pH, and nitrate roughly every five days.
- Unable to surface for GPS fixes, the float’s under‑ice route was reconstructed by matching its ice‑draft readings to satellite data, with results published in Science Advances and a call for more floats along the Antarctic shelf.