Scientists sail for Greenland to study glacier melt risk
An international team is deploying advanced robotics in Greenland to investigate climate tipping points and develop an early warning system for ice loss.
Scientists sail for Greenland to study glacier melt risk
An international team of approximately 80 scientists and crew will set sail from Britain this week aboard the polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough. The expedition, which launched on July 16, will spend five to six weeks in Greenland to investigate whether the island's rapidly melting glaciers could disrupt a major Atlantic Ocean current system and potentially alter Europe's climate.
The mission departs following a period in which Britain and Western Europe experienced the warmest June months on record, resulting in school closures, disrupted power supplies, and excess deaths. The heat waves in the UK and in Europe the last few months have really driven home that it's difficult for us to adapt to even quite small changes in our climate,
said Kelly Hogan, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
The GIANT Project and Tipping Points
The voyage is part of a £20 million ($26 million) five-year project known as GIANT (Greenland Ice sheet to AtlaNtic Tipping points). Led by BAS and funded by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), the collaboration involves 17 partners. The project focuses on "climate tipping points" — critical thresholds in Earth's systems that, once crossed, can lead to rapid and potentially irreversible changes.
Researchers are specifically concerned about the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre, which transports heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic to regulate weather in North America and Europe. Scientists fear that the discharge of vast quantities of freshwater from melting glaciers could create a "cap" on the Subpolar Gyre. This would prevent the formation of the warmer, dense water that powers the global ocean conveyor belt. Some estimates suggest the Subpolar Gyre could change as early as the 2040s, while other warnings suggest changes could occur within the next four years.
This freshwater influx also threatens the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). An interruption of the AMOC could make Europe colder and drier and shift tropical monsoons, impacting global food supplies and agriculture.
Advanced Robotic Deployment
The RRS Sir David Attenborough will serve as a floating laboratory and launch platform. The team will deploy a suite of high-tech tools to observe the "glacier mélange" — the mixture of sea ice and snow where glaciers meet the sea.
- Boaty McBoatface: A high-tech submersible that will dive 1,500 metres to map the geometry of the mélange.
- Uncrewed Surface Vessels: Boats designed to dodge icebergs using multibeam sonar to map the underwater shape of glacier fronts.
- Autonomous Underwater Vehicles: A fleet of bots
- Sensors and Drones: Sensors will be drilled into ice or dropped by helicopter as "javelins" to track real-time movement, while airborne drones survey surfaces.
- Meltstakes: Specialized equipment affixed to glacier edges to measure the melting process.
One primary goal is to observe millimeter-scale phenomena, such as ancient air bubbles popping from glacier ice. Jonathan Nash of Oregon State University noted that these small details can play a critical role in glacier dynamics.
Comparative Glacier Study
The mission focuses on two distinct glacier types to understand different responses to warming:
| Glacier Site | Location | Characteristics |
|---|---|---|
| Kangerlussuaq | South-East Greenland | Tidewater glaciers in narrow fjords ending in towering ice cliffs; prone to iceberg calving. |
| Petermann Glacier | North-West Greenland | Wider glacier terminating in a long floating ice tongue or ice shelf. |
Modeling and Early Warning Systems
Data collected will be processed using AI and machine learning, specifically leveraging the open-source DeepSensor toolkit. This information will be used to upgrade the UK Earth System Model (UKESM), which currently omits or misrepresents the processes occurring in Greenland's 200 narrow fjords.
The ultimate goal is to develop a prototype Early Warning System. This online tool will combine satellite observations, field data, and statistical modeling to predict when ice loss into the North Atlantic might suddenly increase. Sarah Bohndiek of ARIA stated that such a system is necessary to help governments and industry build resilience against irreversible consequences.
The urgency is highlighted by research from the University of Barcelona published in Nature Communications. That study found that since 1990, the surface area affected by extreme melt events has expanded by about 2.8 million km2 per decade, with meltwater output jumping from an average of 12.7 gigatons per decade (1950-2023) to 82.4 gigatons per decade since 1990.
