An expedition is currently underway on the largest ice shelf on our planet, in the western region of the Antarctic continent, to collect samples of marine sediments and study possible future evolutions of sea level.
An international team of scientists has just set out for Antarctica to collect glaciomarine sediments from the western margins of the Ice Sheet that will help them estimate future sea level rise.
The expedition, which involves technicians and specialists from 13 countries, is part of the SWAIS 2C project (Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a 2°C increase) and uses paleoclimatic analysis techniques to study samples of seafloor sediments beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, the largest ice shelf on Earth, extracted through drilling up to 200 meters below sea level.
The Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the University of Genoa, the University of Siena, the University of Trieste and the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) are participating in the mission, with the support of the PNRA (National Research Program in Antarctica) through the Italy for SWAIS-2C project.
“The West Antarctic Ice Sheet contains such a quantity of ice that, if it were to melt completely, it would raise the sea level by 4-5 meters,” explains Paola Del Carlo, researcher at INGV. “Recent research has shown that, due to the increase in global temperature caused by ongoing climate change, the collapse of some of its parts could be inevitable; however, this increase in temperature has not yet affected the waters beneath the great Ross Platform, which, therefore, still constitute a support that stabilizes the overlying glacial mass, even if we do not know for how long.”
The ongoing mission on the Antarctic continent aims to understand what temperature could trigger the melting of the Ross Ice Shelf, with subsequent collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
“The sediment cores our team plans to recover are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years old, and include information from the last interglacial period 125.000 years ago, when the planet was about 1,5°C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures,” Del Carlo adds. “We hope the results of this research will help guide plans to predict and adapt to inevitable sea level rise, as well as further underscore the urgency of adopting policies and solutions that can mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Drilling many kilometres from the nearest base – Scott Base in New Zealand – requires considerable logistical capacity to move personnel and equipment aboard a convoy of tracked vehicles over a 1100-kilometre journey across the ice. The Ross Ice Shelf crossing is expected to take about 15 days and, once at the chosen drilling site (called KIS3), involves the construction of a landing strip on the ice for aircraft equipped with skis, allowing drillers and other scientists to reach the area in late November.
Useful links:
National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV)
National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics
National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA)
Photos: KIS3 drilling site of the SWAIS2C expedition in Antarctica.
