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Ocean melting has thinned Antarctica’s ice shelves at an increasing rate over the past two decades, leading to loss of grounded ice. The Ross Ice Shelf is currently close to steady state but geological records indicate that it can disintegrate rapidly, which would accelerate grounded ice loss from catchments equivalent to 11.6 m of global sea level rise. Here, we use data from the ROSETTA-Ice airborne survey and ocean simulations to identify the principal threats to Ross Ice Shelf stability. We locate the tectonic boundary between East and West Antarctica from magnetic anomalies and use gravity data to generate a new high-resolution map of sub-ice-shelf bathymetry. The tectonic imprint on the bathymetry constrains sub-ice-shelf ocean circulation, protecting the ice shelf grounding line from moderate changes in global ocean heat content. In contrast, local, seasonal production of warm upper-ocean water near the ice front drives rapid ice shelf melting east of Ross Island, where thinning would lead to faster grounded ice loss from both the East and West Antarctic ice sheets. We confirm high modelled melt rates in this region using ROSETTA-Ice radar data. Our findings highlight the significance of both the tectonic framework and local ocean–atmosphere exchange processes near the ice front in determining the future of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The boundary between West and East Antarctica is a tectonic feature that bisects the Ross Ice Shelf. This boundary constrains ocean circulation under the ice, which affects ice stability, according to airborne survey data and ocean simulations.

Meltwater stored in ponds and crevasses can weaken and fracture ice shelves, triggering their rapid disintegration. This ice-shelf collapse results in an increased flux of ice from adjacent glaciers and ice streams, thereby raising sea level globally. However, surface rivers forming on ice shelves could potentially export stored meltwater and prevent its destructive effects. Here we present evidence for persistent active drainage networks - interconnected streams, ponds and rivers - on the Nansen Ice Shelf in Antarctica that export a large fraction of the ice shelf's meltwater into the ocean. We find that active drainage has exported water off the ice surface through waterfalls and dolines for more than a century. The surface river terminates in a 130-metre-wide waterfall that can export the entire annual surface melt over the course of seven days. During warmer melt seasons, these drainage networks adapt to changing environmental conditions by remaining active for longer and exporting more water. Similar networks are present on the ice shelf in front of Petermann Glacier, Greenland, but other systems, such as on the Larsen C and Amery Ice Shelves, retain surface water at present. The underlying reasons for export versus retention remain unclear. Nonetheless our results suggest that, in a future warming climate, surface rivers could export melt off the large ice shelves surrounding Antarctica - contrary to present Antarctic ice-sheet models, which assume that meltwater is stored on the ice surface where it triggers ice-shelf disintegration. © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.

Surface meltwater drains across ice sheets, forming melt ponds that can trigger ice-shelf collapse, acceleration of grounded ice flow and increased sea-level rise. Numerical models of the Antarctic Ice Sheet that incorporate meltwater’s impact on ice shelves, but ignore the movement of water across the ice surface, predict a metre of global sea-level rise this century5 in response to atmospheric warming. To understand the impact of water moving across the ice surface a broad quantification of surface meltwater and its drainage is needed. Yet, despite extensive research in Greenland and observations of individual drainage systems in Antarctica, we have little understanding of Antarctic-wide surface hydrology or how it will evolve. Here we show widespread drainage of meltwater across the surface of the ice sheet through surface streams and ponds (hereafter ‘surface drainage’) as far south as 85° S and as high as 1,300 metres above sea level. Our findings are based on satellite imagery from 1973 onwards and aerial photography from 1947 onwards. Surface drainage has persisted for decades, transporting water up to 120 kilometres from grounded ice onto and across ice shelves, feeding vast melt ponds up to 80 kilometres long. Large-scale surface drainage could deliver water to areas of ice shelves vulnerable to collapse, as melt rates increase this century. While Antarctic surface melt ponds are relatively well documented on some ice shelves, we have discovered that ponds often form part of widespread, large-scale surface drainage systems. In a warming climate, enhanced surface drainage could accelerate future ice-mass loss from Antarctic, potentially via positive feedbacks between the extent of exposed rock, melting and thinning of the ice sheet.

When basal meltwater refreezes, the resulting warm ice can influence the flow dynamics of the ice sheet above. An analysis of airborne gravity and radar data identifies extensive basal-ice units across the northern Greenland ice sheet that coincide with areas of deformed ice and fast ice flow.

Alaskan glaciers are among the largest regional contributors to sea-level rise in the latter half of the 20th century. Earlier studies have documented extensive and accelerated ice wastage in most regions of Alaska. Here we study five decades of mass loss on high-elevation, land-terminating glaciers of the Wrangell Mountains (~ 4900 km2) in central Alaska based on airborne center-line laser altimetry data from 2000 and 2007, a digital elevation model (DEM) from ASTER and SPOT5, and US Geological Survey topographic maps from 1957. The regional mass-balance estimates derived from center-line laser altimetry profiles using two regional extrapolation techniques agree well with that from DEM differencing. Repeat altimetry measurements reveal accelerated mass loss over the Wrangell Mountains, with the regional mass-balance rate evolving from –0.07 ± 0.19 m w.e. a–1 during 1957–2000 to –0.24 ± 0.16 m w.e. a–1 during 2000–07. Nabesna, the largest glacier in this region (˜1056 km2), lost mass four times faster during 2000–07 than during 1957–2000. Although accelerated, the mass change over this region is slower than in other glacierized regions of Alaska, particularly those with tidewater glaciers. Together, our laser altimetry and satellite DEM analyses demonstrate increased wastage of these glaciers during the last 50 years.

The above canopy carbon dioxide and water vapour fluxes were measured by micrometeorological gradient technique at three distant stations, within the world’s largest mangrove ecosystem of Sundarban (Indian part), between April 2011 and March 2012. Quadrat analysis revealed that all the three study sites are characterized by a strong heterogeneity in the mangrove vegetation cover. At day time the forest was a sink for CO2, but its magnitude varied significantly from −0.39 to −1.33 mg m − 2 s − 1. The station named Jharkhali showed maximum annual fluxes followed by Henry Island and Bonnie Camp. Day time fluxes were higher during March and October, while in August and January the magnitudes were comparatively lower. The seasonal variation followed the same trend in all the sites. The spatial variation of CO2 flux above the canopy was mainly explained by the canopy density and photosynthetic efficiency of the mangrove species. The CO2 sink strength of the mangrove cover in different stations varied in the same way with the CO2 uptake potential of the species diversity in the respective sites. The relationship between the magnitude of day time CO2 uptake by the canopy and photosynthetic photon flux was defined by a non-linear exponential curve (R2 ranging from 0.51 to 0.60). Water vapour fluxes varied between 1.4 and 69.5 mg m − 2 s − 1. There were significant differences in magnitude between day and night time water vapour fluxes, but no spatial variation was observed.

Contemporary climate warming over the Arctic is accelerating mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet through increasing surface melt, emphasizing the need to closely monitor its surface mass balance in order to improve sea-level rise predictions. Snow accumulation is the largest component of the ice sheet's surface mass balance, but in situ observations thereof are inherently sparse and models are difficult to evaluate at large scales. Here, we quantify recent Greenland accumulation rates using ultra-wideband (2–6.5 GHz) airborne snow radar data collected as part of NASA's Operation IceBridge between 2009 and 2012. We use a semiautomated method to trace the observed radiostratigraphy and then derive annual net accumulation rates for 2009–2012. The uncertainty in these radar-derived accumulation rates is on average 14 %. A comparison of the radar-derived accumulation rates and contemporaneous ice cores shows that snow radar captures both the annual and long-term mean accumulation rate accurately. A comparison with outputs from a regional climate model (MAR) shows that this model matches radar-derived accumulation rates in the ice sheet interior but produces higher values over southeastern Greenland. Our results demonstrate that snow radar can efficiently and accurately map patterns of snow accumulation across an ice sheet and that it is valuable for evaluating the accuracy of surface mass balance models.

The Sundarban is the largest mangrove ecosystem, which is presently vulnerable to climate change related impacts. The western part of it falls in the state of West Bengal between the estuaries of the Hooghly and Ichamati-Raymongal Rivers. The diversity of the genus Ceratium Schrank and the related physicochemical parameters such as Sea Surface Temperature (SST) was studied in the Hooghly-Matla estuary and offshore. Five species of bio-indicator dinoflagellate, Ceratium were identified in the bloom-forming season. The species are: C. furca, C. fusus, C. symmetricum, C. trichoceros and C. tripos. C. symmetricum was not previously reported from the Indian part of the Sundarban and is now found in low abundance. The other four species are less sensitive to warming or rise in SST. A comparative study of the day time SST from the satellite images of the year 2003 to 2009 of the months of January and February reveals a rising winter SST. Compared to the previous years, the increase in temperature can be one of the causative factors to explain the lower abundance of C. symmetricum compared to the others. With further rise of the SST, there is a possibility that this species may no longer be found in abundance in the western part of adjoining Hooghly-Matla estuarine system.

Nature 544, 349–352 (2017); doi:10.1038/nature22049 In our Letter reporting observations of Antarctic surface meltwater, we computed the volume of meltwater simulated by the regional climate model RACMO2 (ref. 1) across an approximately 250 km by 750 km region, encompassing the Amery Ice Shelf (606,000 ≤ xPS ≤ 855,400 m; 1,511,000 ≤ yPS ≤ 2,265,200 m, where xPS and yPS are polar stereographic coordinates).

Accurate quantification of surface snow accumulation over Antarctica is a key constraint for estimates of the Antarctic mass balance, as well as climatic interpretations of ice-core records. Over Antarctica, near-surface winds accelerate down relatively steep surface slopes, eroding and sublimating the snow. This wind scour results in numerous localized regions (< or = 200 sq km) with reduced surface accumulation. Estimates of Antarctic surface mass balance rely on sparse point measurements or coarse atmospheric models that do not capture these local processes, and overestimate the net mass input in wind-scour zones. Here we combine airborne radar observations of unconformable stratigraphic layers with lidar-derived surface roughness measurements to identify extensive wind-scour zones over Dome A, in the interior of East Antarctica. The scour zones are persistent because they are controlled by bedrock topography. On the basis of our Dome A observations, we develop an empirical model to predict wind-scour zones across the Antarctic continent and find that these zones are predominantly located in East Antarctica. We estimate that approx. 2.7-6.6% of the surface area of Antarctica has persistent negative net accumulation due to wind scour, which suggests that, across the continent, the snow mass input is overestimated by 11-36.5 Gt /yr in present surface-mass-balance calculations.

An International Polar Year aerogeophysical investigation of the high interior of East Antarctica reveals widespread freeze-on that drives substantial mass redistribution at the bottom of the ice sheet. Although the surface accumulation of snow remains the primary mechanism for ice sheet growth, beneath Dome A, 24% of the base by area is frozen-on ice. In some places, up to half of the ice thickness has been added from below. These ice packages result from the conductive cooling of water ponded near the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountain ridges and the supercooling of water forced up steep valley walls. Persistent freeze-on thickens the ice column, alters basal ice rheology and fabric, and upwarps the overlying ice sheet, including the oldest atmospheric climate archive, and drives flow behavior not captured in present models.

In this paper, performance analysis of Location Aided Routing (LAR), AODV and DSR protocol in city scenarios has been done. The mobility model considered is Manhattan model. This mobility model used to emulate the movement pattern of nodes i.e., vehicles on streets defined by maps. Our objective is to provide a comparative analysis among LAR, AODV and DSR protocol in city scenarios in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks. The simulation work has been conducted using the Glomosim 2.03 simulator. The results show that LAR1 protocol achieves maximum packet delivery ratio is 100% in the sparsely populated network. The delay is maximum in AODV 121.88 ms when the number of node is 10 in the network. The results show that LAR1 outperform DSR and AODV in term of packet delivery ratio and end to end delay.