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NASA engineers are designing a fleet of underwater robotic probes to measure the rate at which climate change is melting the vast ice sheets surrounding Antarctica.
The robots, called IceNodes, are cylindrical diving devices, about 2.4 meters long and 25 centimeters in diameter, that are released from holes drilled into the ice or from ships at sea. They drift with ocean currents, using special navigation software, to reach the interface between the freshwater ice shelf and the saltwater of the ocean and land. Once at their target, the IceNodes are fixed to the underside of the ice shelf and continuously record data from beneath the ice for up to a year, including seasonal fluctuations, before drifting back out to sea and transmitting the data via satellite.
Ice shelves, which take thousands of years to form, act as anchors for glaciers, preventing them from sliding into the ocean and contributing to rising sea levels. But satellite images show that the outer ice shelves are breaking up faster than the ice shelves can naturally regenerate. And rising ocean temperatures are eroding ice shelves from below, a phenomenon scientists hope to test with greater precision with the IceNode probes.
A JPL study published in 2022 found that the thinning and fragmentation of the Antarctic ice shelf has reduced its mass by about 12 trillion tons since 1997, double previous estimates. If it were to melt completely, the continent’s ice shelf would lose about 200 feet of global sea level, according to NASA.
In March, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) tested an IceNode prototype beneath the frozen Beaufort Sea in northern Alaska. During the experiment, the IceNode prototype dived to depths of 100 meters to collect data on salinity, temperature, and currents.
According to information posted on NASA's website, these robots help deliver scientific instruments to the most inaccessible places on Earth. The goal of these probes is to provide more accurate data to assess how quickly warming seas around Antarctica are melting the continent's coastal ice. This will allow scientists to improve computer models to predict future sea level rise.
Previously, scientists monitored the thinning of the ice shelf using satellite instruments capable of assessing changes in ice height.
