Yesterday (May 21st) research was published in Science Magazine that showed that the thinning of the Arctic Ice sheet happens faster than previous anticipated. This work was done by Bert Wouters (Bristol), and co-authored by some people from Utrecht University. Listen to this interview done by BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos. The researchers hypothesis that the accelerated thaw is due to increased circulation of warm water at the bottom of the ice sheet.
This work reminded me of a measuring campaign done by Scott Tylor of the University of Nevada, Reno and his team. Scott made a hole in the arctic ice sheet and lowered a fiber optic cable through the ice sheet into the water below. Tylor used Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS), a technology that Tylor, together with John Selker from Oregon State University and researchers from Delft University of Technology, introduced into the environmental sciences. DTS allows measuring temperature along every meter of the cable, thus giving Tylor a temperature profile from the top of the ice sheet, down into the water below, all the way into the seabed.
I believe, from the paper of Wouters et al and from the paper by Tylors group, that the DTS measurements can be used to test the hypothesis posted on the mechanism of thaw by the Wouters paper. This is not (totally) my field, I may be very off, but it sounds promising and I hope that the two groups can reach out to each other.
If any names sound familiar: Jonathan Amos is the journalist that interviewed me on my work related to the rain-gauge umbrella and my smart waders. Scott Tylor and I had the idea for the smart waders together over a beer.
Normally I would have tweeted this suggestion and be done with it, however, I could not find a good way to fit this in 140 characters, so wrote this blog