Crosson and Dotson Ice Shelves

The Crosson and Dotson Ice Shelves are situated in West Antarctica. These huge ice shelves are fed by numerous glaciers flowing towards the Amundsen Sea. However, some of these glaciers are among the fastest-changing in West Antarctica, with some moving and thinning faster than others. The grounding line, the point at which glaciers on land transition to ice shelves and start to float, of both ice shelves is retreating – which can cause instability and even faster flow of the ice sheet towards the ocean.

New research, largely using Copernicus Sentinel-1 data, shows that one of the upstream glaciers, the fast-flowing Kohler East glacier is rapidly siphoning ice from a neighbouring flow – at a pace never before seen.

Read full story: Antarctic glacier caught stealing ice from neighbour