Overview
- An Argo float drifted for about 2.5 years and collected nearly 200 ocean profiles along a roughly 300-kilometer track.
- The instrument spent eight months beneath the Denman and Shackleton ice shelves and resurfaced with the first ocean transect from under an East Antarctic shelf.
- Measurements show no warm water presently at the base of the Shackleton Ice Shelf, indicating lower vulnerability there.
- Warm water was detected beneath Denman Glacier, a system with roughly 1.5 meters of potential sea-level contribution, where small changes in the warm layer could accelerate melt and trigger unstable retreat.
- Scientists used the float’s ice-draft bumps to trace its route and say such floats can sample the thin boundary layer that controls melt, improving models and supporting a wider Antarctic deployment.