How Long Do We Have Until Sea Level Rise Swallows Coastal Cities?

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A team of NASA rocket scientists is developing autonomous underwater robots able to go where humans cannot, deep beneath Antarctica's giant ice shelves . The robots' task is to better understand how rapidly ice is melting — and how quickly that could cause catastrophic sea level rise .

In March, scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory lowered a cylindrical robot into the icy waters of the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska to gather data at 100 feet deep. It was the first step in the "IceNode" project.

The ultimate aim is to release a fleet of these robots in Antarctica, which will latch on to the ice and capture data over long periods in one of the most inaccessible places on Earth.

There is an urgent need to better understand this remote, isolated continent; what happens here has global implications.

A slew of recent research suggests Antarctica's ice may be melting in alarming new ways , meaning the sea level rise forecast might be vastly underestimated. If Antarctica's ice sheet were to melt entirely, it would cause global sea level rise of around 200 feet — spelling complete catastrophe for coastal communities.

Scientists are particularly keen to understand what's happening to Antarctica's ice shelves, huge slabs of floating ice which jut out into the ocean and are an important defense against sea level rise, acting as a cork to hold back glaciers on land.

The "grounding line" — the point at which the glacier rises from the seabed and becomes an ice shelf — is where the most rapid melting may be happening, as warm ocean water eats away at the ice from underneath.

But getting a detailed look at the grounding line in the treacherous Antarctic landscape has been exceptionally difficult.

"We've been pondering how to surmount these technological and logistical challenges for years, and we think we've found a way," said Ian Fenty, a climate scientist at JPL and IceNode's science lead.

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