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Science 24 July 1998:
Vol. 281. no. 5376, pp. 499 - 500
DOI: 10.1126/science.281.5376.499b
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News of the Week

GLACIOLOGY:
West Antarctica's Weak Underbelly Giving Way?

Richard A. Kerr

Space radar images show that one of the glaciers flowing from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the sea--a glacier that has long been seen as the ice sheet's weak point--is eating into stabler ice at a startling rate. The observations, reported on page 549 of this issue of Science, show that the "grounding line" of the Pine Island Glacier--where ice resting on its bed gives way to floating ice--has been retreating inland at a rate of more than a kilometer per year, presumably because the glacier is losing mass by melting at its base.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)