Undersea anchors of ice that help prevent Antarctica’s land ice from slipping into the ocean are shrinking at more than twice the rate compared with 50 years ago. Over a third of these frozen moorings have shrunk since the turn of the century. Further deterioration of these so-called pinning points, holding in place the floating ice sheets that fortify Antarctica’s land ice, would accelerate the continent’s contribution to rising sea levels. Floating ice sheets fringe 75 percent of Antarctica’s coastline covering an area equivalent to Greenland’s size.
www.ed.ac.uk/news/2024/barriers-against-antarctic-ice-melt-disappearing-a