La Jornada: Icebergs are less likely to melt when they group together

Madrid. in the book Physics of Fluidspublished by AIP Publishing, Kari Perry and Sarah Morris of Montana State University discuss how icebergs are less likely to melt when they clump together.

It is known that the Earth’s ice is melting. As icebergs calve from glaciers and melt, the fresh water from melting ice mixes with the surrounding salt water.

However, icebergs do not exist in isolation.

In Greenland, for example, accumulations of icebergs and sea ice form what are known as melanges. Determining how these ice masses are affected by meltwater from their neighbors is critical to understanding and ultimately reducing global ice loss.

in the book Physics of Fluidsthe experts used pairs of ice cylinders to study how meltwater from one ice structure alters the melting of another.

“The meltwater from icebergs can transport fresh water to other areas of the ocean, in addition to redistributing heat, salt and nutrients,” explains Morris. “We need to know how these elements move to be able to predict changes in the ecosystem.”

Using Montana State University’s towing facility, Perry conducted experiments in which he towed two cylindrical pieces of ice through a tank of water, watching them melt along the way.

He systematically varied the distance between them to understand their effects and used a combination of imaging techniques to measure how the shapes and melting rates of the ice cylinders changed over time.

Although the cylinder located upstream behaved practically the same as if it were alone, the distance between them determined the final shape adopted by the piece of ice located downstream.