Firn Capacity of Antarctic Ice Shelves via Satellites Observations

This project investigates the stability of the Antarctic ice shelves to better constrain sea-level projections in the future.

Antarctic ice shelves are the floating edges of the continent’s ice sheet. Think of them as brake pads: by holding back the ice on land they slow how fast ice flows into the ocean, so they help limit future sea‑level rise. 

Covering those shelves is a layer of compacted snow called firn. Firn is like a natural sponge: it soaks up meltwater and refreezes it, preventing water from pooling on the surface or running into cracks. But if the sponge becomes full, when repeated melting fills the pore spaces, it can no longer absorb water. That stored water can weaken the shelf and, in extreme cases, contribute to its breakup. 

As the Antarctic climate warms and melting happens more often, the firn’s capacity to store water is shrinking. This project aims to find out how much of that “sponge” remains across Antarctica’s ice shelves today and how that capacity is likely to change in the future. We do this by combining measurements taken from firn cores on the George VI Ice Shelf with satellite observations and a regional climate model, to build a continent‑wide picture of current firn health and what might happen under continued warming

Why this matters

More surface melting -> reduced firn air capacity in ice shelves -> can advance hydrofracturing of ice shelves -> this potentially speeds up ice shelf collapse/disintegration like for Larsen B -> which in turn can speed up the flow and mass loss of land-based ice -> more sea level rise.