Liputan6.com, jakarta – Scientists reveal the extraordinary phenomena that occurred in Western Antarctica, namely ice piracy. This term refers to the phenomenon when a glacier that moves faster to “suck” or steals ice from a slow neighbor.
This phenomenon significantly changes the direction of the ice flow. Ice Piracy also revealed a new dynamics, which was previously not fully understood in the Antarctic Ice Sayer system.
Having launched the page of the European Space Agency (ESA) on Monday (12/05/2025), the opening was published in the journal Cryosphere and based on Satellite Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Cryosat satellites. This study notes a significant change in how scientists understand the flow of ice and its potential influence on increasing the level of the global sea.
This study uses observation data for 17 years, which shows a rapid redistribution of ice mass in the region. This phenomenon was first discovered in the Eastern Calra glacier and in the Western Calra glacier, in two parts of a wider ice cream system on Western Antarctica.
During the study period, East Koller showed significant acceleration in his ice movement, while the Western Kon was slowed down. The Eastern Cauler, who survived the thinning of an ice layer faster, attracted an ice flow from the Western Calra, a mechanism called scientists as an ice piracy (icy piracy).
Interestingly, the speed of ice sabotage, which was previously considered, spent centuries, was in less than two decades. Thanks to the radar data from the Sentinel-1 satellite, which is able to penetrate the clouds and the darkness of the polar, as well as the cryosate elitimeter, which measures changes in the thickness of the ice, scientists can detailed and constantly monitor this dynamics.
The glacier of the eastern kalra, along with the glacier of the pope and Smith, fell into the layers of Dotson and the ice that sailed over the sea of Amundsen. When these glaciers flow faster and melt into the sea, the volume of water added to the sea directly pushes an increase in sea level.
The area of the Amundensen Sea itself has long been considered one of the most vulnerable areas for the collapse of ice in Antarctica from naval heating and the atmosphere. The results showed that the transmission of ice flow was an important new process in the dynamics of the modern layer of ice.
