In May 2006 I found a system of active subglacial lakes under the West Antarctic ice streams in @NASA_ICE's #ICESat laser altimetry, from my office at @Scripps_Ocean. ICESat showed the ice sheet surface going up and down by up to 10m (30ft) as water moved in and out of the lakes.
What followed was 15 years of $NSF-funded fieldwork in Antarctica to better understand the lakes and their influence on the overlying ice sheet. This involved some tough and long fieldwork, and I am forever grateful to @grumplesiggy for taking this on for @Scripps_Ocean.
One of these $NSF-funded projects was called "WISSARD" -- Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling -- and we drilled through ~800m of ice into Whillans Subglacial Lake in January 2013, and collected muddy sediments, water samples and geophysical data.
Another $NSF-funded project was called SALSA @SalsaAntarctica and in January 2019 we drilled through ~1000m of ice into a different lake -- Mercer Subglacial Lake -- and collected more water/sediment samples and geophysical data.
@NASA_ICE's ICESat-2 was launched in 2018 and started collecting more laser altimetry at even higher resolution, showing us how these lakes work all over the ice sheet, see this paper led by @grumplesiggy now of @MinesGlaciology @coschoolofmines earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148542/…
These four projects (ICESat, ICESat-2, WISSARD and SALSA) demonstrate how scientists can combine results from Earth-orbiting satellites to guide remote fieldwork, using funding from two federal agencies -- @NASA and @NSF -- to teach us more about Planet Earth.
Working within these large interdisciplinary teams has been amazing. The energy and brilliance of all the scientists involved -- especially the early-career scientists -- is incredibly inspiring.
Thank you to all these wonderful people involved in this tremendous 15-year effort, it has been quite the journey. Together we have learned so much about this Antarctic lake system, its history and its relation to the ice sheet.
Why am I tweeting this today? Well today -- 30th September 2021 -- is the last official day of the @SalsaAntarctica project, so this is the end of an era.
Or maybe it is the beginning of another?
Or maybe it is the beginning of another?
If you want to see a new movie about some of this work, go here: antarcticlakefilm.com
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