Few glaciers in the world draw more interest from glaciologists than Pine Island Glacier (P.I.G.), in West Antarctica. The speed of its ice flow has been increasing exponentially in the past two decades. P.I.G. rests on bedrock that sits below sea level — making it more vulnerable to continued acceleration and increased contribution to global sea level rise.
P.I.G. also drains a massive section of the West Antarctic ice sheet that, alone, would add about 1 meter to global sea level.
Given all this, it should be no surprise that scientists — including those at NASA — have made P.I.G. a high-value science target. Why is it accelerating so rapidly? How much of its ice will move into the sea in future years; how much sea level rise will it cause? These are the questions scientists are trying to answer, using satellite data, observations from low-altitude research flights and even field campaigns to the bitter cold and remote region.
