Ice quakes cause glacial ice to flow toward the ocean

Discover magazine quotes Kristin Poinar and Elizabeth Thomas on the recent discovery of ice quakes deep within the Northeast Greenland Ice Sheet and how that is helping scientists better understand the dynamics of glacial ice. “Ice in the wild has these special properties that lab ice does not. And so, if we aren't studying ice in the wild, we're missing the complexities. We're getting the basics right, but we're missing the complexities that make this particular ice stream flow faster than our models currently predict,” says Poinar. Getting those models just right is more important than you may realize, adds Thomas. “Most people have never seen a glacier, much less one of the world’s great ice sheets, because they’re so remote,” she says. “But the water from them ends up in our communities.”