Nasa scientists discover existence of glacial waves, which move huge amounts of ice and water into the sea during periods of intense melting, by studying changes to the land surface Glaciers are melting so much that they are causing the Earth’s crust to change shape. And now scientists have used this effect to discover an alarming new phenomenon that is speeding up the rate at which ice is pouring into the sea. A team of Nasa scientists used measurements of “solid Earth deformation” to study the Rink Glacier in Greenland as it melted rapidly in the hot summers of 2010 and 2012. What they found was that the “intense” melting of ice produced a ‘solitary wave’ in the glacier that pushed it more quickly towards the sea, which Nasa likened to a “warmed freezer pop[sicle] sliding out of its plastic casing”.

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