Antarctic Meltwater Is Making Glaciers Slide Faster Toward the Ocean

A new study uses boreholes drilled deep beneath Antarctic ice to investigate why the continent’s glaciers are accelerating.

More than half a kilometer beneath an East Antarctic glacier, sensors detected water pressure high enough to support almost all the ice above. The measurements provide the first direct confirmation that meltwater from the surface can reach the base of an Antarctic glacier, reduce friction and accelerate its movement toward the ocean.

“The Antarctic ice sheet holds 90% of the world’s glacier ice. If it were to melt completely and drain into the ocean, sea levels would rise by about 60 meters,” says Professor Shin Sugiyama of Hokkaido University.

For the study, published in Nature Communications, Sugiyama and his colleagues drilled boreholes more than 550 meters into the Langhovde Glacier in East Antarctica. They lowered cameras and pressure sensors to the glacier bed, allowing them to observe conditions that satellites cannot see from above. “Using a hot-water jet, we could carefully and rapidly drill into the glacier and measure the water pressure right at its base,” explains Sugiyama.

Meltwater reaches the glacier bed

The measurements showed that water gathering in surface lakes and ponds traveled through fractures all the way to the bottom of the glacier. The route formed through hydrofracturing, a process in which the weight of accumulated meltwater forces cracks deeper into the ice and opens channels through which the water can descend.

Once the water reached the glacier bed, it increased pressure beneath the ice and lifted the glacier slightly from the underlying rock. This pressurized water reduced friction along the boundary between the ice and bedrock, allowing the glacier to slide more quickly toward the ocean.

https://youtu.be/WzQpYkmM8no
Meltwater speeds up Antarctic glacier ice flow from below. Credit: Shin Sugiyama

Rising pressure speeds the ice

“During a spell of intense surface melting, and again after a rare rainfall event in January 2022, meltwater increased the water pressure at the glacier’s base until it was supporting 97% of the weight of the ice above,” says Professor Sugiyama. “The glacier rose slightly and, with less friction to hold it back, its sliding across the bed accelerated by 10–20%.”

Similar behavior has been documented in glaciers across Europe, Alaska and Greenland. Whether the same process occurred in Antarctica had remained uncertain because researchers had never measured it directly beneath the ice.

“This is the first observation of such kind in Antarctica,” says Sugiyama.

Cameras reveal life beneath ice

The boreholes revealed more than the mechanics of glacier movement. Cameras recorded a sea anemone and several slender-stalked sponges attached to a boulder within a seawater layer only three meters thick, buried beneath 474 meters of ice. The animals were several hundred meters beyond the point where the glacier separates from the seabed.

“It was very surprising to spot colorful creatures going about their lives in such a cold, dark, and confined environment, revealing a hidden ecosystem under the ice,” says Sugiyama.

The results could have implications far beyond Langhovde Glacier.

“Currently, the ice sheet is losing mass overall because the amount of ice discharged into the ocean exceeds snow accumulation inland. Our study suggests that ice loss will increase as meltwater rises in a warming climate, carrying more and more ice into the ocean. This is especially urgent and relevant for people and societies living in low-elevation areas,” concludes Sugiyama.

Reference: “Acceleration of an Antarctic outlet glacier driven by surface meltwater input to the base” by Shin Sugiyama, Ken Kondo, Masahiro Minowa and Akira Watanabe, 6 May 2026, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-72724-x

This research was performed as a scientific program of JARE63 as a Prioritized Research Project and funded by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 20H00186 and 25H00452.

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