Rivers Flowing Under the Antarctic Ice Sheet Could Trigger Faster Sea-Level Rise

Nature, 20 March 2025

A study modeling the long-term evolution of rivers beneath Antarctica shows “hotspots” where churning water beneath ice shelves creates vulnerable areas in the ice, which could increase thinning by 20-50% across ice shelves in the Aurora Subglacial Basin by 2100. This East Antarctic basin is grounded below sea level, a particularly unstable position that could lead to rapid and irreversible retreat, raising global sea levels by four meters if all the ice melted. Two-thirds of ice shelf melt in this region is driven by water flowing below the ice. Data from thirty million years ago to present reveals that these subglacial rivers are constantly shifting, impacting water circulation below the ice sheet and eroding areas along the margins that grow increasingly weak over time. Sea-level rise projections must properly capture this influence of Antarctic subglacial rivers to paint a full picture of the rate and scale of future ice loss, otherwise risking underestimation of threats faced by coastal low-lying communities.

Full Paper | Plain-language Summary by the University of Waterloo