In The News

UCI/NASA press releases

Media

Some of our papers received significant media attention. Here is a list of selected press articles:

Inverse What would happen if Polar ice caps melted? (19 April 2021)

“it will take thousands and thousands of years, but it’s still a good question to ask because the world isn’t going to end in 2121… And it’s not going to be uniformly distributed around the globe because of gravitational attraction. We’ll have sea level fall around Greenland and Antarctica, but rise everywhere else.”

CNN Scientists have discovered deepest point on land (14 December 2019)

“The glaciers flowing across the Transantarctic Mountains all have a pronounced ridge across their troughs,” Morlighem said. “These ridges were unknown and make this sector of the ice sheet extremely resilient to increase in ocean-induced melting.”

Scientific American Maps That Peer Below Antarctic Ice Show Precarious Position of Key Glacier (13 December 2019)

The new maps from BedMachine Antarctica suggest there are only two such ridges to be found beneath Thwaites Glacier, the last one about 30 miles upstream. The study notes that models indicate “once the glacier retreats past the second ridge, the retreat of Thwaites Glacier would become unstoppable.”

Fox News World’s deepest land canyon discovered beneath Antarctic glacier (12 December 2019)

“With conservation of mass, by combining existing radar survey and ice motion data, we know how much ice flows through the canyon – which, by our calculations, reaches 3,500 meters [11,483 feet or 2.2 miles] below sea level, the deepest point on land. Since it’s relatively narrow, it has to be deep to allow that much ice mass to reach the coast.”

BBC Denman Glacier: Deepest point on land found in Antarctica (12 December 2019)

“This is undoubtedly the most accurate portrait yet of what lies beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet,” said Dr Mathieu Morlighem, who’s worked on the project for six years.

Newsweek The deepest point of all Earth’s continents has been discovered in Antarctica (12 December 2019)

“These ridges were unknown and make this sector of the ice sheet extremely resilient to increase in ocean-induced melting,” Morlighem said. “Working on climate change, we don’t have good news frequently … that being said, we found other sectors that we did not know would be more vulnerable to climate change.”

Science magazine Greenland’s dying ice (10 October 2019)

“We’re still far from being able to make reliable projections,” says Mathieu Morlighem, an ice sheet modeler at the University of California, Irvine, who is also working on the Helheim project. “If we don’t get ice dynamics right at the coast, there’s no way we get a decent projection.”

BBC Greenland ice sheet hides huge ‘impact crater’ (14 November 2018)

Dr Mathieu Morlighem, a team-member from the University of California, Irvine, US, commented: “When you think about it, the bed below the ice sheets has to have impact craters that have not been explored yet, and there may even be some in Antarctica as well, but more radar measurements are necessary to locate them, and dating them is extremely challenging.”

BBC How Greenland would look without its ice sheet (14 December 2017)

Mathieu Morlighem: “Just seeing the detail the map has is absolutely beautiful”

Scientific American New Maps Show How Greenland’s Ice Sheet Is Melting from the Bottom Up (6 November 2017)

“The primary uncertainty in sea level rise is what are the ice sheets going to do over the coming century,” said Mathieu Morlighem, an expert in ice sheet modeling at the University of California, Irvine, who led the paper along with dozens of other contributors from institutions around the world…

Washington Post Scientists mapping Greenland have produced some surprising — and worrying — results (4 October 2017)

The work was led by Mathieu Morlighem of the University of California at Irvine, with no less than 31 other authors from institutions in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and across Europe…

Washington Post NASA launched an unprecedented study of Greenland’s melting. Now, the data are coming in (10 February 2017)

“It’s too early” to run the model, said Mathieu Morlighem, a researcher at the University of California, Irvine and the lead author of one of the papers presenting the accumulating data…

EARTH  Seeing beneath Greenland’s ice (23 September 2014)

Scientists are seeing a detailed view of the topography underlying the ice sheet, which is an important control on the flow and discharge of ice into the ocean…..

BBC  Greenland’s long glacier fjords point to higher seas (21 May 2014)

A new study has reassessed the shape of the great fjords down which glaciers drain to the ocean. It finds them to be far deeper and to stretch further back inland than was recognised in earlier research. Dr Mathieu Morlighem told the Nature Geoscience journal that this could expose the glaciers to more prolonged erosion by warm seawaters….

New York Times The Big Melt Accelerates (20 May 2014)

Centuries from now, a large swath of the West Antarctic ice sheet is likely to be gone, its hundreds of trillions of tons of ice melted, causing a four-foot rise in already swollen seas. Scientists reported last week that the scenario may be inevitable, with new research concluding that some giant glaciers had passed the point of no return…

The Guardian Global warming and the vulnerability of Greenland’s ice sheet (20 May 2014)

News continues to emerge in the scientific literature on the future direction of the world’s largest ice sheets; they are undergoing major changes as the climate continues to warm. Among the latest, a new study by Mathieu Morlighem, Eric Rignot, and others has taken a new approach to improve our understanding of the flowing ice atop Greenland…

Scientific American Deep Valleys Under Greenland Mean Higher Sea-Level Rise (19 May 2014)

In a finding offering another sea-level rise warning, scientists yesterday reported the existence of deep, canyon-like valleys in the bedrock underneath the Greenland ice sheet that could facilitate the extensive flow of ice into the ocean…

Huffington Post Greenland’s Glaciers May Melt Faster Than Anyone Thought, New Research Finds (19 May 2014)

Greenland’s glaciers are more vulnerable to melting by warm ocean waters than previously thought, a new study of the topography of the bedrock under the ice finds. This clearer picture of the underpinnings of the miles-thick ice sheet, along with other recent studies that suggest parts of Earth’s polar regions are not as stable as once thought, could mean that current projections of future sea level rise are too low…

NBC News Studies Raise the Ante for Ice Loss From Antarctica and Greenland (19 May 2014)

“The glaciers of Greenland are likely to retreat faster and farther inland than anticipated, and for much longer, according to this very different topography we have discovered,” lead author Mathieu Morlighem of the University of California at Irvine said in a NASA news release…

Daily News Greenland will be far greater contributor to sea rise than expected (18 May 2014)

Greenland’s icy reaches are far a lot more vulnerable to warm ocean waters from climate transform than had been believed, according to new study by UC Irvine and NASA glaciologists. The operate, published these days in Nature Geoscience, shows previously uncharted deep valleys stretching for dozens of miles under the Greenland Ice Sheet…

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