Smith Glacier is a low-gradient
Antarctic
The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...
glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
, over 160 km (100 mi) long, draining from
Toney Mountain
Toney Mountain is an elongated snow-covered shield volcano, long and rising to at Richmond Peak, located southwest of Kohler Range in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica.
Toney Mountain is an elongated volcanic massif that rises from a basaltic lava ...
in an ENE direction to
Amundsen Sea.
A northern distributary,
Kohler Glacier, drains to
Dotson Ice Shelf
Dotson Ice Shelf is an ice shelf about wide between Martin Peninsula and Bear Peninsula on the coast of Marie Byrd Land in Antarctica. It was first mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey from air photos obtained by U.S. Navy Operation Highjump i ...
but the main flow passes to the sea between
Bear Peninsula and
Mount Murphy, terminating at
Crosson Ice Shelf.
The Smith Glacier is located in the western region of Antarctica. Latitude: 75° 2' 59
'' S. Longitude 111° 12' 0
'' W.
Mapped by
USGS
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...
from ground surveys and USN air photos, 1959–65. Named by US-ACAN after Philip M. Smith (Smith Bluffs), Deputy Director, Office of Polar Programs, National Science Foundation, who in the period 1956–71 participated in many expeditions to Antarctica in field and supervisory capacities.
In 2001, Dr. Andrew Shepherd, a research fellow at the Center for Polar Observation and Modeling at University College London, said that Smith Glacier was losing mass quickly and contributing to the slow rise of the oceans.
In 2011, Hamish Pritchard, a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK, said that Smith Glacier was thinning at a rate of 27 feet per year.
In 2016, a study published in the journal ''Nature Communication,'' which relied on airborne radar measurements, found that melting of the ice shelves’ grounding zones between the years 2000 and 2009 removed between 984 to about 1,607 feet of solid ice beneath the Smith Glacier.
The Smith Glacier lost more ice than any other glacier studied for the report. The researchers found that the Smith Glacier retreated by about 21 miles during the period from 1996 to 2011.
The scientists concluded that the size of the retreat was partly a result of both the unique topography underneath the ice that allowed more ocean water to sneak in between the ice and the land below.
See also
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Ice stream
An ice stream is a region of fast-moving ice within an ice sheet. It is a type of glacier, a body of ice that moves under its own weight. They can move upwards of a year, and can be up to in width, and hundreds of kilometers in length. They t ...
*
List of glaciers in the Antarctic
*
List of Antarctic ice streams
This is a list of Antarctic ice streams.
A complete list of Antarctic ice streams is not available. Names and locations of Antarctic ice features, including those listed below, can be found in the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, Gazett ...
References
Ice streams of Marie Byrd Land
{{MarieByrdLand-geo-stub