On January 1, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured images of the Antarctica Amery ice shelf, showing that meltwater remained visible atop the ice sheet’s surface.
By late 2024, Antarctica had already experienced significant melting along its coastal areas, even though the melt season was less than halfway through. At the start of 2025, meltwater was still visible on the ice sheet’s surface, from the Antarctic Peninsula in the west to the Amery Ice Shelf in the east.
The Amery ice shelf is unique because of its long interior extent and extensive bordering bedrock exposures. Its interior extent is greater than 500 kilometers (300 miles).
Ice shelves like the Amery help hold back ice flow from inland areas. This can slow the discharge of glacial ice into the ocean and limit sea level rise. Thick and stable ice shelves do this job best. However, when meltwater drains through cracks in the ice, it can weaken the ice shelf.
Antarctica’s ice shelves may be melting at an accelerated rate
Several glaciers—including the Lambert, Mellor, and Fisher—appear in the images. They come together near the continent’s edge. This ice flows out to the ocean, forming the Amery Ice Shelf and filling Prydz Bay. Near its grounding line, the southern side of the ice shelf is visible in the middle right of the image.
The image above shows melting on the ice shelf, with blue puddles called melt ponds where snow has melted and pooled. Due to rising air temperatures, melt ponds often form on the Amery Ice Shelf during the Antarctic melt season from November 1 to March 31. Winds can also remove winter snow, exposing bare blue ice that absorbs more heat and melts faster.
Researcher Bert Wouters from TU Delft said that more extensive melt ponding has been seen in previous seasons, but it’s still early, and more ponding is likely in the coming weeks. The visible ponding followed a significant melt event around the Antarctic Ice Sheet’s margins in mid-December 2024. This led to record melt on December 25 and 26, with melting detected across more than 3% of the ice sheet’s surface.
Ponding on the Amery is usually limited to areas near the shelf’s grounding line. Near the ice shelf’s front, colder and drier conditions prevent ponding by refreezing meltwater within the snowpack. However, just a few more degrees of warming could make these regions vulnerable to ponding.
Source: Tech Explorist
