BAS-Led Mission Uses Advanced Robotics and AI to Study Atlantic Tipping Points

A British Antarctic Survey-led international research team has begun a six-week expedition to Greenland to investigate how rapidly melting fjord glaciers could affect critical Atlantic Ocean currents.

Operating from the UK polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough, the researchers will deploy a fleet of airborne drones, marine robots, satellites and sensors to collect data near the ice-ocean interface. The observations will be used to improve predictions of how Greenland’s glaciers will change and affect the surrounding ocean as they melt.

The fieldwork forms part of GIANT, or Greenland Ice Sheet to Atlantic Tipping Points, a five-year international collaboration involving 17 partners, including seven international partners. The project is led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and funded by the Advanced Research + Invention Agency as part of its Forecasting Tipping Points programme.

Freshwater entering the ocean from Greenland’s rapidly melting ice could affect the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre, a major system of ocean currents that influences the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Described as the planet’s ocean conveyor belt, the AMOC transports heat and nutrients around the world.

The AMOC carries warm, salty water northwards from the tropics, where it cools and sinks. However, cold, fresh meltwater from Greenland’s fjord glaciers could form a cap over the Subpolar Gyre and reduce the sinking of the water beneath it. This could slow the AMOC, with serious implications for the regional climate, including weather in the UK and Europe. Some estimates suggest such a change could occur within decades.

Dr Kelly Hogan, a marine geophysicist at British Antarctic Survey is leading the GIANT research project, commented, “We’re in a moment where our tools have finally caught up with our questions. With autonomous vehicles, advanced sensors, and powerful modelling – boosted by AI – we can explore glacier-ocean interactions in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.”

The research will focus on tidewater glaciers near Kangerlussuaq Fjord in south-east Greenland. These glaciers flow through long, narrow fjords and terminate in ice cliffs reaching up to 100 metres in height.

Frequent iceberg calving creates an ice mélange, a dense, slushy mixture of sea ice and iceberg fragments that can act as a brake on a glacier and slow its movement into the ocean. When the debris clears during summer, calving can increase and the glaciers may retreat rapidly.

RRS Sir David Attenborough will serve as a floating laboratory, supporting detailed measurements of fjord depth and shape, ocean temperature, salinity and currents. It will also provide a launch platform for autonomous vehicles capable of collecting observations in the hazardous waters close to the ice.

One of the instruments being deployed is Meltstake, a first-of-its-kind system that measures melting directly at the glacier’s ice face. Lowered using a remotely operated boat, the sensor will drill into the ice 100 metres below the surface and measure how heat is transferred from the water to the ice.

The surface-skimming DriX robot will use scanning sonar to map the shape of the glacier beneath the water and track changes in melting over daily or potentially hourly timescales. It will also measure current strength and direction, temperature and salinity, helping the researchers examine connections between ocean conditions and glacial melting.

Gavia and EcoSub underwater robots will operate together using acoustic positioning technology. Diving hundreds of metres below the surface, they will approach closer to the ice face than DriX, map the submerged glacier front and collect information about the surrounding ocean.

Autosub Long Range, also known as Boaty McBoatface, will dive to a depth of 1,500 metres beneath the ice mélange. Developed by the National Oceanography Centre, the vehicle will map the mélange’s geometry and examine how it affects the surrounding ice and ocean as it melts.

Dr Pierre Dutrieux, an oceanographer at British Antarctic Survey who is leading the ocean robotics research aboard RRS Sir David Attenborough, said, “If we want to understand how glaciers melt and fracture, we need to be where the action happens – where the glacial ice meets the ocean. We need these ocean robots to do this – the glacier front is so unpredictable and dangerous, because huge blocks of ice calve into the ocean with little warning.

“With the fleet of autonomous and remotely controlled instruments we have with us, some of the data we’ll be collecting will be the first of its kind. The DriX will give us a near-live feed of what is happening right at the glacier face – something we wouldn’t have thought possible even a few years ago.”

A smaller team will camp near the glacier to collect additional observations of its behaviour. An instrument called Adios will measure the glacier’s precise position and rate of movement, while radar will be used to examine its internal ice layers and help researchers understand how the ice is moving and straining.

The team will also deploy Geopebbles, GPS-enabled seismic sensors that record cracking and calving events, while drones will survey the ice from above.

The resulting datasets will feed directly into a hierarchy of ice, ocean and climate models enhanced by machine learning and artificial intelligence. These include the next-generation UK Earth System Model, which the GIANT project will help equip to predict more accurately how Greenland ice loss could affect global climate change.

The researchers also intend to develop a prototype Early Warning System that could provide advance notice of rapid changes in Greenland’s glaciers.