A team of researchers led by the University of Arizona (UArizona) conducted a radar “body scan” of Alaska’s Malaspina Glacier, which is the largest piedmont glacier in the world, and revealed interior channels underneath the glacier that could cause a higher rate of glacier retreat if seawater makes its way into these channels due to erosion of the glacier’s coastal barrier.”The loss of this glacier would likely be the largest loss of ice from an Alaskan glacier within this century,” said Brandon Tober, who is a PhD student in the UArizona Department of Geosciences, and lead author of the study.