In 2009, Pettit tried to monitor the ice front from a safe distance in Icy Bay, Alaska, using hydrophones to record sounds underwater.

But the new findings could help solve a long-standing mystery: in some tidewater glaciers in places like Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, the ice front is melting 10 times more quickly than scientists think it should, based on the water temperature.

The open, warmer ocean is expected to provide more moisture and fuel for storms, but it would also reduce the low-level spin-ups that spark many storms, by eliminating temperature gradients at what was once the ice front and diminishing gradients between ocean and land.

Near the surface, temperature differences between the ocean and the ice front or between land and the ocean can do the same.

What appears to be happening is that deep warm ocean water is flowing to the coast and down to the ice front, melting the glacier.