Researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography participated in the study, led by the University of Cambridge, that compiled long-term ocean measurements collected by ships and autonomous floats to show that a warm water mass called “circumpolar deep water” has expanded and shifted toward the Antarctic continental shelf over the past 20 years. “In the past, the ice sheets were protected by a bath of cold water, preventing them from melting. Now it looks like the ocean’s circulation has changed, and it’s almost like someone turned on the hot tap and now the bath is getting warmer,” said Scripps physical oceanographer Sarah Purkey. Ice shelves play an important role in holding back Antarctica’s inland ice sheets and glaciers, which collectively hold enough freshwater to raise sea level by about 58 meters (190 feet).…