NASA
British Antarctic Survey (Bas) released the most detailed map of the usual aspect of Antarctica when his omnipresent ice and snow cover is withdrawn.
This map, prepared from 60 years of dataIt will help scientists better understand ice flows.
According to, Antarctica is the hardest of all the continents of cartographer, because almost all of its earthly surface and even much of the back of the sea around it is sealed under a perpetual ice cover that contains 70% of all world freshwater supply.
With an average thickness of 1.9 km, it takes much more than a theodolite, a measurement stick and a coffee bottle to map the site.
Bas says it had to use six decades of readings collected by aircraft, satellites, ships and sled-pulled dugs (although dogs are terrible to guide), measuring radar, sonar and gravitational anomalies combined with sophisticated computer models to complete the call Bedmap3.
This is the Third Map of this type created by BAS and by a team of international scientists since 2001. Its goal is Take off the ice cap of 27 million km³ to reveal the rocky bed underneath.
The result of the investigation in the magazine Scientific Data, It is a new and much more detailed map of the current continent than any other previous. The findings include Antarctica’s highest mountains and the deepest paradors, as well as points where ice dives into depths of up to 4,757 m (15,607 feet).
According to BAS, the purpose of this work is more than a mere cartographic compilation; It is more than just completing cartography, but also to shed a powerful light on the mechanics of – especially the way glaciers flow over its surface and how underground rivers of hot water affect the ice, which may have Global consequences.
“This is the fundamental information that is based on the computer models we use to investigate the way ice will flow on the continent as temperatures increase,” said the Hamish PritchardGlaciologist of BAS and main author of the study.
“Imagine pouring syrup on a stone cake – all the pieces, all protrusions, will determine where the syrup is going and what speed.
A curious aspect of this map of rocks is that its accuracy depends on the presence of ice. If we remove it, everything changes. On the one hand, the ice water would have to go somewhere, which would cause the global level of the sea to rise 58 meters.
Even stranger, the ice cap weighs 24,759 qurinion of tons. If we remove this weight, the whole continent would recover like a spring, pushing it out of the ocean in the same way as Europe, North America and Asia have been rising about 12,000 years since the end of Last was a glacier.
This is why terms as a sea level of the sea are not as simple as they seem at first glance and tend to irritate oceanographers and geodesists.
Teresa Oliveira Campos, Zap //
