Antarctica breakthrough as map shows huge undiscovered mountains under ice

The most detailed map to date of the landscape beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet has been assembled by a team of international scientists led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

Known as Bedmap3, it incorporates over 60 years worth of survey data amassed by planes, satellites, ships – even dog-drawn sleds.

The map shows a clear view of the icy continent, as though its 27 million cubic km of ice had been removed, revealing unseen hidden locations of the tallest mountains and the deepest canyons.

One notable revision to the map is the place understood to have the thickest overlying ice.

Earlier surveys put this in the Astrolabe Basin, in Adélie Land.

However, data reinterpretation reveals it is an unnamed canyon at 76.052°S, 118.378°E in Wilkes Land. The ice here is 4,757 m thick, or more than 15 times the height of the Shard, the UK’s tallest skyscraper.

Bedpmap3 is now set to become an essential tool in the quest to understand how Antarctica might respond to a warming climate, as it enables scientists to study interactions between the ice sheet and the bed.

Dr Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist at BAS and lead author on the study detailing the new map, says:

“This is the fundamental information that underpins the computer models we use to investigate how the ice will flow across the continent as temperatures rise. Imagine pouring syrup over a rock cake – all the lumps, all the bumps, will determine where the syrup goes and how fast. And so it is with Antarctica: some ridges will hold up the flowing ice; the hollows and smooth bits are where that ice could accelerate.”

Bedmap3, as the name suggests, is the third attempt to draw a picture of Antarctica’s rock bed that began in 2001, but this new effort represents a dramatic refinement.

It includes, more than double the number of previous data points (82 million) rendered on a 500 m grid spacing.

Big knowledge gaps have been filled by recent surveys in East Antarctica including around the South Pole, along the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctic coastlines , and in the Transantarctic Mountains.

The outline of deep valleys is better represented, as are those places where rocky mountains stick up through the ice. The latest satellite data have also more accurately recorded the height and shape of the ice sheet and the thickness of the floating ice shelves that push out over the ocean at the continent’s margin. 

The map also records a comprehensive new, continent-wide view of grounding lines—the places where ice at the edge of the continent meets the ocean and begins to float. 

A variety of techniques, including radar, seismic reflection (sound waves), and gravity measurements, sense the landscape of the rock bed under Antarctica’s ice. 

 Subtracting this topography from the shape and elevation of the ice above provides some fascinating statistics on the polar south. 

• Total volume of Antarctic ice, including ice shelves: 27.17 million cu km

• Total area of Antarctic ice, including ice shelves: 13.63 million sq km

• Mean thickness of Antarctic ice, including ice shelves: 1,948 m. (Excluding ice shelves: 2,148 m)

• Potential global sea-level rise if all ice melted: 58 m

Peter Fretwell, mapping specialist and co-author at BAS, says:

“In general, it’s become clear the Antarctic Ice Sheet is thicker than we originally realised and has a larger volume of ice that is grounded on a rock bed sitting below sea-level. This puts the ice at greater risk of melting due to the incursion of warm ocean water that’s occurring at the fringes of the continent. What Bedmap3 is showing us is that we have got a slightly more vulnerable Antarctica than we previously thought.”