Scientists found massive ice channels as big as the Eiffel tower beneath a floating ice shelf in Antarctica using satellite images and radar measurements.
Measuring 250 meters high and hundreds of kilometers wide, the enormous ice channels will most likely contribute to the stability of the floating ice shelf and aid scientists in understanding how ice react to the changes of the Earth’s environmental conditions.
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey and different universities – University of York, Newcastle University, University of Exeter, University of Edinburgh and the University of Bristol – used airborne radar measurements and satellite images. The ice channels can be viewed from the surface of the ice shelf and even below because the ice, depending on its thickness, floats at different heights.
The pathway of the melted water flowing through the ice sheet, which is a mass of glacier ice that is in contact with the terrain, was also identified by the scientists. They found that the pathway of the meltwater goes with the channels beneath the ice shelf to where the ice begins to drift.
As the meltwater beneath the ice sheet joins the ocean under the ice shelf, it results to the formation of plume of ocean water that eventually melts out the channels beneath the ice shelf.
"If we are to understand the behaviour of the ice sheet, and its contribution to changes in sea level, we need to fully understand the role of water at the base of the ice sheet. The information gained from these newly discovered channels will enable us to understand more fully how the water system works and, hence, how the ice sheet will behave in the future," said Dr. Anne Le Brocq of the University of Exeter to a news release.
This recent discovery contradicts a previous belief that the water flowed in a thin layer below the ice sheet.
