{"id":525499,"date":"2026-01-18T16:26:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/525499\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T16:26:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:26:17","slug":"most-detailed-map-yet-of-antarctica-under-the-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/525499\/","title":{"rendered":"Most detailed map yet of Antarctica under the ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers used satellite data and computer models of glacial movements to create a new map of Antarctica as it rests deep beneath the ice. The high-resolution imagery reveals the frozen continent’s landscape in detail, including “high-relief alpine valleys, scoured lowlands, and deeply eroded ice stream troughs.”<\/p>\n

The map was published in the paper Complex mesoscale landscapes beneath Antarctica mapped from space<\/a>, by Helen Ockenden and others, in the journal Science.<\/p>\n

\n

The landscapes are more varied than presumed by earlier site-specific geophysical surveys, and the newly resolved topography will help to refine projections of ice loss and sea level rise<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The BBC reports that “traditional measurements” using ground and air radar mapped the continent in lines several kilometers apart, creating a grid of data that required the rest to be extrapolated.<\/p>\n

\n

“It’s like before you had a grainy pixel film camera, and now you’ve got a properly zoomed-in digital image of what’s really going on,” lead author Dr Helen Ockenden, a researcher at the University of Grenoble-Alpes, told BBC News.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There doesn’t seem to be new heightmap data available (here’s the “old” one<\/a>), but surely it’ll show up soon. A note of caution for science-fictional worldbuilders eager to melt the ice: absent all that weight, the land won’t be staying down.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Image: Helen Ockenden<\/p>\n

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