Antarctic's Rocky Secrets Revealed

Antarctic's hidden bed-rock is revealed in BEDMAP -- scientists have produced the most detailed imaging yet of the landscape present underneath all that snow.


The map provides important information on the white-continent's responsiveness to global warming. Presently, the sea levels surrounding the continent are constantly on a rise due to the increasing amounts of melting-ice being lost to the ocean. Imagery such as the BEDMAP helps researchers forecast the speed at which any future changes might take place.


Dr. Hamish Pritchard from the British Antarctic survey explains (as reported by the BBC) : "This is information that underpins the models we now use to work out how the ice flows across the continent. The Antarctic ice sheet is constantly supplied by falling snow, and the ice flows down to the coast where great bergs calve into the ocean or it melts. It's a big, slow-speed hydrological cycle. To model that process requires knowledge of some complex ice physics but also of the bed topography over which the ice is flowing - and that's BEDMAP."