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Satellite lasers find giant lakes under Antarctic ice
Posted on Sun Jun 22 2008
Source: Deborah Zabarenko, Space lasers detect big lakes under Antarctic ice. Scientific American, February 16. Photo by NASA. What do you think? |
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Huge lakes covering hundreds of square miles are hiding beneath half a mile of Antarctic ice, but their undulations cause such dramatic changes at the surface that they can be detected from space. Laser pulses sent from NASA's ICESat provided the evidence of the lakes, which are continuously draining and filling, and which scientists say are not caused by global warming. If all of Antarctica's ice were to melt, sea levels could rise by 23 feet, so detailed models of the behavior of Antartica's ice sheets are crucial to understanding the impacts of climate change. Currently those models don't take into account the subglacial lakes, which help speed the journey of glacial ice to the sea. Scientists hope that the new understanding of how the lakes work will help improve computer models that predict how the Antarctic glaciers will respond to climate change.