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The amount of ice at the poles and in glaciers around the world has declined significantly in recent decades due to climate change. Ice loss will become more important as temperatures rise, but to accurately predict specific changes, we need accurate data.
With this in mind, researchers at the University of Edinburgh wondered whether they could improve the data collected by the European Space Agency's CryoSat satellite. They have been able to restate the observations collected since 2010 and significantly improve the resolution, providing the most accurate 3D map of CryoSat to date.
The results were presented this week at the Living Planet Symposium in Milan, Italy. CryoSat is equipped with a radar altimeter to measure the height of the ice in the world. The satellite sends a microwave pulse and indicates the time required for this pulse to bounce on the ice and return to the satellite. The differences in return time correspond to precise differences in altitude.
Although the approach has been very useful for visualizing the vast icy expanses of the southernmost continent, it does not provide very detailed results for the Antarctic terrain. The data analysis conducted so far has focused on the first data point returned to the craft, so the finer details of the ground training may be missing.
The research team used an approach called "band processing", which takes into account all data from the microwave pulse. Using this technique, they were able to reduce surface spatial resolution to less than 1 kilometer. This has enabled the production of the excellent 3D map, which provides accurate altitudes and fairly detailed information on geographic formation.
The production of detailed maps of Antarctica is of great interest. Last year, researchers released the continent's best terrain map. The map is so good that it is the best map of a continent ever made.
Antarctica remains a part of the unexplored and somewhat mysterious world, but its well-being is crucial for us. If all the ice covering Antarctica melted, the sea level would rise by 70 meters (230 feet).
[H/T: BBC News]
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