Scientists create the most detailed map of Antarctica – BGR

Chances are you will spend most of your days without sparing your thoughts for Antarctica. With just over 5.4 million square kilometers, it is a huge piece of land that is almost twice the size of Australia and surpasses the continental United States. It is also covered with ice, which makes it much less attractive as a potential vacation destination.

Still, scientists and researchers have a great interest, and a new mapping effort has given the continent the most impressive and accurate insight.

The new map, named the Antarctic Reference Elevation Model (or REMA for short), was created by researchers from Ohio State University, led by Professor Ian Howat. His desire to create an incredibly detailed map was the simple fact that until now the maps of Antarctica were simply bad.

"Until now, we had a better map of Mars than in Antarctica," said Howat, professor of earth sciences and director of the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. "Now, it's the best-mapped continent."

To build the map, Howat and his team had to sift through an immense amount of data that was constantly being collected by cruise satellites on the mainland. To help gather the different high resolution images, the researchers constructed a tool that matched the images, overlapping the edges and aligning them to be as accurate as possible.

The end result is a map that is not only incredibly sharp, but also extremely large in terms of file size. The total size of the card is actually greater than 150 terabytes. Yes, you read correctly. Assuming that the smartphone in your pocket contains about 64GB of data, it would take more than 2,300 to hold the amount of data in this image. Yes

But why bother to create such a detailed map of a place that is essentially only a big block of ice? Antarctica is an excellent indicator of climate health and, by measuring changes in the ice in the region, scientists can learn a great deal about the direction the planet is taking.

"At this resolution, you can see almost everything," explains Howat. "We can actually see variations in the snow in some places. We will be able to measure changes in the surface of the continent over time. We will see changes in the snow cover, changes in the movement of the ice, we can monitor the flow of the river, floods and volcanoes. We will be able to see the thinning of the glaciers. "