Scientists have produced images of the frozen continent 100 times sharper than ever

It was not so long ago that we had better maps of Mars than Antarctica. But all of a sudden, the South Pole has moved up and down the class. The southernmost continent of the world is now the best-mapped land mass in the world. And for that, we can thank REMA, the reference elevation model of Antarctica.

"Thanks to satellites, a ton of computing power and a lot of work, we now have a more detailed map of Antarctica than any other continent," said glaciologist Mike MacFerrin. @IceSheetMike; however, "you will need 150 TB to download everything."

REMA, developed by the Department of Earth Sciences at Iowa State University and the Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota and the University of Illinois, produced a map of the continent frozen 100 times higher than before. While the standard resolution for comparable maps is 1,000 meters (about 3,280 feet), this one has a resolution of 2 or 8 meters (6.5 or 26 feet), depending on where you look the continent.

REMA Antarctic Resolution; the blue shading corresponds to a resolution of 2 meters and the purple corresponds to a resolution of 8 meters (Source: REMA / Polar Geospatial Center / Ohio State University).

It's much more than the collective image of any other continent. To put this in perspective, the 150 terabytes produced by REMA on Antarctica are

• about as much data as the IRS compliance database held in 2006 (each year, 15 to 20 terabytes are added).
• a little more than the entire 95-minute digital animation movie of 2010 Despicable Me (In reality, the movie only used 142 TB of data).
• much more than all the data collected by the Hubble telescope between its launch in 1990 and 2008 (120 TB).

REMA "provides the first high-resolution, high-accuracy field dataset of about 98% of the contiguous continental landmass of Antarctica, [from the South Pole] at 88 ° S "indicates the project website.

The map, built with data extracted from satellite images, is not only static. Ongoing contributions will provide scientists with the most detailed snapshot of changing landscape patterns in the Antarctic – from changes in snow cover, ice flow, ice, snow, ice, snow, ice, snow, and snow. thickness of the glacier and all geological activities.

Overview of the highest resolution Antarctic map ever produced (Source: Ohio State University).

But why do we need all these high resolution images for what is essentially a big chunk of ice? Because Antarctica is a crucial indicator for the study of global climate change and a potential source of dramatic rise in sea level. recently published a series of studies on Antarctic changes. Here are some key findings:

• 3,000 billion tonnes of ice was lost between 1992 and 2017. This corresponds to an average rise in sea level of 8 mm (1/3 inch). The rate of ice loss has increased dramatically in recent years.
• The East Antarctic Ice Cap is found to be more resistant to melt than the ice caps of Greenland and West Antarctic. If it melted completely, the sea level would rise 53 meters (175 feet).
• By 2070, the Antarctic ice sheets will remain at about their current state or will experience a large-scale melting. The difference depends on the decisive action of humanity in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

Strange cards # 937

Do you have a strange card? Let me know [email protected].