Die Landschaft unter der eisigen Oberfläche der Antarktis offenbart sich in beispielloser Detailliertheit | Komplexe mesoskalige Landschaften unter der Antarktis, kartiert aus dem Weltraum

Sections of the news report:

>Researchers used satellite data and the physics of how Antarctica’s glaciers move to work out what the continent might look like beneath the ice.
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>They found evidence of thousands of previously undiscovered hills and ridges, and say their maps of some of Antarctica’s hidden mountain ranges are clearer than ever before.
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>While the maps are subject to uncertainties, the researchers believe the new details could shed light on how Antarctica will respond to climate change – and what that means for sea-level rise.
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>“It’s like before you had a grainy pixel film camera, and now you’ve got a properly zoomed-in digital image of what’s really going on,“ lead author Dr Helen Ockenden, a researcher at the University of Grenoble-Alpes, told BBC News.
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>Thanks to satellites, scientists have a good understanding of Antarctica’s icy surface – but what lies beneath has remained more of a mystery.
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>In fact, more is known about the surface of some planets in our Solar System than much of Antarctica’s „underbelly“ – the topography beneath the ice sheet.
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>But researchers now have what they believe to be the most complete, detailed map of that underbelly ever made.
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>…
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>The researchers’ new map is unlikely to be the final one. It relies on assumptions about exactly how ice flows which, like any method, comes with uncertainties.
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>And much remains to be discovered about the rocks and sediments that lie beneath the ice.
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>But other researchers agree that, combined with further surveys from the ground, air and space, the maps are a valuable step forward.
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>“This is a really useful product,“ said Dr Peter Fretwell, senior scientist at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, who was not involved in the new study but has been extensively involved in previous mapping.
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>“It gives us an opportunity to fill in the gaps between those surveys,“ he added.
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>A more detailed understanding of all of the ridges, hills, mountains and channels could improve computer models of how Antarctica might change in future, the researchers say.

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Link to journal: [Complex mesoscale landscapes beneath Antarctica mapped from space](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady2532)

Abstract: The landscape shrouded by the Antarctic Ice Sheet provides important insights into its history and influences the ice response to climate forcing. However, knowledge of this critical boundary has depended on interpolation between irregularly distributed geophysical surveys, creating major spatial biases in maps of Antarctica’s subglacial landscape. As stress changes associated with ice flow over bedrock obstacles produce ice surface topography, recently acquired, high-resolution satellite maps of the ice surface offer a transformative basis for mapping subglacial landforms. We present a continental-scale elevation map of Antarctica’s subglacial topography produced by applying the physics of ice flow to ice surface maps and incorporating geophysical ice thickness observations. Our results enrich understanding of mesoscale (2 to 30 kilometers) subglacial landforms and unmask the spatial distribution of subglacial roughness and geomorphology.