• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Historic Deal Reopens B.C. Indigenous Territory to Fracking, Promises Land Restoration March 19, 2023
Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe March 17, 2023
Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska March 14, 2023
U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse March 14, 2023
$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’ March 14, 2023
Next
Prev

Surface of Antarctica swimming with water

April 22, 2017
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

The network of rivers, streams, ponds and lakes across Antarctica has been mapped for the first time, and the extent of water flow is phenomenal.

LONDON, 22 April, 2017 – Scientists poring over military and satellite imagery have mapped the unimaginable: a network of rivers, streams, ponds, lakes and even a waterfall, flowing over the ice shelf of a continent with an annual mean temperature of more than -50C.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
Subscribe

In 1909 Ernest Shackleton and his fellow explorers on their way to the magnetic South Pole found that they had to cross and recross flowing streams and lakes on the Nansen Ice Shelf.

Antarctic waterways

Now, US scientists report in the journal Nature that they studied photographs taken by military aircraft from 1947 and satellite images from 1973 to identify almost 700 seasonal networks of ponds, channels and braided streams flowing from all sides of the continent, as close as 600km to the South Pole and at altitudes of 1,300 metres.

And they found that such systems carried water for 120km. A second research team reporting a companion study in the same issue of Nature identified one meltwater system with an ocean outflow that ended in a 130-metre wide waterfall, big enough to drain the entire surface melt in a matter of days.

In a world rapidly warming as humans burn ever more fossil fuels, to add ever more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, researchers expect to observe an increase in the volume of meltwater on the south polar surface. Researchers have predicted the melt rates could double by 2050. What isn’t clear is whether this will make the shelf ice around the continent – and shelf ice slows the flow of glaciers from the polar hinterland – any less stable.

“I think most polar scientists have considered
water moving across the surface of
Antarctica to be extremely rare. But we found
a lot of it, over very large areas”

“This is not in the future – this is widespread now, and has been for decades,” says Jonathan Kingslake, a glaciologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who led the research.

“I think most polar scientists have considered water moving across the surface of Antarctica to be extremely rare. But we found a lot of it, over very large areas.”

The big question is: has the level of surface melting increased in the last seven decades? The researchers don’t yet have enough information to make a judgment.

“We have no reason to think they have,” Dr Kingslake says. “But without further work, we can’t tell. Now, looking forward, it will be really important to work out how these systems will change in response to warming, and how this will affect the ice sheets.”

Many of the flow systems seem to start in the Antarctic mountains, near outcrops of exposed rock, or in places where fierce winds have scoured snow off the ice beneath. Rocks are dark, the exposed ice is of a blue colour, and during the long days of the Antarctic summer both would absorb more solar energy than white snow or ice. This would be enough to start the melting process.

The Antarctic is already losing ice, as giant floating shelves suddenly fracture and drift north. There is a theory that meltwater could be part of the fissure mechanism, as it seeps deep into the shelves.

Drainage theory

But the companion study, led by the polar scientist Robin Bell of the Lamont-Doherty Observatory suggests that drainage on the Nansen Ice Shelf might help to keep the ice intact, perhaps by draining away the meltwater in the dramatic waterfall the scientists had identified.

“It could develop this way in other places, or things could just devolve into giant slush puddles,” she says. “Ice is dynamic, and complex, and we don’t have the data yet.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
9
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
47
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
27

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement/flickr

Willow Oil Project in Alaska Faces Legal Challenges, Economic Doubts

March 19, 2023
72
@davenewworld_2

Keystone Pipeline Safety Worries Lawmakers after TC Energy Ordered to Reduce Operating Pressure

March 19, 2023
66
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
536
EcoFlight

Historic Deal Reopens B.C. Indigenous Territory to Fracking, Promises Land Restoration

March 19, 2023
327
Environmental Defence Canada/flickr

Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe

March 18, 2023
275
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/flickr

$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’

March 14, 2023
279

Recent Posts

Wikimedia Commons/Humans of Vanuatu

Six Countries Call for Fossil-Free Pacific

March 19, 2023
14
Wikipedia

Fossil Funding Makes Indigenous Resource Network a ‘Propaganda Machine’, Opponent Says

March 19, 2023
12
moerschy / Pixabay

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
9
U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
139
EcoAnalytics

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
148
Behrat/Wikimedia Commons

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
493
Next Post

Criminals leave much smaller carbon footprint

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}