When scientists peered beneath one of Antarctica's floating ice shelves, they were surprised to find an upside-down landscape of peaks, valleys a

Swirls and scoops: Antarctica's upside down ice-scape we had no idea existed

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2024-11-25 04:30:04

When scientists peered beneath one of Antarctica's floating ice shelves, they were surprised to find an upside-down landscape of peaks, valleys and plateaus.

"We were surprised – we had to double check it was real," says Anna Wåhlin, professor of physical oceanography at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. "But we realised, it really does look like this – there are these shapes. There is a landscape of ice down there we had no idea about before," she says.

In 2022, an international team of scientists led by Wåhlin lowered an unmanned submersible underneath 350m (1,150ft) thick Antarctic ice. For 27 days, it travelled over 1,000km (621miles) back and forth under the Dotson Ice Shelf in West Antarctica, scanning the ice above it with an advanced sonar. The result was the very first map of the underside of an ice shelf – and the discovery of an otherworldly ice-scape – which Wåhlin likens to seeing the dark side of the moon for the first time.

The never before seen "swirls and scoops" map the meltwater's journey as it flows beneath the ice, giving us a new understanding of how the ocean melts Antarctica's ice – and how its fate could affect us all.

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