ESA - Observing the Earth - Revealed: an ice sheet on the move

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Revealed: an ice sheet on the move

18 August 2011

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The animation shows the huge network of glaciers carrying ice thousands of kilometres across Antarctica. This has just been discovered by piecing together billions of radar data points. A large proportion of new data were collected by satellites such as ESA's Envisat, the Canadian Space Agency's Radarsat and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s ALOS during the International Polar Year. Scientists from the University of California Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory worked on the data to generate the first map of ice sheet velocity covering the whole of Antarctica.

Credits: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

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This is the first map of ice velocity over the entire continent of Antarctica. It is derived from ALOS PALSAR, Envisat ASAR, Radarsat-2, ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellite radar interferometry overlaid on a MODIS mosaic of Antarctica. These new findings are critical to measuring the global impact to sea-level rise resulting from ice flowing into the ocean.

Credits: E. Rignot et al

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The two fastest Antarctic glaciers, Pine Island (top centre) and Thwaites (bottom right) in West Antarctica, as seen by ESA's Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) on 15 August 2011. The Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers are moving several times faster than any other glacier on Antarctica. A large iceberg, identified as B-22A iceberg, detached from Thwaites glacier few years ago, but still remains close as it may be grounded on a submarine shoal. The B-22A iceberg measures 80×45 km, the Envisat ASAR image size is 226×335 km.

More Envisat images can be found at ESA's MIRAVI website http://miravi.eo.esa.int

Credits: ESA