Once you've looked with the right tools, you realize much of this ice isn't "frozen" in place after all! Spacecraft show us the motion of the Lambert Glacier. This river of ice is flowing along at more than one kilometer a year. |
Image courtesy of NASA |
Image courtesy of NASA |
Even in the heart of the continent, on that seemingly endless West Antarctic ice sheet, there are "ice streams," regions of ice fairly zipping along faster than their neighboring areas. |
In PASSPORT TO ANTARCTICA program 2 we visited with Sridhar Anandakrishnan, who used explosives to probe the ice. West Antarctica has been a main focus of the U.S. Antarctic program for many years. But the past 2 seasons saw a new experiment looking at the ice as a way to understand global climate change. |
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Websites
• Viewing Antarctica with RADARSAT Images and animations of Antarctica using RADARSAT. • WAIS Home Page The website for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Initiative with information about their findings on rapid climate change and future sea level. |
