The topography of the bedrock under the Antarctic Ice Sheet is critical to understanding the dynamic motion of the ice sheet, its thickness and its influence on the surrounding ocean and global climate. In 2001, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) released a map of the bed under the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the seabed extending out on to the continental shelf derived from data collected by an international consortium of scientists over the prior fifty years. The resulting dataset was called BEDMAP (or BEDMAP1). In 2013, BAS released an update of the topographic dataset called BEDMAP2 that incorporates twenty-five million measurements taken over the past two decades from the ground, air and space. This visualization compares the new BEDMAP2 dataset to the original BEDMAP1 dataset showing the improvements in resolution and coverage.
Above: Move bar to compare the Bedmap1 topography (left) to the Bedmap2 topography (right). Download HTML to embed this in your web page.
Since 2009, NASA's mission Operation IceBridge (OIB) has flown aircraft over the Antarctic Ice Sheet carrying laser and ice-penetrating radar instruments to collect data about the surface height, bedrock topography and ice thickness. This visualization highlights the contribution that OIB has made to this important dataset. The topography in this visualization is exaggerated to emphasize the topographic relief. The amount of exaggeration varies based on the viewpoint, from twenty times in distant views down to nine times when near the Pine Island Bay.
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Complete transcript available.
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Thanks to work led by the British Antarctic Survey, scientists have a new 3D map of Antarctica’s ice and bedrock. The map, called Bedmap2, incorporates millions of new measurements, including data collected by NASA's ICESat satellite and airborne Operation IceBridge mission. The result is a virtual reconstruction of the continent’s bedrock topography and ice layers captured in never-before-seen detail. Antarctica plays a large role in the global climate system. The melting and emptying of its ice into the sea influences ocean currents and the rate of sea level rise. By having a precise map of Antarctica’s mountains, ridges, slopes and valleys—all of which affect how fast the continent's ice travels across the ice sheet—scientists can better predict future rates of ice flow. 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