Hidden beneath the biggest ice mass on Earth, hundreds of subglacial lakes form a crucial part of Antarctica’s icy structure, affecting the movement and stability of glaciers, and consequentially influencing global sea level rise.
Thanks to a decade of data from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat satellite, researchers have identified 85 previously unknown lakes several kilometres under the frozen surface surrounding the South Pole. This increases the number of known active subglacial lakes below Antarctica by more than half to 231.
The reasearch, published in Nature Communications, is significant because active subglacial lakes, which drain and refill on a cyclical basis, offer a rare insight into what is happening far below the surface, at the base of the ice sheet. The research also identified new drainage pathways underneath the ice sheet, including five interconnected subglacial lake networks.
Read more at: https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/CryoSat/85_new_subglacial_lakes_detected_below_Antarctica