{"id":157306,"date":"2025-11-28T02:18:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T02:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/157306\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T02:18:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T02:18:31","slug":"international-partnership-maps-antarcticas-glacier-shifts-with-new-precision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/157306\/","title":{"rendered":"International Partnership Maps Antarctica\u2019s Glacier Shifts With New Precision"},"content":{"rendered":"

COSMO-SkyMed image of Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, which clearly shows icebergs
\n of considerable size (the one in the center of the image is almost 9.5 miles) breaking
\n away from the ice shelf formed by the flow of ice into the sea. Photo courtesy Italian
\n Space Agency<\/p>\n

A University of Houston scientist has teamed with international partners to examine
\n how Antarctica\u2019s massive glaciers are shifting and how that could predict sea level
\n changes. Their latest collaboration offers the most precise mapping to date in Antarctica
\n of grounding lines, the points where glaciers lift from bedrock and begin to float
\n on the ocean.<\/p>\n

On earth today, only two ice sheets, or continental glaciers, exist \u2014 one in Antarctica
\n and the other in Greenland. Over thousands of years of snow compacting and compressing,
\n the ice sheets formed and now cover most of the land in those areas.<\/p>\n

About five years ago, the Italian Space Agency began examining Antarctica\u2019s glaciers
\n during its dedicated COSMO-SkyMed mission, meant to observe the earth using its constellation
\n of four synthetic aperture radar satellites, first launched 17 years ago.<\/p>\n

And now, after transcription and interpretation, these observations reveal tidal movements
\n and retreat rates in Antarctica of up to 700 meters \u2014 or about a half mile \u2014 per year
\n in some regions, providing an unprecedented view of glacier evolution.<\/p>\n

Antarctica is a significant contributor to global sea level rise, with the potential
\n to substantially increase sea level by the end of this century.<\/p>\n

It seems a simple math problem: If the grounding line is measured as having moved
\n inland, where glacier thickness increases, then more ice is flowing outland \u2014 or into
\n the ocean. And the more ice into the ocean, means higher sea levels. And vice versa.<\/p>\n

\u201cContinuous monitoring of Antarctic evolution is important to understand ice sheet
\n dynamics, minimizing uncertainties in sea level rise projections, and develop strategies
\n to mitigate the risks posed by rising sea level,\u201d said Pietro Milillo, assistant professor
\n of civil and environmental engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis dataset provides the most detailed view yet of how Antarctica\u2019s glaciers are
\n interacting with the ocean. For the first time, we can monitor fast-flowing glaciers
\n at a continental scale using high-frequency radar observations.\u201d \u00a0Milillo and the
\n Italian Space Agency published their findings in Scientific Data<\/a>, a Nature publication.<\/p>\n

\"COSMOCOSMO-SkyMed over the earth. Photo courtesy Italian Space Agency.<\/p>\n

\"PietroPietro Milillo, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, is working
\n with the Italian Space Agency to interpret unprecendented photos of Antarctica glaciers.<\/p>\n

The paper presents an Antarctic grounding line dataset, manually mapped using Differential
\n Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) data. Over the years, various techniques
\n have been developed for mapping grounding lines, but DInSAR stands out for its ability
\n to operate under all weather conditions, and its proven effectiveness in continuously
\n monitoring grounding lines and detecting their rapid migrations.<\/p>\n

To measure tiny movements in the ice, the team analyzed 794 images from over 74 glaciers
\n in East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula between July 2020
\n and March 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur collaboration with NASA and the University of Houston highlights how international
\n cooperation can advance the frontiers of Earth observation,\u201d said Luigi Dini of the
\n Italian Space Agency, coauthor of the study. \u201cThe COSMO-SkyMed system\u2019s radar technology
\n gives scientists a powerful lens to observe Antarctica\u2019s evolution in near real time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dataset fills major data gaps left by previous missions which struggled to map
\n fast-flowing glaciers and is freely available to the scientific community.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy partnering with the Italian Space Agency and funding by NASA, we\u2019ve made these
\n data publicly available so scientists worldwide can better understand and model how
\n Antarctic glaciers are evolving and contributing to sea-level rise,\u201d said Milillo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COSMO-SkyMed image of Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, which clearly shows icebergs of considerable size (the one in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-157306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}