{"id":1881,"date":"2025-09-04T18:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T18:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/1881\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T18:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T18:06:09","slug":"no-glaciers-or-crevasses-332-underwater-canyons-discovered-in-antarctica-five-times-more-than-previously-thought-which-could-accelerate-sea-level-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/1881\/","title":{"rendered":"No glaciers or crevasses\u2014332 underwater canyons discovered in Antarctica, five times more than previously thought, which could accelerate sea level rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists have just discovered that <\/a>Antarctica\u2014that place we all imagine as nothing but ice and penguins\u2014is hiding hundreds of valleys under the sea. Not a handful, or a hundred. 332 submarine canyons carved deep into the seafloor. That\u2019s five times more than anyone ever guessed.<\/p>\n

The team who figured this out was led by David Ambl\u00e0s from the University of Barcelona and Riccardo Arosio from University College Cork. They used something called the International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean<\/a>, basically the most detailed underwater map we\u2019ve ever had of that part of the world. And when they zoomed in, the flat, empty seafloor suddenly lit up with shapes. Canyons everywhere.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the wild part: those canyons aren\u2019t just scenery. They actually control how the ocean breathes. Through them flows Antarctic Bottom Water, this super cold, heavy current that spreads across the globe and helps regulate the planet\u2019s temperature. But the same canyons also let warmer Circumpolar Deep Water sneak underneath the ice shelves.<\/p>\n

That warmer water sneaks under the ice and slowly eats it away from the bottom. Once the base gives out, the glaciers don\u2019t stand a chance\u2014they just slide into the ocean faster and faster. The Amundsen Sea is one of the spots where this is happening the most, and those hidden canyons are helping it along. In the end, it all ties back to climate change\u2026 and to the rising seas that every coastline will have to deal with.<\/p>\n

East vs. west: Two different stories under the ice<\/p>\n

The coolest part is how different East and West Antarctica look under the ice. In the east, the canyons are big and wide, shaped like giant U\u2019s. They\u2019ve been carved out slowly, over millions of years by glaciation. You can almost picture those huge ice sheets crawling forward, scraping the seafloor smooth as they went.<\/p>\n

Out west, the canyons look short and jagged, shaped like sharp V\u2019s, you can tell they\u2019re younger. Scientists always guessed the eastern ice sheet was way older, but now the seafloor itself proves it. It\u2019s kind of like flipping through two totally different history books sitting side by side.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t just some random fun fact about Antarctica. The climate change models we use right now don\u2019t really show how these canyons work. Without better maps, we\u2019re basically guessing about how fast the ice will melt and how high the seas will rise. That\u2019s why this discovery actually matters. It\u2019s not just \u201coh wow, that\u2019s interesting\u201d, it\u2019s more like this changes how we see the future.<\/p>\n

Why hidden valleys shape all of our futures<\/p>\n

The 332 canyons scientists found? That\u2019s probably just the start. As Arosio put it, \u201cWe must continue to collect high-resolution bathymetric data in unmapped areas, which will surely reveal new canyons.\u201d In other words, the more we map, the more secrets Antarctica will give up.<\/p>\n

I really think this is amazing. We usually picture Antarctica as frozen and lifeless<\/a>, maybe even a little boring. But it\u2019s not, it\u2019s full of hidden stories.<\/p>\n

Antarctica isn\u2019t than far after all<\/p>\n

So next time you see a photo of Antarctica, don\u2019t just picture snow and penguins. Imagine the deep valleys hidden under the cold water\u2026\u00a0Those secret canyons, thousands of miles away, are already shaping the seas and the storms we live with today.<\/p>\n

Because the truth is that Antarctica isn\u2019t just \u201cdown there\u201d at the bottom of the map. It\u2019s tied to every coastline, every tide, every future storm. And those secret canyons beneath the ice? They\u2019re part of the story we\u2019re all living wherever we are right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have just discovered that Antarctica\u2014that place we all imagine as nothing but ice and penguins\u2014is hiding hundreds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-1881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881","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=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}