Mystery Occurring in East Antarctica Affects Millions of Lives Across the Planet

In the last major glacial epoch, or 'Ice Age', there have been small-scale climate shifts in the Earth's landmass and a recent study assumes that the bedrock below the world's southernmost continent - Antarctica - has been rebounding since.

Researchers from the newly-formed ARC Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS), based at the University of Tasmania, unravels the moving mystery of the icy continent using global positioning system (GPS) technologies as a new method to measure its land movement.

Moreover, these changes will affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, Phys.org wrote.

How is Antarctica changing and by how much?

Often described as a continent of superlatives, the ice-covered land mass of Antarctic is also "crucial yet fragile part of Earth's climate system," says ACEAS Director Professor Matt King. Even then and now, it has always been challenging for researchers to observe, monitor and understand the remote region.

"Every day a little bit of Antarctica turns up on the coastlines of the world through sea level rise and coastal erosion. But the big question remains: how is Antarctica changing and by how much?" Professor King poses the question.

However, sea level rise is just a direct impact of a much bigger mystery that occurs in Antarctica. ACEAS investigates, as best as they can, the Antarctic impacts on sea-level rise, which areas, communities and economies in particular are affected and by how much.

Details of the study published in the journal of American Geophysical Union (AGU) show that the ice in Antarctica has been going down. "We think this is because the ice in this area grew over the last few thousand years and then stabilized," Professor King explains.

Unfortunately, no satellite technology can exactly tell whether the recent changes in the region are due to ice change or land motion beneath.

Long term fate of the Antarctic deep

Scientists are unsure at this time as to how the changes of the Antarctic landscape may or may not affect the future, whether it is growing, shrinking, or if there is any significance therein.

"It's a complex puzzle but we're working out how to solve it," Professor King said.

One thing they are sure of is that there had been consistent evidence that much of this region may have experienced ice sheet readvance during the late Holocene. Although one of the challenges in getting better measurement of the land is finding rock outcrops in the ice to put the GPS antennas on.

"Rock in Antarctica is like hens' teeth. And where they are is remote and cold," he said. "We also need to find ways to figure out how the Earth is moving underneath the vast ice sheet there-where there are no rock outcrops."

For the team, this challenge poses a roadblock and while there may have been no simple solutions in the meantime, their current analysis is relevant in providing new and important constraints on models of glacial changes, and adds new geodetic evidence in understanding the late Holocene ice sheet retreat in the region.