In a startling discovery, scientists have found a huge river hidden under the sheets of ice in Antarctica. The team of glaciologists, who are studying the impact of climate change on glaciers, came to know about the river during a recent airborne radar surveys. A study about the waterway and its offshoots has been published in Nature Geoscience. Experts say that the river runs for 460 kilometres deep beneath the ice, a distance longer than the river Thames that flows through southern England, including London.
The discovery was made by researchers at Imperial College London, the University of Waterloo, Canada, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, and Newcastle University.
The glaciologists are saying that the river has the potential to substantially affect the way the glacial ice above it flow and melts.
"The region where this study is based holds enough ice to raise the sea level globally by 4.3 metres. How much of this ice melts, and how quickly, is linked to how slippery the base of the ice is. The newly discovered river system could strongly influence this process," said co-author of the study and glaciologist Martin Siegert from Imperial College London in the UK.
The discovery has been made by combining the data from airborne radar surveys and water flow modelling. They examined a large area, including ice from both east and west sheets in the Antarctic, with the water running off into the Weddell Sea.
Scientists are aware of the fact that water flows under ice sheets. But this new study shows that the melting of ice is resulting into the formation of rivers. They say these channels of fresh water can accelerate the ice melting process as the base of the glacier becomes less stable.
Now the scientists want to use the techniques used in this particular region if Antarctica in other parts of the continent to understand the effects of under-ice rivers on glacial melting.
