From over 500 kilometres up, as TerraSAR-X looks down on its icy surface, the Antarctic’s Nimrod Glacier looks like molten metal. During its flight over the Antarctic, the German Aerospace Centre’s (DLR) radar satellite is one of the few that can direct its view over this glacier in the Transantarctic Mountains. Researchers can use these images from space to determine the flow speed of the glacier.
Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton may not have completed his quest to be the first to stand on the geographic South Pole on his first Antarctic exploration (1907-1909), but his expedition was such a success that his ship, Nimrod, gave its name to the glacier. The glacier is 135 kilometres long (82.5°S, 160°E), working its way from the polar plateau through the Transantarctic Mountains, a range of mountains that runs across the entire continent of Antarctica at heights of up to 4500 metres. While it moves, it transports ice from eastern Antarctica to the Ross Ice Shelf. The glacier can move up to two metres per day. “The flow speed is an important indicator in understanding the dynamics of the polar ice sheets,” says Dana Floricioiu from the DLR Remote Sensing Technology Institute. “The polar regions play an important role in the Earth system – changes influence climate models with a local impact on the properties of the polar oceans as well as a global impact on rising sea levels.” This detailed image – acquired by the TerraSAR-X radar satellite and having a width of about 30 kilometres, shows the glacier flowing around the Kon-Tiki Nunatak, a rock protruding through the ice sheet. It is even possible to pick out the fissures in the glacier’s main body.
Read More
