Buried beneath kilometres-thick slabs of ice are rivers and huge lakes - some of which are teeming with microbes that thrive in a world without light or oxygen.
Knowing where the ice comes from can help work out what it will do to sea levels.
Polar ice isn’t all the same - it can be divided roughly into “land ice” and “sea ice”. What matters most for sea levels is how much ice slides off the land and melts in the sea.
Some parts of Antarctica’s Totten Glacier are more stable than others.
UWA/ICECAP
New mapping shows how Antarctica’s huge Totten Glacier has retreated far inland, raising sea levels by more than a metre. Rising temperatures could trigger it to do so again.
Glaciers have been a major contributor to sea-level rise.
Knut Christianson
Could sea levels really rise by several metres this century. Probably not, although this century’s greenhouse emissions could potentially set the stage for large rises in centuries to come.
Where the ice meets the sea: Antarctica’s ice shelves play a key role in how fast ice sheets melt.
Antarctica image from www.shutterstock.com
If we burned all fossil fuels, the loss of ice in Antarctica would raise sea levels 160 to 200 feet, but even our current trajectory could lead to dramatic sea level rise.
Study raises new questions over the rate of ice melting, and thus sea level rise.
NASA
NASA’s former climate chief, James Hansen, is lead author on a paper that predicts rapidly rising seas this century, but not all climate scientists believe the study’s models are convincing.
Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf photographed in October 2011 from NASA’s DC-8 research aircraft during an Operation IceBridge flight.
Michael Studinger/NASA
Researchers find that ice around Antarctica shrank quickly last decade, raising concerns over this buttress against melting land-based ice and future sea-level rise.
The Thwaites Glacier is among several in West Antarctica that is already retreating.
NASA
Antarctic climate science is having a moment – a worrying moment. Three new studies have all concluded that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun to collapse. This collapse will impact humanity for generations…
A previously unknown canyon has been discovered in Greenland, hidden beneath the ice. It is at least 750 kilometres long. To put that in perspective, imagine a ten kilometre wide gorge, up to 800 metres…