Underwater Drone Discovers Strange Shapes Under Antarctic Ice

"I couldn’t stop looking at it."

Strange New World

Ever wondered what the underside of a massive ice shelf in Antarctica looks like?

We know now after an underwater drone mapped the hidden side of one in Antarctica, The New York Times reports, revealing a dramatic landscape of deep crevices, sculptural terraces, and wide divots dug into the ice.

The scientists behind the effort published images of the ice shelf's underside as part of a new study in the journal Science Advances, which was meant to help gauge how fast ice in Antarctica is melting due to global warming.

The images reveal a strange icy landscape seemingly shaped and sculpted by strong ocean waves, melting and eating away these gargantuan floes of ice in in Antarctica.

"I couldn’t stop looking at it," University of Gothenburg, Sweden oceanographer and the study's first author Anna Wahlin told the NYT. "We had no idea it could look like this."

Melting Point

Wahlin and her co-researchers relied on their 20-feet-long robotic colleague, an underwater drone dubbed Ran, to swim under the Dotson Ice Shelf in West Antarctica to capture its hidden underside using sonar.

The images from the drone are helpful because they upend scientists' understanding of how ocean waves impact the evolution of ice shelves as they melt.

Peter Davis, a British Antarctic Survey oceanographer and study contributor, told the NYT that scientists thought the waves would smooth out the hidden watery depths of the ice shelf, but the images from the drone show that's clearly not the case.

"It looks like a beach after the tide’s gone out," he said about the underside.

This wealth of information could help scientists forecast more precise sea level increases from global warming, New York University mathematics and ocean science professor and study contributor David Holland told the NYT.

And this information may also inform us on how to make more resilient major cities and neighborhoods in low-lying areas, which are in danger of geting swamped by rising sea levels.

Let's just hope society pays attention to what the ice shelves are telling us.

More on Antarctica: Huge Iceberg Falling Apart as It Drifts Away From Antarctica