NASA creates map of ice flow in Antarctica

PanARMENIAN.Net - NASA-funded researchers created the first complete map of the speed and direction of ice flow in Antarctica, showing glaciers flowing thousands of miles from the continent's deep interior to its coast, International Business Times reported.

This map, NASA said, will be critical for tracking future sea-level increases from climate change. The team created it by using integrated radar observations from a consortium of international satellites.

With the help of NASA technology, the team took the time to pieced together the shape and velocity of glacial formations, including the previously uncharted East Antarctica, which makes up 77 percent of the continent.

The scientists were surprised when they step back and glanced at the full picture, as they discovered a new ridge splitting the 5.4 million-square-mile (14 million-square-kilometer) landmass from east to west.

The team also found unnamed formations moving up to 800 feet (244 meters) annually across immense plains sloping toward the Antarctic Ocean and in a different manner than past models of ice migration, NASA said.