Satellite Knowledge Reveal Altering Lakes Underneath Antarctic Ice

A seemingly never-ending sheet of ice covers most of Antarctica, however there’s a hidden community of liquid lakes mendacity beneath. These subglacial lakes have an effect on the circulate of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which in flip dictates how quickly ice enters the ocean and contributes to international sea degree rise.

Researchers lately found 85 beforehand unknown subglacial lakes in Antarctica during which water ranges are altering. These outcomes, which increase the variety of lively lakes tabulated below the White Continent by practically 60%, had been published in Nature Communications.

Way, Way Down

“The whole column of ice above the lake needs to go somewhere.”

Subglacial lakes exist on the interface between the underside of the ice and the continent’s underlying bedrock. The common thickness of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is roughly 4,000 meters, so subglacial lakes in Antarctica are approach down there, mentioned Sally Wilson, lead writer of the paper and a glaciologist on the University of Leeds within the United Kingdom. “These lakes are really deep.”

Their waters don’t freeze, due to light frictional heating from the motion of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and in addition from warmth imparted from Earth’s inside.

Wilson and her colleagues lately used satellite tv for pc knowledge to search for indicators of Antarctic subglacial lakes. The researchers mined archival knowledge collected by CryoSat-2, a European Space Agency satellite tv for pc launched in 2010 to measure modifications within the thickness of polar ice sheets. The staff regarded for modifications within the top of the ice floor brought on by subglacial lakes both filling or draining. “When they fill, the ice surface above the lake moves up. The whole column of ice above the lake needs to go somewhere,” mentioned Wilson. “It’s kind of like a blister under the ice sheet.”

A Census of Lake Activity

Wilson and her collaborators analyzed CryoSat-2 radar altimetry knowledge collected from 2010 to 2020 over the margins of Antarctica. The vertical decision of CryoSat-2 knowledge is just a few centimeters at greatest, and the staff discovered 85 areas that modified in top not by centimeters however slightly by meters. Those strong alerts very possible correspond to lively subglacial lakes, the staff concluded.

That is smart, mentioned Leigh Stearns, a glaciologist on the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who was not concerned within the analysis. “There’s really nothing else that could cause the kinds of elevation changes that they’re seeing.”

Wilson and her colleagues discovered that fifty of the lakes they found exhibited each filling and draining habits. And 10 of these lakes exhibited an entire cycle of filling and draining. On common, it took a number of years for lakes to fill and in addition a number of years for them to empty, the staff famous.

To their shock, the researchers discovered that particular person lakes didn’t at all times fill and drain to the identical degree. The ice above a lake often known as Whillans_180 in West Antarctica, for example, uplifted, then subsided, then uplifted once more by roughly 5 meters. However, after this constant sample, the ice then subsided solely by about half that quantity earlier than starting to uplift but once more, Wilson and her colleagues discovered.

The staff additionally famous 5 areas throughout Antarctica the place the lakes they found seemed to be linked. The researchers inferred such a connection by observing upstream draining occasions in some lakes that had been practically contemporaneous with downstream filling occasions in different close by lakes.

These observations trace at a sophisticated hydrological community beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet, mentioned Wilson. Tracing how water strikes below ice has lengthy been a holy grail of polar science, she mentioned. “Identifying the lakes is one thing. But actually tracking the movement of water is an entirely different ball game.”

Have Lakes, Will Lubricate

Water flowing from subglacial lakes can have a major impact on glaciers within the neighborhood. “It can lubricate the bed of the glacier and potentially make it flow faster,” mentioned Wilson. “That contributes to sea level rise.”

“Being able to look at something on the surface to infer what’s happening at the bed is really exciting.”

The freshwater current in subglacial lakes can even change native ocean currents when it will definitely drains to the ocean. The mere presence of freshwater can moreover have an effect on the various marine organisms that stay round an ice shelf, mentioned Wilson.

Finding these new subglacial lakes affords a window of kinds into what’s taking place deep beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet, mentioned Stearns. “Being able to look at something on the surface to infer what’s happening at the bed is really exciting.”

An sudden trove of archival satellite tv for pc knowledge made this work potential, Wilson and her collaborators famous.

CryoSat-2 specifically has vastly over-delivered—its nominal mission was speculated to be solely three and a half years; it’s nonetheless going sturdy, more than 15 years later. “It’s way outlasted its expected mission lifetime,” mentioned Wilson. Such long-term data are significantly beneficial as a result of they can be utilized to hint gradual modifications in polar areas, she mentioned.

“We should be putting money and effort into keeping these datasets alive.”

—Katherine Kornei (@KatherineKornei), Science Writer

Citation: Kornei, Ok. (2025), Satellite knowledge reveal altering lakes below Antarctic ice, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250412. Published on 4 November 2025.

Text © 2025. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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