Dangerous world discovered beneath the ice of Antarctica

An international team of researchers led by glaciologist Christine Dow from the University of Waterloo (Canada) has made an amazing discovery that could change our understanding of the processes occurring in Antarctica.

Scientists analyzed observational data from the past two decades and came to a startling conclusion: beneath the Antarctic ice nearly two kilometers thick lies an amazing landscape with steep mountains, deep valleys, and winding rivers.

These hidden water arteries may play a critical role in the Antarctic ice sheet's response to global warming. Computer modeling has shown an alarming scenario: as the ice cover melts and thins in the coming decades, the under-ice rivers could overflow their banks and destroy large glaciers that currently hold back the rise in global sea levels.

"The changes are quite radical," warns Christine Dow. "These evolving rivers could lead to glacier melting and their faster sliding into the ocean. We are underestimating how quickly everything will change, how much the ice will melt in the next 80 years."

The discovery is the result of extensive 20-year work mapping the continent hidden beneath Antarctica's ice sheets. Researchers acknowledge that no one has ever seen these hidden mountains and valleys with their own eyes.

Scientists judge the existence of this lost world, potentially threatening to raise global sea levels, exclusively from remote observation data. The research was conducted using special radars installed on aircraft, as well as methods for measuring gravitational and magnetic fields. These technologies made it possible to literally look under the kilometers-thick ice.

As a result, impressive mountain ranges up to two kilometers high, vast valleys, and deep canyons were discovered. Radar studies have also revealed hundreds of lakes beneath Antarctic glaciers, which are replenished with water slowly melting at the base of the ice cover.

Researchers have established that subglacial rivers regularly flow into subglacial lakes and out of them. According to study co-author Anna-Mireille Hayden, these water flows demonstrate unusual behavior because they "obey not only gravity but also the crushing pressure of ice."