An ICE-Bound continent Antarctica’s cryosphere and hydrological systems

Abstract

In the introduction to his epic The Ice, Stephen Pyne describes Antarctica as “a maelstrom of ice… fused together, as a continent, by ice”. Indeed, ice covers 99.6 % of the continent and this immense ice cap is the single largest solid object on the surface of Earth. Antarctic snow and ice, the cryosphere, contain around 90 % of theworld’s ice and around 80%of all freshwater, which is frozen in the East andWest Antarctic ice sheets and the ice caps and glaciers of the Antarctic Peninsula. It has grown and diminished over ice ages and warm periods, but is currently about twice as big as Australia, and makes Antarctica the highest, driest, coldest and windiest continent on Earth. Up to 4800m thick in places, the weight of the ice sheet is enough to deform Earth’s crust below. Every year new snow accumulates on the surface of the continent, and due to the very low annual temperatures, this does not melt. Instead, it builds up over time and is compressed by the weight of new snowfall and turns into ice, preserving a rich and detailed climate record spanning nearly a million years.