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The Conversation
The Conversation
Craig Stevens, Professor in Ocean Physics, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)

Beneath Antarctica’s largest ice shelf, a hidden ocean is revealing its secrets

Stevens/NIWA/K061, CC BY-NC-ND

Beneath Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf lies one of the least measured oceans on Earth – a vast, dark cavity roughly twice the volume of the North Sea.

This hidden ocean matters because it is the ice sheet’s Achilles heel. The ice sheet is the continent’s enormous, kilometres-thick mass of land-based ice, while the ice shelf is the floating platform that fringes it.

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