Antarctic May Be Thicker than Previously Thought
Underwater vehicles have been used to better map the sea-ice of the Antarctic and have come up with some interesting findings:
- Maps of sea-ice draft for ten floes mean draft range from 1.4 to 5.5 m and up to 16 m.
- On average, 76 percent of the ice volume is deformed ice.
- Floes are much thicker and more deformed than previous reports.
The large packs of floating ice (ice-floes) are about 20 meters or 66 feet across. The thick ice in the near-coastal and interior pack may be under-represented in existing original assessments of Antarctic sea ice. Therefore, Antarctic sea-ice may be thicker than previously thought.
