This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The Antarctic coastal zone is not simply the edge of the continent. It is a tightly coupled system where ice from the ice sheet extends over the seabed, initially resting on it and farther out floating as ice shelves.
Here, mass, heat and nutrients are exchanged with the ocean through various processes. Even the smallest changes can have outsized consequences. Yet key coastal conditions remain poorly mapped, as an international review published in the journal Reviews of Geophysics shows.
It highlights key knowledge gaps and the need for improved observations at a pan-Antarctic scale. Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel, the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, and the universities of Kiel, Bremen, Tübingen, Dresden and Erlangen Nürnberg contributed to the review. The paper brings together 80 scientists from 16 countries working across glaciology, oceanography, geophysics and atmospheric science, coordinated through the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) RINGS Action Group.
RINGS is also endorsed by the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP), which provides logistics knowledge for efficient survey planning and better coordinates support provided by national Antarctic programs. In the review, the researchers synthesized the current understanding of how ice, ocean, atmosphere and solid earth interact in Antarctica's coastal zone by combining existing observations, models and theory. The results show persistent gaps in direct observations of coastal bed topography and sub-ice-shelf cavities.
However, these are crucial for making reliable predictions about the future of the Antarctic ice sheet and the consequences for the climate and global sea-level rise. These incomplete data continue to limit estimates of Antarctic ice loss and future sea-level rise, as ice sheet models are highly sensitive to conditions at the coast. Even advanced models can produce misleading results when these data are missing or poorly constrained.
While satellite observations provide powerful measurements of ice motion and surface change, they cannot observe the bedrock under ice from space. "Satellite data alone cannot reliably estimate ice loss into the ocean, and computer models alone cannot predict future changes. Both depend on accurate knowledge of bed topography.
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