Articles | Volume 19, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-375-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-375-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
28 Jan 2025
Research article |
| 28 Jan 2025
| 28 Jan 2025
Evidence of active subglacial lakes under a slowly moving coastal region of the Antarctic Ice Sheet
Jennifer F. Arthur
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Glaciology and Geology section, Norwegian Polar Institute, 9296 Tromsø, Norway
Calvin Shackleton
Glaciology and Geology section, Norwegian Polar Institute, 9296 Tromsø, Norway
Geir Moholdt
Glaciology and Geology section, Norwegian Polar Institute, 9296 Tromsø, Norway
Kenichi Matsuoka
Glaciology and Geology section, Norwegian Polar Institute, 9296 Tromsø, Norway
Jelte van Oostveen
NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, 9294 Tromsø, Norway
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Felipe Napoleoni, Michael J. Bentley, Neil Ross, Stewart S. R. Jamieson, José A. Uribe, Jonathan Oberreuter, Rodrigo Zamora, Andrés Rivera, Andrew M. Smith, Robert G. Bingham, and Kenichi Matsuoka
The Cryosphere, 20, 2793–2824, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-2793-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-2793-2026, 2026
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We mapped buried layers inside West Antarctic ice across 13,000 km² near the Amundsen–Weddell divide using radar. Some layers may be up to 17 kyr old. The layers remain well preserved in slow-moving ice but become distorted where ice flows faster. Snowfall has long been greater on one side of the divide, suggesting the ice divide has remained stable for thousands of years. Our study helps connect climate records across West Antarctica and improve models used to predict future ice-sheet change.
Marie Bredal, Line Rouyet, Lotte Wendt, Heidi Hindberg, Daniel Stødle, Tom Rune Lauknes, Jelte van Oostveen, Yngvar Larsen, Gökhan Aslan, Emma Hauglin, John Dehls, Anja Sundal, Anna Odh, and Dag Anders Moldestad
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2189, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2189, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Earth Observation (EO).
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Ground movement can be measured from space by comparing satellite images taken at different times using a technique known as InSAR. The InSAR Svalbard service provides baseline information showing where and how the ground is moving, supporting geohazard management, land-use planning, and climate change adaptation, and helping assess impacts on infrastructure and human activities. While such services exist elsewhere, this is the first of its kind in the Arctic.
Calvin Shackleton, Kenichi Matsuoka, Brett Fraysher, Joohan Lee, Jørgen Dall, Allain Rapadas, Prasad Gogineni, Drew Taylor, Hyeon Tae Ju, Changhyun Chung, and Anders Kusk
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2357, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2357, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for The Cryosphere (TC).
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We map new details of the landscape beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet near Dome C using radar data and simulation methods. The terrain is rougher than previously thought, and we identify where water flow is either well or poorly understood. We also show that valleys and ridges could amplify or reduce geothermal heating, impacting melting at the ice sheet base. These results improve confidence in locating sites where ancient ice may be preserved for drilling and studying past climates.
Vikram Goel, Carlos Martín, Kenichi Matsuoka, Bhanu Pratap, Geir Moholdt, Rahul Dey, Chavarukonam M. Laluraj, and Meloth Thamban
The Cryosphere, 20, 1363–1378, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1363-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1363-2026, 2026
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We identified an ideal site in coastal East Antarctica for extracting ice core that contain detailed climate records dating back 20 000 years. We surveyed two ice rises combining radar measurements with ice flow modeling to assess their suitability. One site emerged as optimal, offering well-preserved climate history with high temporal resolution. An ice core record from this site could help us understand historical interactions between sea ice, winds, and precipitation patterns in the region.
Rahul Dey, Chavarukonam M. Laluraj, Kenichi Matsuoka, Ashish Paiguinkar, Bhikaji L. Redkar, and Meloth Thamban
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5820, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5820, 2026
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We use an Antarctic ice core to trace the history of the Maud Rise Polynya, a rare opening in the Weddell Sea. The 250-year record reveals numerous past polynya events, including several large ones that predated the existence of satellites. Our results show that shifts in wind, ocean circulation, and surface salinity contributed to the creation of these openings, providing new insights into long-term changes in the Antarctic environment.
Guojun Li, Tong Hao, Zhongbo Huang, Chen Lv, Liang Tang, Shi Li, Xiangbin Cui, Bo Sun, Kenichi Matsuoka, and Rongxing Li
Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., XLVIII-4-W14-2025, 113–119, https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W14-2025-113-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W14-2025-113-2025, 2025
Jonas Liebsch, Jörg Ebbing, and Kenichi Matsuoka
Solid Earth, 16, 1401–1420, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-16-1401-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-16-1401-2025, 2025
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The evolution of the Antarctic ice sheets depends, in addition to factors representing the warming climate, on the earth structure beneath the ice. What’s beneath the ice is largely inaccessible for direct sampling, but can be interpreted with the use of airborne measurements. We apply an unsupervised machine learning method to such data in East Antarctica to test whether this can ease interpretation and hence our understanding of what rocks types are beneath the ice.
Robert G. Bingham, Julien A. Bodart, Marie G. P. Cavitte, Ailsa Chung, Rebecca J. Sanderson, Johannes C. R. Sutter, Olaf Eisen, Nanna B. Karlsson, Joseph A. MacGregor, Neil Ross, Duncan A. Young, David W. Ashmore, Andreas Born, Winnie Chu, Xiangbin Cui, Reinhard Drews, Steven Franke, Vikram Goel, John W. Goodge, A. Clara J. Henry, Antoine Hermant, Benjamin H. Hills, Nicholas Holschuh, Michelle R. Koutnik, Gwendolyn J.-M. C. Leysinger Vieli, Emma J. MacKie, Elisa Mantelli, Carlos Martín, Felix S. L. Ng, Falk M. Oraschewski, Felipe Napoleoni, Frédéric Parrenin, Sergey V. Popov, Therese Rieckh, Rebecca Schlegel, Dustin M. Schroeder, Martin J. Siegert, Xueyuan Tang, Thomas O. Teisberg, Kate Winter, Shuai Yan, Harry Davis, Christine F. Dow, Tyler J. Fudge, Tom A. Jordan, Bernd Kulessa, Kenichi Matsuoka, Clara J. Nyqvist, Maryam Rahnemoonfar, Matthew R. Siegfried, Shivangini Singh, Vjeran Višnjević, Rodrigo Zamora, and Alexandra Zuhr
The Cryosphere, 19, 4611–4655, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4611-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4611-2025, 2025
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The ice sheets covering Antarctica have built up over millenia through successive snowfall events which become buried and preserved as internal surfaces of equal age detectable with ice-penetrating radar. This paper describes an international initiative working together on these archival data to build a comprehensive 3-D picture of how old the ice is everywhere across Antarctica and how this is being used to reconstruct past and to predict future ice and climate behaviour.
Eledath M. Gayathri, Chavarukonam M. Laluraj, Karathazhiyath Satheesan, Kenichi Matsuoka, Mahalinganathan Kanthanathan, and Meloth Thamban
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1666, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1666, 2024
Preprint archived
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Here, we study the effects of short–term atmospheric warming events on the ice sheet surface and subsurface temperatures of coastal Dronning Maud Land during 2014–2018. Our results revealed that the impact of warming events over ice sheet surface and subsurface temperatures varies with the mechanism of warming and prevailing meteorological conditions. The frequency and duration of such events are important for the surface and sub-surface processes of ice sheets.
Eledath M. Gayathri, Chavarukonam M. Laluraj, Karathazhiyath Satheesan, Kenichi Matsuoka, and Meloth Thamban
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2515, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2515, 2023
Preprint archived
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Episodic Antarctic Ice Sheet Surface Warming events can affect the mass balance of ice sheets by sublimation and melting during summer. Our study using five-year borehole thermistor measurements revealed two types of events over the coastal Dronning Maud Land region: cloud-induced and wind-induced. Understanding the frequency and duration of these events is important for predicting their future impacts on ice shelves and ice sheets.
Marie G. P. Cavitte, Hugues Goosse, Kenichi Matsuoka, Sarah Wauthy, Vikram Goel, Rahul Dey, Bhanu Pratap, Brice Van Liefferinge, Thamban Meloth, and Jean-Louis Tison
The Cryosphere, 17, 4779–4795, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-4779-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-4779-2023, 2023
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The net accumulation of snow over Antarctica is key for assessing current and future sea-level rise. Ice cores record a noisy snowfall signal to verify model simulations. We find that ice core net snowfall is biased to lower values for ice rises and the Dome Fuji site (Antarctica), while the relative uncertainty in measuring snowfall increases rapidly with distance away from the ice core sites at the ice rises but not at Dome Fuji. Spatial variation in snowfall must therefore be considered.
Alice C. Frémand, Peter Fretwell, Julien A. Bodart, Hamish D. Pritchard, Alan Aitken, Jonathan L. Bamber, Robin Bell, Cesidio Bianchi, Robert G. Bingham, Donald D. Blankenship, Gino Casassa, Ginny Catania, Knut Christianson, Howard Conway, Hugh F. J. Corr, Xiangbin Cui, Detlef Damaske, Volkmar Damm, Reinhard Drews, Graeme Eagles, Olaf Eisen, Hannes Eisermann, Fausto Ferraccioli, Elena Field, René Forsberg, Steven Franke, Shuji Fujita, Yonggyu Gim, Vikram Goel, Siva Prasad Gogineni, Jamin Greenbaum, Benjamin Hills, Richard C. A. Hindmarsh, Andrew O. Hoffman, Per Holmlund, Nicholas Holschuh, John W. Holt, Annika N. Horlings, Angelika Humbert, Robert W. Jacobel, Daniela Jansen, Adrian Jenkins, Wilfried Jokat, Tom Jordan, Edward King, Jack Kohler, William Krabill, Mette Kusk Gillespie, Kirsty Langley, Joohan Lee, German Leitchenkov, Carlton Leuschen, Bruce Luyendyk, Joseph MacGregor, Emma MacKie, Kenichi Matsuoka, Mathieu Morlighem, Jérémie Mouginot, Frank O. Nitsche, Yoshifumi Nogi, Ole A. Nost, John Paden, Frank Pattyn, Sergey V. Popov, Eric Rignot, David M. Rippin, Andrés Rivera, Jason Roberts, Neil Ross, Anotonia Ruppel, Dustin M. Schroeder, Martin J. Siegert, Andrew M. Smith, Daniel Steinhage, Michael Studinger, Bo Sun, Ignazio Tabacco, Kirsty Tinto, Stefano Urbini, David Vaughan, Brian C. Welch, Douglas S. Wilson, Duncan A. Young, and Achille Zirizzotti
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 2695–2710, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2695-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2695-2023, 2023
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This paper presents the release of over 60 years of ice thickness, bed elevation, and surface elevation data acquired over Antarctica by the international community. These data are a crucial component of the Antarctic Bedmap initiative which aims to produce a new map and datasets of Antarctic ice thickness and bed topography for the international glaciology and geophysical community.
Anirudha Mahagaonkar, Geir Moholdt, and Thomas V. Schuler
The Cryosphere Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2023-4, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2023-4, 2023
Revised manuscript not accepted
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Surface meltwater lakes along the margins of the Antarctic Ice Sheet can be important for ice shelf dynamics and stability. We used optical satellite imagery to study seasonal evolution of meltwater lakes in Dronning Maud Land. We found large interannual variability in lake extents, but with consistent seasonal patterns. Although correlation with summer air temperature was strong locally, other climatic and environmental factors need to be considered to explain the large regional variability.
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Short summary
Lakes can form beneath the large ice sheets and can influence ice-sheet dynamics and stability. Some of these subglacial lakes are active, meaning that they periodically drain and refill. Here we report seven new active subglacial lakes close to the Antarctic Ice Sheet margin using satellite measurements of ice surface height changes in a region where little was known previously. These findings improve our understanding of subglacial hydrology and will help refine subglacial hydrological models.
Lakes can form beneath the large ice sheets and can influence ice-sheet dynamics and stability....
