Glaciers studied for sea level clues
Scientists studying glaciers for climate change clues
A team of scientists from the UK, US and Australia have teamed up to explore two of the Earth's last uncharted regions in a bid to find out how future climate change will affect sea levels.
The researchers will head to the Aurora and Wilkes Subglacial Basins in Antarctica to study how the climate has changed in the past, as part of a major International Polar Year project, reports United Press International.
Made up of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences, the University of Edinburgh and the Australian Antarctic Division, the team will begin its investigations this December, measuring the texture, composition, density and topography of rocks below the ice and the thickness of the ice sheet itself.
Data from the project will help model East Antarctic ice stability and predict how ice might react to climate change, according to the scientists.
They will utilise an upgraded DC-3 aircraft with a suite of geophysical instruments to conduct their work, which will also lower their carbon footprint.
"We're getting much more science done with less oil using this old airframe with modern engines," Don Blankenship, research scientist at the Jackson School's Institute for Geophysics and principal investigator, told the news resource.
Meanwhile, earlier this month a group of artists, including K T Tunstall, headed to the Arctic on a Cape Farewell trip to study climate change.
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