Trouble in Penguin Paradise? UC Research Analyzes Antarctic Ice Flow
University of Cincinnati student Shujie Wang has discovered that a good way to monitor the environmental health of Antarctica is to go with the flow the ice flow, that is.
Its an important parameter to track because as Antarcticas health goes, so goes the worlds.
The ice sheet in Antarctica is the largest fresh water reservoir on Earth, and if it were totally melted, the sea level would rise by more than 60 meters. So it is quite important to measure the ice mass loss there, says Wang, a doctoral student in geography in UCs McMicken College of Arts & Sciences.
Wang will present her research, Analysis of Ice Flow Velocity Variations on the Antarctic Peninsula during 1986-2012 Based on Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing Image Time Series, at the
Association of American Geographers annual meeting
to be held April 9-13 in Los Angeles. The interdisciplinary forum is attended by more than 7,000 scientists from around the world and features an array of geography-related presentations, workshops and field trips.
Antarctica is 5.5 million square miles of windswept, mountainous ice desert. The fifth largest continent is covered in a sheet of ice that is on average more than a mile thick. Across this province of penguins, outlet glaciers and ice streams funnel chunks of ice into the ocean where they eventually melt in warmer waters. If the ice begins to melt at an abnormally high rate and the sea level rises, a chain reaction of negative ecological effects could take place worldwide.
For her research, Wang uses remote-sensing images recorded by satellites to gather data on Antarcticas ice motion. Shes particularly interested in determining changes in the ice flow velocity, because the faster ice moves, the faster its lost. By calculating that velocity at different time intervals, Wang hopes to further understand the process of ice motion and be able to predict changes to Antarcticas landscape. Shes planning models that simulate the ice sheet dynamics and estimate any influence on the sea level.
I hope to provide valuable research to the academia of global change studies, Wang says.
Additional contributors to Wangs research paper were Hongxing Liu (UC), Lei Wang (Louisiana State University) and Xia Li (Sun Yat-Sen University, China).
Funding for the research was provided by University Graduate Scholarship allocations from UCs Graduate School and the Department of Geography.
In 2012,
UC was named among the nations top green schools
by The Princeton Review due its to strong commitment to sustainability in academic offerings, campus infrastructure, activities and career preparation. It was the third year in a row that UC earned a spot on the prestigious list.
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