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'You Can See Almost Everything.' Antarctica Just Became the Best-Mapped Continent on Earth (fortune.com)

Posted by msmash on from the impressive-feat dept.

Antarctica has become the best-mapped continent on Earth with a new high-resolution terrain map showing the ice-covered landmass in unprecedented detail. From a report: According to the scientists at Ohio State University and the University of Minnesota who created the imagery, Antarctica is now the best-mapped continent on Earth. The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA) was constructed using hundreds of thousands of satellite images taken between 2009 and 2017, Earther reports. A supercomputer assembled the massive amounts of data, including the elevation of the land over time, and created REMA, an immensely detailed topographical map, with a file size over 150 terabytes. The new map has a resolution of 2 to 8 meters, compared to the usual 1,000 meters, says an Ohio State press release. According to The New York Times, the detail of this new map is the equivalent of being able to see down to a car, or smaller, when before you could only see the whole of Central Park. Scientists now know the elevation of every point of Antarctica, with an error margin of just a few feet.

11 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Almost everything. by hey! · · Score: 4, Funny

    At that resolution we should be able to see the abandoned Dornier flying boats used by the Dyer Expedition.

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  2. Highly Compressed HTML Representation by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Funny


    <head>
    <title>Antarctica High-Resolution Map (land only)</title>
    </head>
    <body style="background-color: #EEEEFF"></body>
    </html>

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    1. Re:Highly Compressed HTML Representation by TFlan91 · · Score: 3

      You're missing the removal of line feeds, compression algorithm failed.

  3. There's a lot I didn't know about Antarctica by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    " According to The New York Times, the detail of this new map is the equivalent of being able to see down to a car, or smaller, when before you could only see the whole of Central Park."

    Wow! There's a park and cars under the ice in Antarctica?!

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  4. Re:Is it overall lack of change? by WhiplashII · · Score: 4, Informative

    The reason there is such good coverage is that many of the low orbit imaging satellites orbit North/South, following the day/night terminator. It's called a sun-synchronous orbit, and while it covers the entire planet eventually, the north and south poles are covered on every pass. So you can get a lot more detail there for free, essentially.

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  5. Wonder how accurate the Piri Reis map is by pgmrdlm · · Score: 2

    Drawn in 1513, showing the Antiartica without ice. I wonder how accurate it really is. Better yet, will they ever let us know how accurate it is?

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    1. Re:Wonder how accurate the Piri Reis map is by barakn · · Score: 2

      Have you ever actually looked at the Piri Reis map? The cartographer clearly ran out of room while drawing South America and had to artificially bend the coast to fit it. The portion that people like to pretend is Antarctica is simply the southern coast of South America, which explains why it is drawn as connected to it.

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    2. Re:Wonder how accurate the Piri Reis map is by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      Since some of the ice is a million years old, I'd say it's not very accurate.

  6. web browser seems a little week by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    I tried to use the web browser, just with the shaded terrain - zooming in anywhere near the level of interest most people would have, the terrain just vanished...

    That was on the eastern side of the upper peninsula (the peninsula is where most people go when they visit Antartica).

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  7. Re:Clicking.... by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    snow...snow...snow...Robert Scott...snow...snow...

  8. Re:Impressive by magarity · · Score: 4, Informative

    It would have to be a dog-less sled since sled dogs are banned by international treaty from Antarctica.