Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
For my undergraduate research, I mapped thousands of locally grounded ice shelf surface features including ice rises, ice rumples, and flow features along 2,800 km of coastline in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, using RADARSAT-2 imagery and QGIS. Despite being relatively small, these features play an important role in Antarctic ice dynamics.
We combined multiple data sources (satellite imagery, mass balance and ice thickness) to analyze the extent and surface morphology of ice shelves and characteristic timescales of ice rises, and found that large parts of the Dronning Maud Land have been changing over the past several millennia. To support follow-up research efforts, we highlighted ice rises that are suitable as ice coring sites for paleoclimate studies and for further studies of ice dynamics and evolution in the region.
Surface features and calving-front displacements along several regions of Dronning Maud Land. (a) Western Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf, (b) Lazarevisen and Hugunisen Ice Shelves, (c) Trolltunga ice tongue, (d) Ice-rumple west of the Jutulstraumen outlet glacier, Fimbul Ice Shelf, (e) Jelbart Ice Shelf and (f) Brunt Ice Shelf. Image courtesy of Vikram Goel.