Project Description

The 4DAntarctica project aims to advance the understanding of the Antarctic Ice Sheet’s supra and sub-glacial hydrology, its evolution, and its role within the broader ice sheet and ocean systems. The project addressed the following specific objectives:

• Creating and consolidating an unprecedented dataset composed of ice-sheet wide hydrology and lithospheric products, Earth Observation datasets, and state of the art ice-sheet and hydrology models
• Improving our understanding of the physical interaction between electromagnetic radiation, the ice sheet, and liquid water
• Developing techniques and algorithms to detect surface and basal melting from satellite observations in conjunction with numerical modelling
• Applying these new techniques at local sites and across the continental ice sheet to monitor water dynamics and derive new hydrology datasets
• Performing a scientific assessment of Antarctic Ice Sheet hydrology and of its role in the current changes the continent is experiencing
• Proposing a future roadmap for enhanced observation of Antarctica’s hydrological cycle

Earthwave is project manager of 4DAntarctica, coordinating the consortium of 12 different partners.