Huge river was hiding under Antarctica and now they found it  

Scientists were surprised by their discovery

Scientists were surprised by their discovery as they found a huge river hidden under ice sheets in Antarctica. A team of glaciologists were studying the effects of climate change on glaciers when they learned of the river during their recent surveys using airborne radar. 

Experts say the river stretches 460 kilometers below the ice, a distance longer than the River Thames that runs through southern England, including London. The discovery was made by researchers from Imperial College London, the University of Waterloo in Canada, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu and Newcastle University.

Glaciologists say the river has the potential to significantly affect how the iceberg above it flows and melts.

“The area on which this study is based has enough ice to raise global sea levels by 4.3 meters. How much of that ice melts, and how quickly, is linked to how slippery the ice base is. The recent discovered river system could strongly influence this process ,” said study co-author and glaciologist Martin Siegert of Imperial College London in the United Kingdom.

Scientists know that water flows under the ice sheets, but this new study shows that the melting of the ice sheets results in the formation of rivers. They report that these freshwater channels can speed up the ice melting process as the base of the glacier becomes less stable.

Now scientists want to use techniques used in this region of Antarctica and elsewhere on the continent to understand the effects of subglacial rivers on melting glaciers.

The study on the river and its tributaries was published in Nature Geoscience.