Antarctica without the Ice

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has received a lot of publicity lately, as new research published earlier this month suggests that its collapse may already be underway.

But have you ever wondered what the Antarctic continent would look like if all the ice disappeared?

Left: Major geographical features of Antarctica today (Source: Wikimedia Commons (NASA/BAS)). Right: A topographic map of Antarctica after removing the ice sheet, accounting for isostatic rebound and sea level rise (Source: Global Warming Art Project).

However, don’t re-draw the atlases just yet: Antarctica has been covered by a large ice sheet for about the past 35 million years, and it’s certainly not all going to disappear anytime soon.