AI-derived Antarctic map catalogs 39,619 grounded icebergs

Researchers with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership at the University of Tasmania trained an AI tool on Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar imagery to map grounded icebergs around Antarctica, publishing the dataset in Earth System Science Data. The census identified 39,619 stationary icebergs covering 13,430 square kilometers and distributed along 57 percent of the coastline, with 14 percent of the coast holding 80 percent of them. Icebergs smaller than one square kilometer accounted for 93 percent of the total count and 54 percent of grounded area. The authors describe a "picket fence effect" in which dense clusters of small grounded icebergs anchor landfast sea ice that buffers ice shelves from the Southern Ocean. The paper states the results may indicate sensitivity to ocean warming, since small icebergs could unground more readily than larger ones.