Chinese scientists have shifted its focus from mapping the moon to completing the world’s first land cover map of the Antarctica at the end of this year. The result will be the most accurate map of the continent ever published.
Using the application of high resolution remote sensing technology, the map will be the first ever to show the distribution of key features on the continent, including sea ice, snow, blue ice, rocks, soil marshes, lakes and ice crevasse. The map is also based on 1,073 images acquired from the U.S. satellite Land sat mainly during the austral summer from 1999 to 2002,according to Cheng Xiao, deputy dean of the College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, in an interview with Xinhua.
“The precision of the map is 15 meters, about 20 times of former Antarctic maps made by other countries,” Cheng said. “It will greatly advance our geographic knowledge of the Antarctica.”
The map will provide not only more accurate ground parameters for scientists to forecast global change or global warming with climate system models, but also important data for detection on the change of Antarctica land cover in a long run, Cheng said.
The 26th expedition team began its journey on Oct. 11 from Shanghai and sailed into Australia’s Coral Sea on Sunday. A total of 251 scientists, workers and logistics staff joined the team for the half-year-long research expedition on the icebreaker. The scientists will stay on the icy continent until April 10 next year.
Casey Kazan
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/26/content_12332541.htm
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