MELBOURNE, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 40,000 stationary icebergs around Antarctica have been mapped for the first time, providing a new baseline for modelling coastal ice stability and understanding broader environmental changes.
Researchers have mapped crucially important features of the Antarctic coastal zone in high resolution by training an artificial intelligence tool to accurately recognize grounded icebergs from satellite radar images, according to a statement released Friday by the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP).
Grounded icebergs are large icebergs that run aground on the Antarctic seafloor, where they can anchor sea ice, help hold back land ice from slipping into the ocean, and provide habitat and nutrients for marine ecosystems, according to the study published in Earth System Science Data.
The project aimed to replace manual satellite-image analysis with accurate, continent-wide automated mapping of grounded iceberg distribution and size, said Jiao Kaihong, a PhD student with the AAPP at Australia's University of Tasmania, who led the project.
Researchers used satellite radar imagery to map 39,619 stationary icebergs in 2025, covering a combined area of 13,430 square km and extending along 57 percent of the Antarctic coastline.
They found that tiny icebergs less than 1 square km accounted for 93 percent of all grounded icebergs and 54 percent of the total grounded area.
The researchers said tiny icebergs are more susceptible to melting than larger ones and becoming ungrounded as oceans warm, potentially causing abrupt changes in the stability of landfast ice. ■
