A radar aerial survey of icy Greenland has yielded fascinating, mirage-like data about a ghostly river that has never been seen before.
The “hypothetical waterway” was named by a team of scientists led by Dr. Christopher Chambers from Hokkaido University (Japan) as the Dark River , which is hidden beneath the permafrost of Greenland.
In the radar data, they noticed a mysterious “gap” , which the collation results in blurring the image of a giant valley, stretching below the island. For decades, scientists have been searching for the truth about this mysterious valley.
The image shows the existence of the ghost river below the ice – (Photo provided by the research team)
Dr. Chambers’ team built a model and discovered that it was a continuous and watery structure: a real river , of the kind that is gigantic compared to most of the world’s rivers, but not at all. there is light.
Computer simulations, using data collected by radar for decades, show that the Shadow River flows from the center of Greenland to the sea, with a length of up to 1,000km. Where it exits is an area named Petermann Fjord.
The main source of water for the river is the melting ice on the island. The water had flowed down the relatively sloping surface of the valley, carving a tunnel beneath the giant ice block. There’s no way to get to that ghostly river directly, so scientists expect future radar observations to further clarify the initial findings.
The existence of this great river could help humanity understand more about the “behavior” of the Greenland ice island, which could greatly affect sea levels in the future.
The study has just been published in the scientific journal Cryosphere.