Antarctica might not be the hottest tourist destination, but for anyone who does visit, scientists now have an incredibly high-resolution map of the white tundra. According to the scientists at Ohio State University and the University of Minnesota who created the imagery, Antarctica is now the best-mapped continent on Earth.

The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA) was constructed using hundreds of thousands of satellite images taken between 2009 and 2017, Earther reports. A supercomputer assembled the massive amounts of data, including the elevation of the land over time, and created REMA, an immensely detailed topographical map, with a file size over 150 terabytes.

The new map has a resolution of 2 to 8 meters, compared to the usual 1,000 meters, says an Ohio State press release. According to The New York Times, the detail of this new map is the equivalent of being able to see down to a car, or smaller, when before you could only see the whole of Central Park. Scientists now know the elevation of every point of Antarctica, with an error margin of just a few feet.

New Super-High-Resolution #Map Shows #Antarctica In Unprecedented Detail.

—— Elaine Beare  September 8, 2018

“Up until now, we’ve had a better map of Mars than we’ve had of Antarctica,” said Ohio State University glaciologist Ian Howat, head of the REMA project, in a press release. “At this resolution, you can see almost everything. We can actually see variations in the snow in some places. We will be able to measure changes in the surface of the continent over time.”

The map will be a vital instrument for research projects, providing data on snow cover, the motion of ice, thinning glaciers, and river and volcano activity. Scientists will better be able to monitor the effects of climate change, and it’ll be easier for researchers to plan field expeditions.

南极洲谈不上是最热门的旅游目的地，但对探访南极的人来说，目前科学家们可以提供这片冻原的令人难以置信的高分辨率地图。

据Earther网站的报道，南极参照视图模型（REMA）的构建使用了几十万幅拍摄于2009至2017年间的卫星照片。随时间推移这片土地的海拔等大量数据容纳于一台超级计算机，随后创建了REMA，这是极为详细的地形图，文件尺寸超过150TB。

一份俄亥俄州的新闻稿指，这份新地图的分辨率达到2至8米，而一般地图的分辨率为1000米。另据《纽约时报》（The New York Times）报道，新地图显示细节的程度，相当于你可以看清地图上的一辆汽车，甚至更小，而以前你只能看到完整的中央公园。科学家已经掌握了南极每一处的视图，误差范围仅几英尺。

新超高清地图事无巨细地展示南极洲。

——伊莲·贝瑞 2018年9月8日

REMA项目的负责人、俄亥俄州立大学冰川学家伊恩·豪厄特在一份新闻稿中说：“目前为止，只有火星地图比南极地图要强一些，在这种分辨率下，可以看到任何东西。我们甚至能看到一些地方雪量的变化。我们可以测量这块陆地表面随着时间推移的各种变化。”

这份地图将成为各研究项目所需的至关重要的工具，它可以提供雪量、冰层活动、冰山融化、河流和火山活动等各类数据。科学家可以更好地监控气候变化带来的影响，而研究者也可以更方便地安排实地考察。（财富中文网）

译者：宣峰