Transforming polar science: space technologies in assessing Antarctica’s cryosphere
Antarctica, Earth’s southernmost continent, contains the largest reservoir of freshwater on the planet, holding approximately 68.7 per cent of global freshwater in the form of ice sheets and glaciers (NSIDC 2025; Rignot et al. 2019). Together with Greenland, these ice sheets store over 99 per cent of the world’s freshwater ice, with the Antarctic Ice Sheet alone covering nearly 14 million square kilometres and containing about 30 million cubic kilometres of ice (NSIDC 2025). This massive ice reserve plays a crucial role in global sea levels and climate systems (IPCC 2021).