Freeze frame: Stunning images of the remotest stretches of the Antarctic as part of project to map the world's wildernesses

By Rob Preece
PUBLISHED: 10:51, 5 May 2012 | UPDATED: 12:32, 5 May 2012
Glittering under sunny skies with rugged mountains in the distance, the Antarctic Peninsula's beautiful landscape of ice and snow offers wonderful picture opportunities.

But these stunning images aren't the work of a professional photographer who braved bitterly cold conditions - they were taken by machines.

Weather stations scattered across the peninsula, linked to satellites high in the sky, capture pictures of one of the world's most remote locations.

Picture perfect: The photographs of the Antarctic Peninsula would not look out of place in a professional photographer's portfolio

It means researchers can stay in their offices while monitoring the region's shifting ice formations, which have changed dramatically in recent years.

The pictures were taken by stations which form part of a system known as AMIGOS (Automated Met-Ice-Geophysics Observation System).

As well as cameras, each AMIGOS station is equipped with a thermometer and instruments to measure wind speed and direction.

Stations on the flowing ice also have satellite technology to measure the speed at which glaciers - essentially huge rivers of ice - move about the region.

In focus: The pictures are captured by weather stations scattered across the peninsula, linked to satellites high in the sky

The AMIGOS system is part of a wider project, funded by the National Science Foundation in the U.S., to study environmental change around the Larsen Ice Shelf, in the north-west part of the Weddell Sea.

The area is of particular interest to glaciologists because the landscape is altering rapidly.

By studying the photographs, researchers can see what remains of the massive Larsen B ice shelf - a mass larger than the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
It broke away from Antarctica's coastline in 2002 and disintegrated, floating away within 35 days.

Research: The images were captured as part of a wider project, funded by the National Science Foundation in the U.S., to study environmental change around the Larsen Ice Shelf, in the north-west part of the Weddell Sea

Enormous plates of ice that float on polar seas, ice shelves are connected to the shore line by land-bound glaciers.
When shelves collapse, the glaciers feeding them move faster.

This can have a catastrophic effect because more ice enters the ocean, raising sea levels.

When these pictures were taken less than a fortnight ago, temperatures were well above freezing, thanks to sunny skies and westerly winds.

But the sudden warm spell was preceded by weeks of colder weather than normal, with temperatures much lower than when the the Larsen B ice shelf disintegrated 10 years ago.

Perspective: This view to the south shows the SCAR inlet - the remaining fragment of the Larsen B ice shelf, which broke away from Antarctica's coastline in 2002. Flask Glacier can be seen in the distance

AMIGOS stations were first deployed in 2010 and the project hasn't always run smoothly.
The AMIGOS 5 station, located on a stormy ridge, stopped sending data after seven months because it was buried under 20ft of snow.
More recently, temperature and wind conditions have been measured by the AMIGOS 3 station on Flask Glacier, and the AMIGOS 6 station at Cape Disappointment.
The pictures show the detail in which ice movements are analysed across the globe as researchers seek to find out more about the impact of global warming.
For four years, NASA research aircraft have carried out similar work in the Arctic region, where some glaciers are creating icebergs and draining the ice sheet at an alarming rate.
Other glaciers are barely moving, revealing how the effects of global warning are unpredictable.
The NASA research flights are part of a six-year mission called IceBridge.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139909/Frozen-planet-Stunning-pictures-ice-snow-Antarctica.html#ixzz1u1uWuZIQ