He proved conclusively that any southern continent that might exist lay under the polar ice.
The most plausible explanation is that, like the discrepancy in the secular acceleration, the observed deviation is only apparent, and arises from slow fluctuations in the earth's rotation, and therefore in our measure of time produced by the motion of great masses of polar ice and the variability of the amount of snowfall on the great continents.
What we are talking about here are not the polar ice caps or large ice fields.
This would eventually cause the polar ice caps to melt, and thus generate an environment in which biological life could be sustained.
A central feature of their work will be the use of satellites to determine changes in the polar ice fields.
