Antarctica's mysterious ice holes are finally making sense... Seals and robots are on the case.

Pedro_P

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Researchers equipped seals with satellite tags to understand how water conditions might lead to large holes in Antarctic sea ice.
Dan Costa/University of California, Santa Cruz
▼ Winter in Antarctica is frigid, persistently dark, violently stormy, and, at least in some years, home to puzzling holes in the sea ice. Known as polynyas, these strange pits “have been this enduring mystery in polar oceanography” since several large ones were first spotted in the 1970s, says Ethan Campbell, a doctoral student in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington and the author of a new studythat offers tantalizing clues about how polynyas form and where they fit in the study of the vast Southern Ocean.
In Antarctica, these craters function as a rest stop for animals like seals who swim under the ice, giving them somewhere to come up for air. However, Campbell says researchers think there’s a lot more to them than that. He and others think the holes—because they’re warm and melt sea ice that holds carbon—also release a significant amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That makes understanding their role important for climate science.
The researchers used data from three different sources to help them better understand what’s happening with polynyas: satellite footage, sensors strapped to seals (yes, really), and drifting “float robots” that became trapped in a fortunate spot.
Automated robotic devices are crucial to understanding these holes. (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, continue reading this article here: Source