the rapidly melting ice sheets on the coast of West Antarctica are a potential major contributor to rising ocean levels worldwide. Although warm water near the coast is thought to be the main factor causing the ice to melt, the process by which this water ends up near the cold continent is not well understood.
Using robotic ocean gliders, Caltech researchers have now found that swirling ocean eddies, similar to atmospheric storms, play an important role in transporting these warm waters to the Antarctic coast -- a discovery that will help the scientific community determine how rapidly the ice is melting and, as a result, how quickly ocean levels will rise.
Their findings were published online on November 10 in the journal Nature Geoscience
Ordinarily when oceanographers like Thompson want to investigate such questions, they use ships to lower instruments through the water or they collect ocean temperature data from above with satellites. These techniques are problematic in the Southern Ocean. "Observationally, it's a very hard place to get to with ships. Also, the warm water is not at the surface, making satellite observations ineffective," he says.
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