Mystery of the massive hole, A huge hole nearly the size of the state of Maine has opened up in the thick sea ice blanketing Antarctica’s Weddell Sea.

Mystery of the massive hole nearly the size of Maine that has opened up in the sea ice around Antarctica

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• Strange ice-free area was first spotted in 1970s in the midst of Antarctic winter 
• Now, it has opened up again in the thick sea ice of the frozen Weddell Sea 
• Scientists say it's larger than the Netherlands and acts like 'pressure relief valve' 

A huge hole nearly the size of the state of Maine or Ireland has opened up in the thick sea ice blanketing Antarctica’s Weddell Sea.

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WEDDELL POLYNYA

The Weddell Polynya was first spotted in satellite observations during the mid-1970s.

After closing back up, and remaining that way for roughly 40 years, it has re-opened.

A ‘polynya’ is a large ice-free area that develops in an otherwise frozen sea, and this particular formation is situated in the Weddell Sea, east of the Antarctic Peninsula.

At its peak, the Weddell Polynya measured a staggering 80,000 square kilometers (roughly 31,000 square miles).

It’s larger than The Netherlands, and nearly the size of Lake Superior and the state of Maine. 

The strange ice-free area was first spotted in the 1970s in the midst of the harsh Antarctic winter, despite frigid temperatures – and now, 40 years after it closed, the so-called Weddell Polynya has returned.Scientists are now working to understand how often the massive hole appears, and how climate change could affect it.

A ‘polynya’ is a large ice-free area that develops in an otherwise frozen sea; the features are commonly seen in both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice.

As these ice gaps typically form in coastal regions, however, the appearance of a polynya ‘deep in the ice pack’ is an unusual occurrence, according to Motherboard.

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‘It looks like you just punched a hole in the ice,’ atmospheric physicist Kent Moore, a professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga, told Motherboard.‘This is now the second year in a row it’s opened after 40 years of not being there,’ Moore explained.
‘We’re still trying to figure out what’s going on.’
Researchers, including a group at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel, have been closely monitoring the polynya since it first reappeared in the satellite data.

Studies led by the Kiel team previously suggested the feature was a long-term natural variability – meaning it would come back sooner or later.
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And now, it has.

‘For us this ice-free area is an important data point which we can use to validate our climate models,’ says Dr Torge Martin, meteorologist and climate modeller in the GEOMAR Research Division ‘Oceans Circulation and Climate Dynamics.’

‘Its occurrence after several decades also confirms our previous calculations.’At its peak, the Weddell Polynya measured a staggering 80,000 square kilometers (roughly 31,000 square miles).

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It’s larger than The Netherlands, and nearly the size of Lake Superior.While its reappearance has spurred some questions, the experts say the processes driving it are relatively well- understood.'

‘The Southern Ocean is strongly stratified,’ says Professor Dr Mojib Latif, head of the Research Division at GEOMAR.
‘A very cold but relatively fresh water layer covers a much warmer and saltier water mass, thus acting as an insulating layer.

‘This is like opening a pressure relief valve – the ocean then releases a surplus of heat to the atmosphere for several consecutive winters until the heat reservoir is exhausted.’

Still, it’s unclear how often the Weddell Polynya re-emerges, and how long it will linger now that it’s opened back up.

Experts say it’s too early to know how climate change has affected the formation of the huge polynya, if it’s to blame at all.

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But, with new observations using technology far more advanced than that available when it first appeared 40 years ago, they’re hoping to uncover some answers.

‘Global warming is not a linear process and happens on top of internal variability inherent to the climate system,’ Latif says.

‘The better we understand these natural processes, the better we can identify the anthropogenic impact on the climate system.’ 

Previous Published Information from Mother Board Vice Site

A Giant, Mysterious Hole Has Opened Up in Antarctica

A hole as large as Lake Superior or the state of Maine has opened up in Antarctica, and scientists aren't sure why it's there.

The gigantic, mysterious hole "is quite remarkable," atmospheric physicist Kent Moore, a professor at the University of Toronto's Mississauga campus, told me over the phone. "It looks like you just punched a hole in the ice."

An image of the hole in the sea ice. Image: MODIS-Aqua via NASA Worldview; sea ice contours from AMSR2 ASI via University of Bremen

Areas of open water surrounded by sea ice, such as this one, are known as polynias. They form in coastal regions of Antarctica, Moore told me. What's strange here, though, is that this polynia is "deep in the ice pack," he said, and must have formed through other processes that aren't understood.

"This is hundreds of kilometres from the ice edge. If we didn't have a satellite, we wouldn't know it was there." (It measured 80,000 k㎡ at its peak.)

A polynia was observed in the same location, in Antarctica's Weddell Sea, in the 1970s, according to Moore, who's been working with the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modelling (SOCCOM) group, based at Princeton University, to analyze what's going on. Back then, scientists' observation tools weren't nearly as good, so that hole remained largely unstudied. Then it went away for four decades, until last year, when it reopened for a few weeks. Now it's back again.

"This is now the second year in a row it's opened after 40 years of not being there," Moore said. (It opened around September 9.) "We're still trying to figure out what's going on."

It's tempting to blame this strange hole on climate change, which is reshaping so much of the world, including Antarctica. But Moore said that's "premature." Scientists can say with certainty, though, that the polynia will have a wider impact on the oceans.

"Once the sea ice melts back, you have this huge temperature contrast between the ocean and the atmosphere," Moore explained. "It can start driving convection." Denser, colder water sinks to the bottom of the ocean, while warmer water comes to the surface, "which can keep the polynia open once it starts," he said.

Using observations from satellites and deep sea robots, Moore and his collaborators are working on as-yet-unpublished research that aims to answer some of these questions. "Compared to 40 years ago, the amount of data we have is amazing," he said.

Antarctica is undergoing massive changes right now, and figuring out why a gaping hole could suddenly open up will be key to understanding larger systems at play.

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