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A Giant, Mysterious Hole Has Opened Up In Antarctica (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the ice-fishing dept.

Scientists are perplexed over a giant hole that has opened up in Antarctica. According to Motherboard, the "gigantic, mysterious hole" is as large as Lake Superior or the state of Maine. From the report: 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." Areas of open water surrounded by sea ice, such as this one, are known as polynyas. They form in coastal regions of Antarctica, Moore told me. What's strange here, though, is that this polynya is "deep in the ice pack," he said, and must have formed through other processes that aren't understood. "This is hundreds of kilometers from the ice edge. If we didn't have a satellite, we wouldn't know it was there." (It measured 80,000 km^2 at its peak.) "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."

4 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Queue up the jokes by dj245 · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's fairly obvious. The Goa'uld are coming.

    --
    Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  2. Re: Water currents. by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't be silly. It's not completely unreasonable that one of the research scientists posted this story to tap the unparalleled hive mind at /..

    "...gigantic, mysterious hole" is as large as Lake Superior or the state of Maine.

    Clearly, the real story here is that Lake Superior and the State of Maine are interchangeable units of measuring area. Who Knew?

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  3. Weddell Polynya by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Weddell Polynya is reasonably well understood

    "The Southern Ocean is strongly stratified. A very cold but relatively fresh water layer covers a much warmer and saltier water mass, thus acting as an insulating layer," explains Prof. Dr. Mojib Latif, head of the Research Division at GEOMAR. Under certain conditions, the warm water of the lower layer can reach the surface and melt the ice. "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," adds Professor Latif

  4. For those who use metric by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those who use metric, it's a bit less than three standard Belgiums.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."