In a unprecedented satellite tv for pc seize, NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite tv for pc has documented an abnormal atmospheric phenomenon above Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier, the place ghostly plumes of “sea smoke” upward thrust from one of the most continent’s maximum an important and susceptible ice lots.The exceptional pictures, taken on October 10, 2024, show off an odd clear-sky view of 2 atmospheric phenomena: sea smoke forming on the glacier’s edge and snow streams whipped up via tough katabatic winds racing from Antarctica’s inside towards the coast.The photographs are a singular alternative to look at those near-surface atmospheric phenomena, which can be generally obscured via cloud quilt, Christopher Shuman, a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Heart and the College of Maryland, Baltimore County, stated in a observation. It illustrates “the facility of the wind,” he stated.Drag slidercompare footage
Sea smoke, a phenomenon similar to steam emerging from a sizzling cup of espresso on a chilly morning, bureaucracy via an interplay between ice, water and air. As winds push water and sea ice clear of the glacier’s entrance, hotter water wells up from under.When this rather heat water meets the frigid Antarctic air, it creates a dramatic condensation impact, forming small ice crystals that seem as ghostly plumes emerging from the water’s floor.Pine Island Glacier, together with its neighbor Thwaites Glacier, serves as a vital pathway for ice glide from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the Amundsen Sea. The glacier has received notoriety in recent times for its fast retreat, steadily calving icebergs so huge they require legitimate names.The satellite tv for pc imagery additionally finds streams of white snow being carried around the panorama via tough springtime winds. Those snow streams are in particular visual close to the glacier’s southern edge, the place they originate from a chaotic shear zone of fractured ice.
“One actually should not be shocked to peer winds popping out of the internal with all of the chilly iciness air that is been remoted there for months,” Shuman stated. Those katabatic winds, created when dense, chilly air flows downslope towards the coast, are a signature function of Antarctic local weather.Whilst those wind-driven phenomena create impressive imagery, in addition they spotlight necessary medical questions on Antarctica’s converting local weather. Scientists are in particular enthusiastic about working out how blowing snow impacts the outside mass steadiness of polar ice sheets.Regardless of the importance of this procedure, researchers face substantial demanding situations in collecting complete knowledge because of the far flung location and cruel stipulations of those websites.Do you’ve a tip on a science tale that Newsweek will have to be overlaying? Do you’ve a query about glaciers? Tell us by means of science@newsweek.com.
