Nice to hear that Boaty is still a happy little sub.
"Boaty McBoatface" has executed its most daring dive yet. The nation's favourite yellow submarine swam under a near-600m thick ice shelf in the Antarctic, returning safely to its launch ship after 48 hours away. It was an important test for the novel autonomous vehicle, which was developed at the UK's National Oceanography Centre (NOC).
Boaty's handlers now plan even more arduous expeditions for the sub in the years ahead. This includes a traverse under the sea-ice that caps the Arctic Ocean.
Boaty gathered data on the way water moves through the cavity, measuring temperature, salinity and mixing. This will help scientists better understand how the Filchner will respond if warm water were ever to get under the shelf to begin melting it - something that is happening in other regions of the Antarctic today.
Dr Peter Davis, a BAS oceanographer on the project, told BBC News: "The ice steams cover an area perhaps 10 times the size of the UK. So, the shelves hold back a huge amount of ice. And if they are unleashed, or released, they could result in some substantial sea-level rise that will impact everyone no matter where we are on the globe."
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43378290
No comments:
Post a Comment
Due to a small but consistent influx of spam, comments will now be checked before publishing. Only egregious spam/illegal/racist crap will be disapproved, everything else will be published.