A group of oceanographers, glaciologists, meteorologists and biologists are currently on a mid-winter expedition to the Antarctic to further pursue the mysteries of the Adelie polynya.
(ENN) -- Australia's scientific agency has been doing a lot of research in the Antarctic during this Year of the Ocean, and one of their recent discoveries is a source of dense, oxygen-rich Antarctic Bottom Water which breathes life into the world's oceans.

Dr. Steve Rintoul, a Southern Ocean specialist at CSIRO Marine Research and the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre in Hobart, has identified a section of the Antarctic coast directly south of Tasmania as the source of one quarter of the Antarctic Bottom Water formed.

Cold air near Antarctica cools the ocean to the point that sea ice begins to form. As ice forms, salt is released to the water beneath the new ice. Both the low temperatures and higher salinity make the surface water heavy enough to sink 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) to the bottom of the ocean, hence the name Antarctic Bottom Water. (see diagram)

As dense bottom water sinks, it carries oxygen to the deep ocean, says Rintoul. "If these 'windows' to the deep sea were closed, oxygen levels would gradually decrease, causing fundamental changes to the chemistry and biology of the deep ocean.

"Near Antarctica, the ocean is delicately poised - small changes in salinity determine if water sinks or remains at the sea surface. If precipitation increases, the formation of bottom water may be slowed or shut down and some climate models suggest this may occur as the result of an enhanced greenhouse effect.

Antarctic Bottom Water is also an important player in the global pattern of ocean currents which acts as a "conveyor belt" to carry water, heat and salt around the Earth. Heat carried by the conveyor has a major impact on Earth's climate. Changes in bottom water formation may influence climate in the Antarctic and in more distant locations. (see diagram)

Rintoul says there are only a few places in the ocean where conditions are right to make surface water heavy enough to sink.

"Somewhat to our surprise, the Adelie Land coast appears to be a much more substantial source of bottom water than we previously thought," said Dr. Rintoul.

Earlier studies suggested that most bottom water was formed in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, with the remainder formed in the Pacific sector. Early measurements suggested the Adelie area might also produce bottom water, but it was largely dismissed as an insignificant source.

"Our new observations suggest that about a quarter of the total volume of bottom water in the world ocean is formed there."

"The fact that a lot of bottom water is formed on the Adelie coast is intriguing, because it doesn't really fit our ideas about what is required to form bottom water," said Dr. Rintoul.

One important factor is the presence of a large 'polynya', an area of ocean within the sea ice pack which remains ice-free all winter. Because the air temperature can be up to 30 degrees Celsius colder than the water, the ocean is cooled very strongly. The water freezes to form sea ice, but the ice is moved off-shore by very strong winds, maintaining the ice-free polynya. The polynya acts as an 'ice factory,' which in turn means that salt is released to the water below the ice. The input of salt is the key to making light surface water heavy enough to sink to the deep ocean.

"The Adelie polynya is an unusually productive source of bottom water. We think that ocean currents are probably the reason for this, but the evidence so far is largely circumstantial," says Dr. Rintoul. To further study this phenomenon, a group of oceanographers, glaciologists, meteorologists and biologists are currently on a mid-winter expedition to an area of the Antarctic that is one of the windiest places on earth, where they can expect average temperatures around -19 C, to further pursue the mysteries of the Adelie polynya.

Dr. Rintoul's findings have just been published by the American Geophysical Union, in a paper titled "Oceanography of the Antarctic Continental Shelf."