By strapping sensors onto elephant seals, scientists are able to see what lies beneath sea ice.
"They have made it possible for us to observe large areas of the ocean under the sea ice in winter for the first time," said co-author Steve Rintoul from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).
Sea ice reflects sunlight back into space, so less sea ice means that the earth is absorbing more energy, causing more warming.
Sea ice also affects the amount of dense around the Antarctic, which in turn drives ocean currents that transports heat around the globe, in addition to providing a critical habitat for krill, penguins and seals.
The seals have already increased the available information by 30-fold, allowing scientists to more accurately calculate how rapidly sea ice forms during the winter months than by topical devices like monitoring from ships, satellites and drifting buoys alone.
"If we want to understand what's going to happen to climate in the future we need to know what the sea ice is going to do. Will there be more or less and will it form more or less rapidly?" Rintoul told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Both Polar Regions play an important role in controlling the earth’s climate, which is why it is critical to find out why the Southern Ocean is warming faster than the rest of the world’s oceans.
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