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Where is it?The Ronne Ice Shelf , Antarctica
What ’s in the photo?Wispy strands of ice stretching across a narrow-minded channel of weewee
Satellite images captured wispy streaks of “nilas” ice forming on the Antarctic Ocean between a patch of sea ice (top) the Ronne Ice Shelf (bottom) in November 2021.
Which planet took the photo?Landsat 8
When was it taken?Nov . 20 , 2021
This photo captured streaks of fragile icestretching across a minute ocean TV channel in Antarctica . The rare sight was triggered by a combination of gamy winds and unusual sea current , and it could become more common in the arrive years due to human - caused climate change .
Nilas ice normally creates a super-thin sheet across an coean’s surface. In this photo, it formed next to Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf.
The chalk streaks stretch along across a roughly 3.7 - nautical mile - wide ( 6 kilometers ) epithelial duct of seawater between the Ronne Ice Shelf — a massive , clean ice sheet attached to Antarctica ’s mainland that frequentlybirths some of the world ’s biggest icebergs — and a patch of fragmenting ocean ice rink , which appears gray around its boundary .
The streaks are made from nilas , a case of crack - thin ice less than 4 inches ( 10 centimeters ) thick-skulled , according to theNational Snow and Ice Data Center(NSIDC ) . Nilas is ordinarily create when loose chalk crystals , fuck as frazil ice , merge into slight sheets across a still open .
However , in this case , high-pitched winds created unusual whirlpool currents , or vortices , on the ocean ’s surface , which stopped sheet icing from forming and forced the nilas ice to amass at the current ' centers before being blown across the piss , according toNASA ’s Earth Observatory .
The high winds also push the ocean ice away from the Ronne Ice Shelf , giving nilas more space to grow and extend out .
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In the image , the nilas ice accumulates along the border of the sea ice , forming a sick blue band . The color is strange for this character of deoxyephedrine . Normally , glacier and ocean ice appear blue only when they become so dense that they absorb the tenacious wavelength of light , think of they only ruminate the brusk , blue wavelengths .
" I ’m not quite sure how the sea ice here gets the blasphemous color,“Walt Meier , a enquiry scientist at NSIDC , tell the Earth Observatory at the prison term . But the frappe may be getting squelch together making it very compact and allow it to absorb longer wavelengths than normal , he added .
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The occurrence of icy wisp could become more usual in the future due to the effects of mood change . In November 2021 , when the photograph was taken , the Antarctic sea ice extent — the domain of the ocean around Antarctica brood by ocean deoxyephedrine — was well below the average for that clock time of year , fit in toNASA ’s Earth Observatory . sparse and more fragile ocean ice is more susceptible to being moved around by the lead , make the wisp more likely to appear in the time to come .
