Nasa sat clicks stunning 'Sea Smoke' over Antarctic Glacier. What is it?

Nasa's Landsat 8 satellite captured ghostly plumes of "sea smoke" on October 10 that rose over Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier. Here's all you need to know about it

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) Landsat 8 satellite captured a rare atmospheric phenomenon that shows “sea smoke” over Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier. The ghostly plume images were clicked on October 10 by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) from the most crucial and vulnerable ice masses of the White Continent showing the "power of wind".

 

A glaciologist from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Christopher Shuman, based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center stated that the reason behind the clear images taken by the satellite was the lack of clouds during the time.

 

Some of the source locations of the plumes are particularly visible from the shear zone along the south side of Pine Island Glacier.

 

What is sea smoke?

Sea smoke is fog over water that appears due to cold frigid air above the glacier that meets the warm water surrounding it. The cooling condenses air into fog that forms small ice crystals that look like ghostly plumes. This resultantly creates a haunting scene on the water as it rises and covers the nearby surroundings. 

 

Shuman states that the strong winds can transport and cleanse enough snow that influences the surface mass balancing the polar ice sheets. However, the blowing of snow contributing to the loss of surface mass is still a matter to understand, might be due to a lack of ground-based data.

 

"One really shouldn't be surprised to see winds coming out of the interior with all the cold winter air that's been isolated there for months," Shuman added.

Importance of Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier

Pine Island Glacier which is believed to be one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in all of Antarctica, along with Thwaites Glacier is a centre of attraction due to the main pathways for ice flowing to the Amundsen Sea from the West Antarctic Sheet.

 

The satellite images show powerful springtime winds pushing the white snow, originating from a chaotic shear zone of fractured ice located close to the southern edge of the glacier. Shuman talked about the katabatic winds, a characteristic feature of the Antarctic climate, saying that these winds draw cold air from the interior where it has been isolated for months.