It’s not the satellites but the Elephant Seals who are now providing data and info about how quickly the Antarctic Ice caps shrinks and grows (among many other clues). As Seals are natural habitants of the Antarctic marine ecosystem, so they are providing the most valuable and sophisticated data which are 30 times more than conventional sources.
The ice sheets reflect back a significant portion of sun rays to the space which helps maintain the average Earth’s temperature. But if it’s disappearing then it means lesser portion of the rays will be reflected back and much will be absorbed by the Earth causing a rise in temperature – that’s the point of climate change.
The Seals dive to a depth of 2 km in the Southern Ocean while swimming up to 65 km a day.
Data gathered by the Seals will help scientist to make more accurate models to predict the climate changes. The sensors attached to the heads of Seals measure temperature and salinity changes with ocean depths. Live experiments indeed.
Source: Reuters