Southern Ocean frontal structure and sea-ice formation rates revealed by elephant seals
| Type | Article | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | 2008-08 | ||||||||
| Language | English | ||||||||
| Author(s) | Charrassin J. -B.1, Hindell M.2, Rintoul S. R.3, Roquet Fabien1, Sokolov S.3, Biuw M.12, Costa D.5, Boehme L.4, Lovell P.4, Coleman R.6, Timmermann R.7, Meijers A., Meredith M.8, Park Y. -H.1, Bailleul F.10, Goebel M.9, Tremblay Y5, Bost C. -A.10, McMahon C. R.11, Field I. C.11, Fedak M. A., Guinet C10 | ||||||||
| Affiliation(s) | 1 : Museum Natl Hist Nat, Dept Milieux & Pepuplements Aquat, Lab Oceanog & Climat Experimentation & Approches, Unite Sci Museum 402, F-75231 Paris 05, France. 2 : Univ Tasmania, Sch Zool, Antarctic Wildlife Res Unit, Hobart, Tas 7001, Australia. 3 : Commonwealth Sci & Ind Res Org, Wealth Oceans Natl Res Flagship & Antarctic Clima, Hobart, Tas 7001, Australia. 4 : Univ St Andrews, Gatty Marine Lab, NERC Sea Mammal Res Unit, St Andrews KY16 8LB, Fife, Scotland. 5 : Univ Calif Santa Cruz, Long Marine Lab, Inst Marine Sci, Ctr Ocean Hlth, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 USA. 6 : Univ Tasmania, Ctr Marine Sci, Hobart, Tas 7001, Australia. 7 : Alfred Wegener Inst Polar & Marine Res, D-2850 Bremerhaven, Germany. 8 : British Antarctic Tasmania, Cambridge CB3 0ET, England. 9 : NOAA, Antarctic Ecosyst Res Div, Natl Marine Fisheries Serv, La Jolla, CA 92037 USA. 10 : CNRS, Ctr Etudes Biol Chize, F-79360 Beauvoir Sur Niort, France. 11 : Charles Darwin Univ, Sch Environm Res, Darwin, NT 0909, Australia. 12 : Norwegian Polar Res Inst, Polar Environm Ctr, NO-9296 Tromso, Norway. |
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| Source | Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America (0027-8424) (Natl Acad Sciences), 2008-08 , Vol. 105 , N. 33 , P. 11634-11639 | ||||||||
| DOI | 10.1073/pnas.0800790105 | ||||||||
| WOS© Times Cited | 131 | ||||||||
| Keyword(s) | antarctic circumpolar current, instrumentation, marine predators, ocean observation, sea-ice modeling | ||||||||
| Abstract | Polar regions are particularly sensitive to climate change, with the potential for significant feedbacks between ocean circulation, sea ice, and the ocean carbon cycle. However, the difficulty in obtaining in situ data means that our ability to detect and interpret change is very limited, especially in the Southern Ocean, where the ocean beneath the sea ice remains almost entirely unobserved and the rate of sea-ice formation is poorly known. Here, we show that southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) equipped with oceanographic sensors can measure ocean structure and water mass changes in regions and seasons rarely observed with traditional oceanographic platforms. In particular, seals provided a 30-fold increase in hydrographic profiles from the sea-ice zone, allowing the major fronts to be mapped south of 60 degrees S and sea-ice formation rates to be inferred from changes in upper ocean salinity. Sea-ice production rates peaked in early winter (April-May) during the rapid northward expansion of the pack ice and declined by a factor of 2 to 3 between May and August, in agreement with a three-dimensional coupled ocean-sea-ice model. By measuring the high-latitude ocean during winter, elephant seals fill a "blind spot" in our sampling coverage, enabling the establishment of a truly global ocean-observing system. | ||||||||
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