Shades of the Beatles “Yellow Submarine”.  In this case, no one lives on this  yellow submarine.  This sub is robotic and will be used to study the causes of the accelerated melting of the Pine Island Glacier in the Antarctic.

UPI has reported that British Scientists will be using the 23 foot long submarine to map out the underside and study the glacier and the sea around it.  The Pine Island Glacier is thinning at an accelerated rate.  The yellow submarine will be used to test the temperature, saliency, and pressure of the water surrounding the bottom of the glacier.

The sub will be using on board sonar to create a three dimensional map of the bottom of the glacier for scientists to be able to study portions of it most prone to melting.

If the glacier melted completely, it would raise the level of the Ocean by 4 inches.  Studying the reasons why the Pine Island Glacier is melting may help determine why other Antarctic ice is melting. 

ScienceDaily reported back in March of 2008 that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet(WAIS) was melting 20 times faster than it previously had.  Should the WAIS melt completely, the Ocean would rise by 5 meters (16.4 feet).

The more ice that melts, the higher the rise of the Ocean and the closer to disaster movie status the world moves.  Lead researcher Adrian Jenkins told The Daily Telegraph:

We believe that something about the ocean around where the glacier ice moves from being grounded to floating has changed and this is driving the thinning and accelerating ice flow.

The submarine has a range of 248 miles.  It is powered by 5,000 D-cell batteries.  The sub will take 20 hours to travel 40 miles under the glacier on its mission. 

Hopefully when it finishes, scientists will have a better understanding of the factors influencing the increased melting of the Antarctic ice sheet.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 1:48 pm under Robotics, Science and technology.

Read more entries by Susan Wilson.
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