Sound can be a powerful force. Everyday sound and noise affect us. Louder sounds have much effect over the environment. A study shows how much sound affects the environment as vibrations caused by ice shelves in the Antarctic create waves on the atmosphere above it.
The Ross Ice Shelf in particular is said to be creating low-frequency vibrations that are causing waves in the atmosphere, according to Phys Org. These waves have been noticed by scientists stationed at McMurdo Station in 2011. The waves were at an altitude of 30 to 115 kilometers above in the atmosphere.
The Ross Ice Shelf is the world's largest ice shelf. It is measured to be almost half a million square kilometers, or about the size of France. The large ice shelf create low-frequency vibrations as ocean waves hit it. Also causing these sounds is the ice itself as it slowly melts. As it melts, the ice shifts ever so gradually, which can produce the sounds also.
The study has solved the puzzle that the scientists at McMurdo Station have been wondering. In 2011 when they discovered the waves in the atmosphere, they were wondering what was causing them. The study of the shelf's vibrations has been made by Oleg Godin, lead author and Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
"If atmospheric waves are generated by ice vibrations, by rhythmic vibrations of ice, then that carries a lot of information of the ice shelf itself," said Godin. In this way scientists could use the atmospheric waves as a gauge in knowing what is happening with the Ross Ice Shelf, as Science Daily reports. This can also help scientists in monitoring when ice shelves are breaking up.
For the study, Godin and his co-author, Nikolay Zabotin, made two models of the Ross Ice Shelf. Through the two theoretical models they were able to show that the vibrations on the ice shelf have been causing the atmospheric waves. Both models show that the vibrations have a cycle, which can last from a three to ten-hour period.
For the vibrations to make the atmospheric waves, it should have direct contact to the air above it in order to produce the waves. The atmospheric waves created are large because there isn't as much air pressure in the atmosphere. The vibrations then are amplified as it moves through the atmospheric layer.
Since the atmospheric waves are large, radar can be used to study it. Godin and Zabotin plan to use a more advanced research radar in order to understand more the atmospheric waves and how it can show what is happening on the Ross Ice Shelf.
Salty show is also affecting the poles, as it does in the Arctic.
