That was somehow to be expected. Let's see how long this area stays free of ice. Very interesting season!

#Antarctic #WeddellSea #Polynya #MaudRise #Meermittwoch

By the way, there are plenty open positions at @awi to obtain a PhD. Deadline already mid August. One related to Antarctic sea ice: https://jobs.awi.de/Vacancies/1429/Description/2

thinking of my colleagues aboard the Korean #Icebreaker IBRV Araon as it looks to thread its way north through a bit of a maze of #SeaIce. Pretty thrilled that they got to deploy our sampling gear amongst all this and get some sneaky opportunistic sampling in too! Strange to be dealing with this in anticipation of a time with much less ice... 😞 #Polynya #Antarctica [img: https://go.nasa.gov/3FDomJQ ]

today was the day I was meant to head into quarantine for a trip south on a Korean #icebreaker to deploy some instruments into a #polynya. But a few weeks back got bumped as voyage plans have all changed due to crazy #SeaIce 😞 on the other hand I get to be warm for Xmas which is not always the case. (pic Brett Grant/NIWA)

@tobias1hoffmann @ClnHz @seaice

From the operational oceanography side, we get quite frequent images of the #polynya from a variety of satellite missions (radars, optical, passive microwave,...) We have some in-situ obs of the water column.

I do not think we have skillful short-range forecasts of the opening of the #polynya (or I do not know about them).

@tobias1hoffmann @ClnHz @seaice

Hello Tobias. One of the main drivers for having a #polynya at this location is ocean bottom topography, e.g. Holland (2001).

But why it opens some years and not other years is still not settled (?) and apparently linked to weather events (cyclones, atmospheric rivers) e.g. Francis et al. (2019).

But Céline (@ClnHz) know much more than I do !

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1059322
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD030618

It seems the Maud Rise Polynya (aka Weddell Sea Polynya) is open again, but still quite small.

A #polynya is an area of open water within the #seaice cover.

The #polynya in the Maud Rise region appears from time to time and is an interesting phenomenom to explain or observe with #satellite data (many papers!).

It seems we are lucky and #MODIS got a view of the polynya between the clouds yesterday.

cc @ClnHz @seaice @

Time for a #FridayFieldPhoto and given the #30DayMapChallenge I posted yesterday showing the #NorthWaterPolynya - here is (sort of) what it looks like on the ground: some of our local collaborators, hunters, watching #Narwhal swimming at the edge of the #SeaIce inside the #polynya near #Qaanaaq in NW #Greenland
#FieldPhotoFriday