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Naeblys\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Antarctica is a massive block of ice hiding land underneath it, and you can hardly blame scientists for wanting to take a peek at the secrets it holds. But since you can’t send humans down there \u2014 there’s already a hard limit on the\u00a0deepest depth a person has explored in the ocean<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a robot named Ran went instead. The machine was a\u00a0bright orange autonomous underwater vehicle\u00a0measuring around 20 feet in length.<\/p>\n Back in 2022, it was sent into the\u00a0cavity beneath West Antarctica’s Dotson Ice Shelf by researchers with the\u00a0International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. There, Ran explored the shelf’s underbelly by sweeping it using upward-looking sonar. It did so across\u00a054 square miles, and the images that came back were strange, to say the least.<\/p>\n It was found that\u00a0the ice wasn’t one smooth sheet, contrary to what the researchers expected. In some places, it\u00a0stepped down in terraces, like a frozen staircase. In others, it formed\u00a0channels and scooped grooves. There were also\u00a0teardrop-shaped pits gouging upward into the ice, some nearly 1,000 feet long. This was all new information, since\u00a0none of it showed up on satellites.<\/p>\n Anna W\u00e5hlin, the oceanographer from the University of Gothenburg who led the work, said it actually felt a little like getting a\u00a0first look at the far side of the Moon. But that wasn’t even the most startling part. When the crew returned to take another look\u00a0in early 2024, specifically to see how the ice had moved, Ran went back under and\u00a0never resurfaced.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Gone, but not before doing its job<\/p>\n
Sander van der Werf\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Not only did Ran stop sending signals, but it\u00a0left no debris either. Follow-up search attempts using acoustic gear, helicopters, and drones found absolutely nothing. There are theories of course \u2014 the team has floated reasons like a mechanical fault, a run-in with an ice ridge, or perhaps even\u00a0curious seals. The deep sea is hard on machines either way, and pressure can\u00a0crush a submarine that dives too deep<\/a>. Whatever the cause of the disappearance,\u00a0the maps Ran sent back before it was lost have been pretty useful.<\/p>\n You’d think that the shelf would\u00a0melt evenly, the way an ice cube does in a warm glass. But the maps show that isn’t the case with Dotson. The melting is being driven by a current called\u00a0Circumpolar Deep Water, this relatively warm and salty water drifting up from the Southern Ocean. It reaches the underside of the shelf and quietly wears it down. “Warm” is a generous word here, but even a\u00a0small temperature differential goes a long way for ice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The shapes are only half the story<\/p>\n This flow also helps explain the odd shapes seen under the ice. That range of forms is caused by the\u00a0varying speeds of the current. When it’s slow, the ice\u00a0wears back in gradual steps, eventually forming those stacked terraces. When it’s fast, you get\u00a0smoother grooves, channels, and those teardrop pits. On top of that, certain regions of the ice receive\u00a0different strengths of the current, too. For instance,\u00a0Dotson’s west melts quicker simply because the currents run stronger there, pushing more heat into the ice. The eastern side is calmer.<\/p>\n Ultimately, though, the findings clear up one crucial thing: A\u00a0shelf like Dotson works like a doorstop, holding back the glaciers that sit on the land behind it. That doorstop is important, because\u00a0as it thins, it loses its grip, and the glaciers start sliding into the ocean. Land-based ice ends up raising sea levels, resulting in higher tides and\u00a0greater chances of flooding \u2014 even for coasts half a world away from Antarctica. Already,\u00a0Antarctic melt has pushed the sea up about half an inch since 1979. Maps like Ran’s (published in the journal\u00a0Science Advances<\/a>) are extremely useful in the area because they help researchers sharpen forecasts.<\/p>\n
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