Recently, NASA found some mysterious ice caves in the Beaufort Sea in northern Alaska. Many scientists can't explain the reason for this mysterious phenomenon. These mysterious ice caves will disappear after a period of time, which is unpredictable.
According to the Washington Post, NASA recently discovered some mysterious ice caves in the Beaufort Sea in northern Alaska, which disappeared within minutes after taking photos. Because the highest temperature in this sea area is also under the freezing point, there will be no ice caves in theory, so it attracted people to explore. So far, despite the participation of many scientists, this phenomenon is still a mystery.
On April 20, the staff uploaded the photos to the official website of NASA and named them "April puzzle", which triggered a large-scale discussion among netizens. After reading the pictures, some netizens left a message doubting whether the official mistook the pictures of outer space for those of the Arctic Ocean.
Some people think it's the pores made by seals breaking ice to breathe. Michael, a scientist at the ice and snow data center in the United States, doesn't agree. He thinks it may be a cave formed by the gravity of ice and snow.
According to the glaciologist Schumann, this may be a random natural phenomenon caused by the outflow of underground hot springs, or a local abnormal natural phenomenon caused by climate warming.
NASA staff member Sontag wrote in the log: 'in my memory, I have never seen such a magical phenomenon. It only existed for a few minutes. '
NASA scientists say they have never seen a similar image before, and the reason for the formation of this strange ice cave seems confusing. Don PEROVICH, a sea ice geophysicist at Dartmouth College, says that in some ways it seems to explain that the sea ice in the Beaufort Sea is clearly young ice, because it used to be open water. The newly formed ice may be thin and soft. Some special drift movements of ice form such ice sheets.
Nathan Kurtz, who is also a scientist of the ice bridge project, said that it was absolutely a thin ice layer, because at that time, observers said that they could see some broken ice drifting near the hole, and the color was gray, enough to show that there was little snow on the ice. But this phenomenon is still difficult for Nathan Kurtz, because even as a scientist who has seen countless kinds of ice and snow wonders, he has not seen such semicircle characteristics, and he is not sure which physical effect will lead to the appearance of ice caves.
The holes in the ice seem to be a mystery. Walt Meier, a scientist from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States, expressed his views on the spectacle. He believed that the birth of this strange landscape might be related to biological activities, such as seals. These holes may be made by seals. They form an open area on the ice surface, so that seals can breathe through the holes. Another guess is that this strange hole in ice is caused by the convection of sea water.
Chris Shuman, a glaciologist at the University of Maryland, believes that in the past few years, the Beaufort Sea is undergoing some strange changes, which are related to the abnormal warming of the sea water. This kind of hole may be caused by the warm water from Beaufort Sea or the warm water from Mackenzie River of Canada flowing into the Arctic Ocean. The warm water flows up through the interaction with the terrain, just like a fountain, and finally melts the ice layer, forming an isolated cave. If this is the case, the current situation of the Arctic Ocean may be more dangerous.