Over a hundred, cylindrical, submersible drones, diving and recording acidity data from the seas around Antarctica, have found some unexpected new climate data. Long thought to be a net absorber of carbon dioxide, the Southern Ocean, it turns out, does not always act that way.
Up until the new study, published yesterday in Geophysical Research Letters, flux estimates on the uptake of carbon dioxide by the Southern Ocean were pretty sparse — and weighted heavily toward the summer months when travel is safer and the water more readily assimilates atmospheric carbon. Winter measurements have traditionally come from ships traveling to resupply Antarctic research stations (like the one in John Carpenter’s The Thing. Just saying).

Antarctica can be an unpredictable place, according to Derek “Deke” Arndt, the chief of the Monitoring Branch for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information.

While Argo floats — a vast network of aquatic probes managed internationally by about 30 participating nations — only take ocean temperature and salinity measurements, these new SOCCOM floats were equipped with sensors to record additional information, including the amount of dissolved oxygen nearby, the nitrogen content and acidity (pH). Read more