& # 39; Boaty McBoatface & # 39; discovers a link between the Antarctic wind and the rise in sea level | Now



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The unmanned British submarine Boaty McBoatface made her first important discovery. The ship discovered that increasing winds in the Antarctic caused warming of the seawater, causing sea level rise.

Boaty McBoatface's first mission took place in April 2017 The yellow submarine crossed the icy north of the Southern Ocean for three days in Antarctica. Boaty dived between the mountain valleys in a narrow corridor called Orkney Passage.

At the bottom of the sea, Boaty measured the turbulence of the water. The submarine reached a depth of 4,000 meters during its voyage and traveled a distance of 180 km

The data collected by Boaty are published in the scientific journal PNAS (pdf). The new data allow climatologists to more accurately predict the effects of climate change on sea level rise.

Winds over Antarctica increased by a hole in the ozone layer

In the atmosphere, winds blowing over the Southern Ocean have become stronger in recent decades.

British researchers discovered that turbulence in the sea also increased as the wind increased. As a result, the cold bottom water mixes with the warmer water located in the upper layers of the seawater. As the hot water expands, the level of the sea ​​goes up then.

The warming mechanism discovered by Boaty McBoatface is not yet integrated with current computational models to predict the influence of global warming on the oceans.

Public Name Requested Invented for the Research Vessel

A British research institute asked the public in 2016 to propose a name for a new research vessel. Boaty McBoatface subsequently won the most votes, but because the British government deemed the name inappropriate, the ship was named RSS Sir David Attenborough, named after the famous British biologist.

The ship's submarine was still named Boaty McBoatface.


Boaty McBoatface in action. (Photo: Povl Abrahamsen, British Antarctic Survey)

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