Vishnu Nandan, a post-doctoral associate with the University of Calgary, along with Robbie Mallett, from the University of Manitoba, have been studying ways to improve how radar satellites measure the thickness of Antarctic sea ice and snow.
"We came in where we had the lowest sea ice on record over the past many decades, so we didn't have sea ice much and we had really thin ice in the winter." Nandan did similar research a few years ago in the central Arctic Ocean, when he was on an icebreaker for a year in an extended examination of global warming from a vantage point close to the North Pole.
Although there has still been lots of snow, there were several days of rain, which is unusual, said Nandan. He added that the warm wind is preventing the ocean ice from freezing solidly.