Southern Antarctic Elephant Seals locate their prey with their vision; their large eyes allow them to see the bioluminescence of some prey in the benthic depths of the ocean. They forage at sea for 10 months returning to the deep pack ice where intensive mixing of the warm saline waters of the Weddell Gyre, the very cold outflow waters, and the ice shelf water at the Antarctic Slope Front. How global warming will affect the dense and oxygenated water from the Antarctic to the surrounding oceans initiating the global circulation is unknown? |