Scientists in the United States and United Kingdom have a better understanding of Antarctica's shrinking ice sheets thanks to three robotic underwater gliders deployed in the Southern Ocean.

Though warmer ocean waters near the coast play a big role in melting Antarctica's ice, researchers wanted to learn more about how that water gets there in the first place, and why. The gliders offered scientists the opportunity to find out, by tracking warm Southern Ocean waters on their journey to the Antarctic coast, according to a press release.

As is turns out, swirling, storm-like ocean eddies transport warm water from deep ocean currents to the shallow surface waters of coastal Antarctica. These warm waters heat the polar ice sheet from below as the atmosphere melts the glacies from above.

"Eddies are instabilities that are caused by ocean currents, and we often compare their effect on the ocean to putting a spoon in your coffee," Andrew Thompson, assistant professor of environmental science and engineering at Caltech, explained in a press release.

Thompson, the lead author of a new study on the melting effects of Southern Ocean eddies, had his scientific paper published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"If you pour milk in your coffee and then you stir it with a spoon, the spoon enhances your ability to mix the milk into the coffee and that is what these eddies do," Thompson added. "They are very good at mixing heat and other properties."

The robotic gliders, which are controlled by researchers at the University of East Anglia in England and the California Institute of Technology, can explore underwater for long periods of time, rising only to beam back collected data. Data includes temperature, salinity and current movement, sent via satellites and cell towers.

Since the eddies are hard to predict, a device like the glider was invaluable.

"The use of ocean gliders is beginning to revolutionize our understanding of polar ocean processes," study co-author Karen Heywood, a professor at East Anglia's Center for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, told the BBC. "We hope it will help refine ocean and climate models, and predict future rates of retreat for Antarctic ice shelves."

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