Case file · Anomaly hotspot
The great hole in the Weddell Sea ice
Satellites in 1974 saw a hole the size of New Zealand open in the winter sea ice of the Weddell Sea; it came back each winter until 1976, then mostly vanished, and reopened in 2016 and 2017 above the Maud Rise.
1974 CE · -65.00, 2.00 · status: explained
The account
The reappearance in 2017, about 80,000 km² of open water in midwinter, went viral as a 'mysterious hole in Antarctica' with suggestions of hidden heat sources or bases. Oceanographers linked it to warm deep water pushed up over the Maud Rise seamount and to intense storms over the pack ice.
The sceptical view
Ocean convection and storms explain the polynya; it is studied as part of the Southern Ocean's climate system.