Earthquake monitors gauge quality of Arctic's ice
Like many discoveries, this one came as something of an accident. Tsai was examining data from seismic stations to be sure they were functioning properly, when he noticed something strange in the numbers from two stations near the Bering Sea.
"There was a lack of energy from about December though May," he said, a time when most seismic stations in northern climes usually pick up lots of energy — or ground shaking — because winter storms whip up waves that pound Arctic shorelines.
At first he and his collaborators thought the stations were malfunctioning, but the numbers revealed the same pattern, year after year.
"We tried to understand why that was, and we saw, oh yeah, this ties into when you have significant sea ice around those stations," he said. Which made sense, since it's known that sea ice dampens the vigor of ocean waves.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46687081/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T17RPWLP2Hd
