Bitter winds blowing across the snow dunes on Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf cause the ground to ‘sing’ scientists have discovered, and they believe the phenomenon could be used to monitor climate change.

The near-constant air flow creates vibrations on the surface of the massive ice slab, which give out a set of seismic tones that researchers can listen to from afar.

Scientists believe that changes to the song could show whether melt ponds or cracks in the ice are forming that might indicate whether the shelf is about to break up.

The Ross Ice Shelf is Antarctica’s largest ice shelf, more than 1,000 feet deep and measuring nearly 200,000 square miles. Around 90 per cent of the floating ice is beneath the surface of the water and it juts up to other ice sheets which border the Antarctic mainland, stopping ice flow into the water, like a cork in a bottle.

Scientists are concerned that climate change may cause the ice sheet to collapse allowing ice to flow faster into the sea and raising global sea levels.