Deep beneath the Antarctic seas lies ‘Antarctic Bottom Water’ – cold dense water that is key in driving heat around the globe.

Until now, little has been known about how melting Antarctic ice shelves affect the formation of these dense bottom waters.

Now, researchers have employed a helping hand in the form of elephant seals, to show that ice melting caused by global warming could potentially put an end to bottom water formation.

Scroll down for video

Researchers have employed a helping hand in the form of elephant seals, to show that enhanced ice melting caused by future global warming could potentially put an end to bottom water formation

WHAT IS ANTARCTIC BOTTOM WATER? Antarctic Bottom Water can be found at the very bottom of the ocean, directly overlaying the sea floor. This cold, salty, and dense water spreads across the deep plains of the global ocean and can be found as far north as the equator. The water has recently been in contact with the atmosphere, which helps ventilate the deep ocean by delivering oxygen. Most dense waters are produced in ‘polynya systems’ – areas with particularly intense sea ice formation – which only exist in a few key areas. Prydz Bay in East Antarctica, hosts three polynya systems. Advertisement

The research comes from scientists at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, at the University of Tasmania, and is published in Nature Communications.

During winter, the seas surrounding Antarctica freeze, causing the salt in the water to be rejected.

The rejection of the salt leads the formation of very dense surface waters, which eventually sink to form bottom waters that drive the globe’s deep ocean circulation.

Most dense waters are produced in ‘polynya systems’ – areas with particularly intense sea ice formation – which only exist in a few key areas.

Prydz Bay in East Antarctica, hosts three polynya systems.

Despite this, existing data suggests that the area produces less-dense water, which made the researchers question its contribution to the important bottom waters.

However, collecting further data is very difficult, particularly during winter, when human access to the region is near impossible.

Elephant seals have been providing an invaluable additional source of oceanographic measurements to global databases, with particularly strong impact in data-poor regions such as around Antarctica

To tackle this problem, the researchers enlisted the help of elephant seals who live in the area.

Dr Guy Williams, who led the study, told MailOnline: 'The marine mammal tagging program independently monitors the elephant seals and provides the environmental oceanographic data collected by the sensors to the oceanography community.

'We examined where the seals had gone and the data they returned and quickly realised its value to our own studies on Antarctic oceanography.'

Small instruments were attached to the seals’ heads, which collected vital temperature and salinity data throughout the year across the entire Prydz Bay region.

Dr Williams added: 'We have no control on where the seals go, or how deep they dive - learning that information is the biological/ecological motivation for the tagging program.

Prydz Bay in East Antarctica, hosts three polynya systems. Despite this, existing data suggests that the area produces less-dense water, which made the researchers question its contribution to the important bottom waters

Small instruments were attached to the seals’ heads, which collected vital temperature and salinity data throughout the year across the entire Prydz Bay region

'However it became clear to us that the seals were going to the bottom and collecting full-depth profiles of salinity and temperature that we could use to track water masses and their evolution through the winter months.'

The data collected showed that while the polynyas do produce dense surface waters, the density is significantly reduced due to the input of freshwaters from the melting ice.

This suggests that increased melting of ice caused by a warming climate might futher limit the formation of important dense waters.

Dr Williams concluded: 'Given that there are growing reports of ice sheet thinning in key areas of the Antarctic coastline, we can extrapolate from our regional study to imagine that Antarctic Bottom Water production is already likely to be under some duress from this melting.