A HOLE larger than the Netherlands has opened up in Antarctica, and scientists are working to deepen their understanding of how it formed.

The hole in the ice is “quite remarkable,” University of Toronto Mississauga professor Kent Moore told Motherboard.

“It looks like you just punched a hole in the ice,” he said.

Areas of open water surrounded by sea ice, such as this one, are known as polynyas. They form in coastal regions of Antarctica, Mr Moore said.

This polynya is “deep in the ice pack” though and have formed through other processes that aren’t understood, he said.

“This is hundreds of kilometres from the ice edge. If we didn’t have a satellite, we wouldn’t know it was there.”

A polynya was observed in the same location, in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea, in the 1970s.

The hole reopened again this year, marking “the second year in a row it’s opened up after 40 years of not being there,” Mr Moore said.

Back then, scientist had a limited ability to study the phenomenon.

“At that time, the scientific community had just launched the first satellites that provided images of the sea-ice cover from space.”

Now, scientists are working to understand how often the polynya occurs and whether it is influenced by climate change.

However, Mr Moore told Broadly blaming climate change was “premature”.

Scientists can say with certainty, though, that the polynya will have a wider impact on the oceans.