Australia’s national science agency, called CSIRO, launched an experiment in Antarctica that went horribly wrong—in a way that went surprisingly right. A free-floating ocean robot was sent to collect data from Totten Glacier. However, a current pulled it away from its destination and west. It ended up in a very difficult place for scientists to analyze, and it came back with extremely rare and valuable data.
The sea float has salinity and temperature sensors and was intended to go under the water and surface once every 10 days to transmit data to satellites. Such robots are often used in ocean research and sometimes to measure the effects of climate change on water and glaciers. This specific purpose was to study the Totten Glacier and how much global sea level would rise if the glacier melted. It’s such a concern that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) even has an interactive map to show which coastlines may be permanently underwater in the future.
Dragging along its path, the float actually ended up under the ice of the Denman Glacier in a very difficult spot for scientists to observe and collect data. Although the research team feared it was lost forever, it popped back out nine months later. This was an important set of data for the Denman Glacier and how climate change is affecting Antarctica as a whole.
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Data discovered by robots
Map of Antarctica – Peterhermesfurian/Getty Images
The robot traveled under the Denman Glacier and the Shackleton Ice Shelf. Despite being trapped, the robotic ocean float continued to do what it was meant to do: it measured water salinity and temperature from the ocean floor to the base of the ice shelf below. However, it could not surface to transmit the data to the satellites, so the navigation was lost for the research team. There was a trail of clues left to follow; As the float tried to surface, it hit an ice shelf. Whenever it did so, it was able to measure the depth of the ice shelf.
The research team was able to compare ice shelf depth data with satellite measurements of the area. From that, they were able to piece together an idea of the path the ocean float took, thus knowing where its salinity and temperature measurements were specifically coming from. During its mission, the robot collected 195 profiles of data.
The returned data showed that the Shackleton Ice Shelf is not yet in danger of melting by warm water. However, Denman Glacier has warm water beneath it that is causing it to melt. This glacier alone could raise global sea levels by nearly 5 feet. Identifying these risk areas is important, as it appears that we have passed the point of no return for some climate change damage, and the world’s coastlines may be at risk anyway.
What this means for the future of science
House flooded due to sea level rise – Abieza reswara/Shutterstock
This was a stroke of luck for the scientific accident team. Ocean Float collected data from areas never before investigated. In fact, it was the first line of oceanographic measurements under the East Antarctic Ice Shelf. This has provided important data on the vulnerability of the region and the Denman Glacier.
Because the robotic float has survived so long under the ice with good data, scientists look to the future of sending more of these floats to more remote places in hopes of returning rare data. Although this comes with its risks, the insights gathered could be important for monitoring glacier melt and creating predictions of sea level rise.
The fact that ocean floats specifically measure East Antarctica is also important for future research. It holds more ice than West Antarctica, so melting glaciers in that area poses a greater threat to coastlines. Measuring beneath the ice shelves could shed more light on whether Antarctica is moving out of the ocean and what that could mean for the planet. Data from this missing robot was published in the journal ScienceAdvances in December 2025 under the title “Circulation and Ocean-Ice Shelf Interactions Beneath the Denman and Shackleton Ice Shelves.” It now serves as a useful piece of research for Antarctic studies.
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