Satellite captures bizarre smoke rising from Antarctic glacier. What is it?

Ghostly plumes of "sea smoke" have been seen rising from a glacier in Antarctica. NASA's Landsat 8 satellite captured the extraordinary atmospheric phenomenon above Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier.

The images were captured on October 10 and show two atmospheric phenomena - sea smoke forming at the glacier's edge and snow streams.

The near-surface atmospheric phenomena is normally not visible because of a cloud cover, Christopher Shuman, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, said in a statement.

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Sea smoke is caused when ice, water and air interact. Shuman says the pictures show the power of winds, as when they push water and sea ice away from the glacier's front, warmer water comes up.

This warm water comes in contact with the cold Antarctic air and creates a dramatic condensation effect. Small ice crystals are formed in the process which look like ghostly plumes rising from the water's surface.

Two major glaciers of Antarctica

Pine Island Glacier and the Thwaites Glacier are a critical pathway for ice flow from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the Amundsen Sea. However, both of them have been retreating rapidly and calving out huge chunks of icebergs.

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The pictures also show streams of white snow being carried by powerful springtime winds. These snow streams originate from a chaotic shear zone of fractured ice near the glacier's southern edge.

Shuman says that katabatic winds are a signature feature of Antarctic climate. "One really shouldn't be surprised to see winds coming out of the interior with all the cold winter air that's been isolated there for months," Shuman said.

Experts say that the wind-driven phenomena bring to the fore important scientific questions about Antarctica's changing climate. How blowing snow affects the surface mass balance of polar ice sheets is a major question that intrigues scientists.

However, gathering data is a challenge because of the the remote location and harsh conditions of these sites.