Submitted by ForeignShower4 t3_xt6ols in askscience
ForeignShower4 OP t1_iqpj1gx wrote
Reply to comment by CrustalTrudger in What are these weird grid of "holes" off the coast of Antarctica? by ForeignShower4
I just checked on the GEBCO website. I found a map that's from the International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean Version 2 https://www.pangaea.de/advanced/gmap-dataset.php?id=937574&viewportBBOX=0.0,-90.0,0.0,-50.0.
It shows the same "holes".
CrustalTrudger t1_iqqs8tl wrote
Ok, then that narrows it down to sparse/noisy underlying data and some issues with interpolation. If you look at something like the NOAA bathymetry viewer you can see where we have either multi- or singlebeam sounding data. Generally in the area you're looking at we have very few tracks, so the bathymetry is going to be primarily from satellite gravity data (e.g., this). This is a sparse dataset, and one that I would expect to broadly have issues at the poles especially.
At the end of the day, these are clearly a data artifact and anyone who works with gridded topographic/bathymetric data immediately recognizes it as such, but given the available data, it's better than nothing.
[deleted] t1_iqqvll8 wrote
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