Pollution Science 101 -
The Antarctic & Arctic Poles
Editor: Michael Ross
Emergency release
Drafted: June 17th, 2023
Published: June 17th, 2025 6:00 AM
Updated June 23rd, 2025 - 7:45 PM
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The following research and documents will detail the ongoing pollution in Antarctica and the Arctic. This book will explain the solutions to better our environment.
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Pollution Science 101 - The Arctic
June 17th, 2023
PollutionScience101Arctic.blogspot.com
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Pollution Science 101 - The Antarctic
June 17th, 2023
PollutionScience101Antarctic.blogspot.com
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The Chilling Truth About Plastic Pollution In Antarctica
2020
Litter From Research Centers and Bases – Solutions To Littering
Another contribution to plastic pollution in Antarctica comes from research centers and bases. When the researcher’s time is over, there is usually litter left behind. This litter is easily blown away by the extreme weather conditions. Then scatters into the snowy terrain and icy waters.
Plastics decompose very slow, and over a very long period of time (an average of 100-500 years). So the plastic waste isn’t going away, which means they’re hurting our oceans and marine life. In fact, the extreme temperatures are slowing this process of decomposition even more.
- Foamed plastic cups: 50 years
- Plastic beverage holder: 400 years
- Disposable diapers: 450 year
- Plastic bottle: 450
- Fishing line: 600 years
Birds and seals are getting tangled. Playful young ones find themselves wrapped in plastic, pulling and injuring themselves. Infections form, and what follows is a slow and painful death. It’s heartbreaking.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current was historically thought to be impenetrable. But the results of recent studies have shown otherwise. They show that plastics originating outside the region are getting across the current.
The Greenpeace Vessel in 2018 found microplastics. Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic from everyday items. They detected them in 9 out of 17 samples taken. And 7 of 9 samples of snow contained PFSs (polyfluorinated alkylated substances). These are incredibly harmful to wildlife and originate from industrial products.
Frida Bengtsson of Greenpeace’s Protect the Antarctic campaign talked about these results. She said that they show contamination, even in the most remote habitats of the Antarctic. Contaminated with microplastic waste and hazardous chemicals. She explained that even though we may think of the Antarctic as a remote and pristine wilderness. But one thing’s for sure, humanity’s footprint is clear. From pollution and climate change to industrial krill fishing. It has quite literally reached the ends of the earth.
This means that pollution is crossing the Southern Ocean.
Microplastics found in the Southern Ocean aren’t coming from Antarctica. They drift great distances on ocean currents. Then they accumulate in places that harm ocean wildlife.
Whether by ingestion or entanglement, plastic is devastatingly affecting marine life.
https://oceanblueproject.org/microplastics-in-antarctica/
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Plastic pollution reaches the Antarctic
6 June 2018
https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/16917/plastic-pollution-reaches-the-antarctic/
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Plastic pollution in the Antarctic worse than expected
June 19, 2017
The levels of microplastic particles accumulating in the Antarctic are much worse than expected, a team of experts has warned.
The continent is considered to be a pristine wilderness compared to other regions and was thought to be relatively free from plastic pollution. However new findings by scientists from University of Hull and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have revealed that recorded levels of microplastics are five times higher than you would expect to find from local sources such as research stations and ships.
Microplastics are particles less than 5mm in diameter and are present in many everyday items such toothpaste, shampoo, shower gels and clothing. They can also result from the breakdown of plastic ocean debris.
The results, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, have raised the possibility that plastic originating from outside the region may be getting across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, historically thought to be almost impenetrable.
Lead author Dr Catherine Waller, an expert in ecology and marine biology at University of Hull, says:
"Antarctica is thought to be a highly isolated, pristine wilderness. The ecosystem is very fragile with whales, seals and penguins consuming krill and other zooplankton as a major component of their diet.
"Our research highlights the urgent need for a co-ordinated effort to monitor and assess the levels of microplastics around the Antarctic continent and Southern Ocean."
The Southern Ocean covers approximately 8.5 million square miles and represents 5.4% of the world's oceans. The region is under increasing threat from fishing, pollution and the introduction of non-native species, while climate change is leading to rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification. Concern is growing about pollution from floating plastic debris, which can be become entangled with or ingested by wildlife.
Microplastics enter the oceans via wastewater and through the breakdown of plastic debris and have been shown to be persistent in surface and deep ocean waters and in deep sea sediments. Tests have shown that a single polyester fleece jacket can release more than 1,900 fibres per wash, while around half of discarded plastics are buoyant in seawater and may be subject to degradation by ultraviolet radiation and decomposition. More than half of the research stations in the Antarctic have no wastewater treatment systems, the research reports.
It's estimated that up to 500kg of microplastic particles from personal care products and up to 25.5 billion clothing fibres enter the Southern Ocean per decade as a result of tourism, fishing and scientific research activities. While this is negligible at the scale of the Southern Ocean, the researchers say it may be significant at a local scale.
Co-author Dr Huw Griffiths, a marine biogeographer with British Antarctic Survey, says:
"Our understanding of the sources and fate of plastics in these waters is limited at best. Given the low numbers of people present in Antarctica, direct input of microplastic from wastewater is likely to be below detectable limits at a Southern Ocean scale.
"However, microplastics generated from degradation of larger pieces of plastic or transferred into the Southern Ocean across the polar front may be a major contributor to the high levels of microplastics recorded at some open ocean sites.
Biologist Dr Claire Waluda, a co-author at British Antarctic Survey, says:
"We have monitored the presence of large plastic items in Antarctica for over 30 years. While we know that bigger pieces of plastic can be ingested by seabirds or cause entanglements in seals, the effects of microplastics on marine animals in the Southern Ocean are as yet unknown".
"This paper represents an excellent first step towards recognising the presence of microplastics in Antarctica and allows us to call for international effort in monitoring the situation whilst it is still in its earliest stages".
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-plastic-pollution-antarctic-worse.html
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Scientists find microplastics in fresh Antarctic snow for the first time
Jun 10 2022
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/10/microplastics-found-in-fresh-antarctic-snow-for-first-time-.html
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Microplastic pollution in Antarctica extremely serious
2017
https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/2017/06/microplastic-pollution-antarctica-extremely-serious/
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Plastic Pollution in Antarctica 5 Times Worse Than Expected
Jun 20, 2017
Not only have microplastic particles infiltrated the pristine Antarctic, the problem is much worse than anyone thought.
Scientists from the University of Hull and the British Antarctic Survey have determined that the levels of microplastics are five times higher than previous estimates. The results were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
These tiny beads of plastic come from cosmetics or shred off of larger plastic items such as clothing or bottles. Research shows that microplastics can turn up in ice cores, across the seafloor, throughout the ocean and on every beach worldwide. According to UN News, “as many as 51 trillion microplastic particles—500 times more than stars in our galaxy—litter our seas, seriously threatening marine wildlife.”
Microplastics enter the oceans via wastewater. However, as the researchers report, more than half of the research stations in the Antarctic have no wastewater treatment systems. The scientists suggest that the plastic may be getting across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which was thought to be nearly impenetrable.
“Antarctica is thought to be a highly isolated, pristine wilderness. The ecosystem is very fragile with whales, seals and penguins consuming krill and other zooplankton as a major component of their diet,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Catherine Waller, an expert in ecology and marine biology at University of Hull.
“Our research highlights the urgent need for a co-ordinated effort to monitor and assess the levels of microplastics around the Antarctic continent and Southern Ocean.”
A press release notes that the Southern Ocean, which covers approximately 8.5 million square miles and represents 5.4 percent of the world’s oceans, is under increasing threat from fishing, pollution and the introduction of non-native species. Climate change, which leads to rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification, is also a threat.
The effects of microplastics on marine life in this region are currently unclear.
“We have monitored the presence of large plastic items in Antarctica for over 30 years. While we know that bigger pieces of plastic can be ingested by seabirds or cause entanglements in seals, the effects of microplastics on marine animals in the Southern Ocean are as yet unknown,” biologist Dr. Claire Waluda, a co-author at British Antarctic Survey, said.
“This paper represents an excellent first step towards recognizing the presence of microplastics in Antarctica and allows us to call for international effort in monitoring the situation whilst it is still in its earliest stages.”
https://www.ecowatch.com/microplastics-antarctic-2444523173.html
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Plastic pollution reaching the Antarctic
April 28, 2020
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200428112544.htm
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Microplastics found in Antarctic ice cores
April 24, 2020
A team of researchers from the University of Tasmania has found evidence of microplastics in ice cores collected off the coast of Antarctica. In their paper published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, the group describes their study of the cores and the plastics they found.
Last year, a team of researchers found examples of microplastics in Arctic ice floes, further evidence of the spread of the pollutants in the world's oceans. In this new effort, the team in Tasmania has found evidence of microplastics in ice cores collected in Antarctica ten years ago.
The cores were collected as part of work dedicated to better understanding the Antarctic—they were taken from sites approximately 2 kilometers from the Antarctic coast and have been in storage at a facility in Hobart, Tasmania, awaiting analysis. The cores were from ice that forms around the coast and thus, unlike pack ice, does not move.
Study of the cores (which were 1.1 meters long and 14 cm wide) revealed 96 particles from 14 kinds of microplastic, with an average of 12 pieces per liter of water—all of the particles were 5 mm or shorter. The most common type was polyethylene, which is used in a wide variety of products. The finding was the first for Antarctic ice—prior studies had found microplastics in water, snow and sediment.
The researchers also noted that the microplastic particles were surrounded by algae, a finding that suggests they may be eaten by krill, which feed on sea ice. And that further suggests that the particles are being consumed by whales when they eat the krill.
The source of the microplastics is not known, though the researchers suggest their size indicates that they are from relatively local sources. The longer microplastics remain in the sea, the smaller they become. They note that the ice cores were taken from the eastern side of the continent, which is visited less often than the west side. They suggest it is likely ice in more highly traveled areas has more microplastic particles in it. They also note that prior studies have shown that microplastics in ice can lead to melting due to heat absorption.
https://phys.org/news/2020-04-microplastics-antarctic-ice-cores.html
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Microplastics found in gut of animal on one of the most remote islands of the world
June 24, 2020
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/23/world/microplastics-gut-isolated-animal-antarctic-scn-scli-intl/index.html
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Nanoplastics have now invaded both Arctic and Antarctica, researchers find
21 January 2022
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/nano-plastics-pollution-arctic-antarctica-b1997974.html
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Plastic 'has entered' Antarctic terrestrial food chain
2020
https://www.france24.com/en/20200624-plastic-has-entered-antarctic-terrestrial-food-chain
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Macroplastic in Seabirds at Mirny, Antarctica
2020
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-6004/1/1/3/htm
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Polar plastic: 97% of sampled Antarctic seabirds found to have ingested microplastics
March 14, 2024
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-polar-plastic-sampled-antarctic-seabirds.html
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Microplastics found for first time in Antarctic ice where krill source food
22 Apr 2020
Researchers at University of Tasmania find 14 different kinds of plastic smaller than 5mm in an ice core from 2009
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/microplastics-found-for-first-time-in-antarctic-ice-where-krill-source-food
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Marine plastic pollution in the polar south: Responses from Antarctic Treaty System
01 December 2020
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/polar-record/article/marine-plastic-pollution-in-the-polar-south-responses-from-antarctic-treaty-system/3AD3BC09BD95184AF1866E14B9AD0375
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Microplastic Pollution
Microplastic pollution has been detected in the Antarctic ocean, snow and penguin feces. Urgent action is needed to address this emerging threat to the Antarctic.
https://www.asoc.org/campaign/microplastic-pollution/
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Microplastic pollution in Antarctica extremely serious
https://dev.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/microplastic-pollution-antarctica-extremely-serious/
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PLASTIC PLANET: Plastic pollution so out of control it’s found in Antarctic wilderness, where poisonous chemicals fall in SNOW
7 Jun 2018
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6471827/plastic-pollution-snow-antarctic-wilderness/
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Plastics in sea surface waters around the Antarctic Peninsula
08 March 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40311-4
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Plastic Pollution Affects the Development of Antarctic Krill
2021
https://polarjournal.ch/en/2021/08/10/plastic-pollution-affects-the-development-of-antarctic-krill/
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Evidence of deep circulation in two perennially ice-covered Antarctic lakes
1998
The perennial ice covers found on many of the lakes in the McMurdo Dry
Valley region of the Antarctic have been postulated to severely limit
mixing and convective turnover of these unique lakes. In this work, we
utilize chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) concentration profiles from Lakes Hoare
and Fryxell in the McMurdo Dry Valley to determine the extent of deep
vertical mixing occurring over the last 50 years. Near the ice-water
interface, CFC concentrations in both lakes were well above saturation,
in accordance with atmospheric gas supersaturations resulting from
freezing under the perennial ice covers. Evidence of mixing throughout
the water column at Lake Hoare was confirmed by the presence of CFCs
throughout the water column and suggests vertical mixing times of 20-30
years. In Lake Fryxell, CFC-11, CFC-12, and CFC-113 were found in the
upper water column; however, degradation of CFC-11 and CFC-12 in the
anoxic bottom waters appears to be occurring with CFC-113 only present
in these bottom waters. The presence of CFC-113 in the bottom waters, in
conjunction with previous work detecting tritium in these waters,
strongly argues for the presence of convective mixing in Lake Fryxell.
The evidence for deep mixing in these lakes may be an important, yet
overlooked, phenomenon in the limnology of perennially ice-covered
lakes.
https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70020842
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Anthropogenic contaminants in freshwater from the northern Antarctic Peninsula region
24 October 2020
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-020-01404-x
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Distribution and long-range transport of polyfluoroalkyl substances in the Arctic, Atlantic Ocean and Antarctic coast
2012 Jul 5
The global distribution and long-range transport of polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFASs) were investigated using seawater samples collected
from the Greenland Sea, East Atlantic Ocean and the Southern Ocean in
2009-2010. Elevated levels of ΣPFASs were detected in the North Atlantic
Ocean with the concentrations ranging from 130 to 650 pg/L. In the
Greenland Sea, the ΣPFASs concentrations ranged from 45 to 280 pg/L, and
five most frequently detected compounds were perfluorooctanoic acid
(PFOA), perfluorohexanesulfonate (PFHxS), perfluorohexanoic acid
(PFHxA), perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorobutane sulfonate
(PFBS). PFOA (15 pg/L) and PFOS (25-45 pg/L) were occasionally found in
the Southern Ocean. In the Atlantic Ocean, the ΣPFASs concentration
decreased from 2007 to 2010. The elevated PFOA level that resulted from
melting snow and ice in Greenland Sea implies that the Arctic may have
been driven by climate change and turned to be a source of PFASs for the
marine ecosystem.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22771353/
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Perfluorooctanesulfonate
and related fluorochemicals in albatrosses, elephant seals, penguins,
and polar skuas from the Southern Ocean
2006
Abstract
Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) have been used as surfactants in industrial and commercial products for over 50 years. Earlier studies of the geographical distribution of PFCs focused primarily on the Northern Hemisphere, while little attention was paid to the Southern Hemisphere. In this study, livers from eight species of albatrosses, blood from elephant seal, and blood and eggs from penguins and polar skua collected from the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic during 1995-2005 were analyzed for 10 PFCs. In addition, for comparison with the Southern Ocean samples, we analyzed liver, sera, and eggs from two species of albatrosses from Midway Atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) were found in livers of albatrosses from the Southern Ocean. PFOS was the major contaminant, although the concentrations were <5 ng/g, wet wt, in 92% of the albatross livers analyzed. PFOA was detected in 30% of the albatross livers, with a concentration range of <0.6-2.45 ng/g,wet wt. Other PFCs, including long-chain perfluorocarboxylates (PFCAs), were below the limits of quantitation in livers of albatrosses from the Southern Ocean. In liver, sera, and eggs of albatrosses from the North Pacific Ocean, long-chain PFCAs (perfluorononanoate, perfluorodecanoate, perfluoroundecanoate, and perfluorododecanoate) were found at concentrations similar to those of PFOS and PFOA. The mean concentration of PFOS in livers of Laysan albatrosses from the North Pacific Ocean (5.1 ng/g, wet wt) was higher than that in several species of albatrosses from the Southern Ocean (2.2 ng/g, wetwt). Species-specific differences in the concentrations of PFOS were noted among Southern Ocean albatrosses, whereas geographical differences in PFOS concentrations among the Indian Ocean, South Pacific Ocean, and South Atlantic Ocean were insignificant. Concentrations of PFOS and PFOA were, respectively, 2- and 17-fold higher in liver than in sera of Laysan albatrosses. PFOS was found in the blood of elephant seals from Antarctica at concentrations ranging from <0.08 to 3.52 ng/mL. PFOS was found in eggs (2.1-3.1 ng/g) and blood (<0.24-1.4 ng/ mL) of polar skuas but was not detected in penguins from Antarctica. Our study documents the existence of low but detectable levels of PFOS and PFOA in Southern Hemisphere fauna, suggesting distribution of these compounds on a global scale.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17256507/
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Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) — main concerns and regulatory developments in Europe from an environmental point of view
07 May 2012
https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2190-4715-24-16
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EMERGING
PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS (POPS) IN THE WESTERN SOUTH ATLANTIC AND
ANTARCTIC BIOTAWESTERN SOUTH ATLANTIC AND ANTARCTIC
2015
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1474&context=theses
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Perfluorinated
Chemicals in Sediments, Lichens and Seabirds from the Antarctic
Peninsula-Environmental Assessment and Management Perspectives
September 2015
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275024329_Perfluorinated_Chemicals_in_Sediments_Lichens_and_Seabirds_from_the_Antarctic_Peninsula-Environmental_Assessment_and_Management_Perspectives
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Microbial
responses to perfluoroalkyl substances and perfluorooctanesulfonate
(PFOS) desulfurization in the Antarctic marine environment
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135419312114
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Global accounting of PCBs in the continental shelf sediments.
2003
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/12564894
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Why Another Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapsed
04/01/2022
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/antarctic-ice-shelf-collapsed/
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Magnetic
monitoring of anthropogenic pollution in Antarctic soils (Marambio
Station) and the spatial-temporal changes over a decade
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S034181622100148X
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Bacteria in Sea Ice Could Play Role in Mercury Pollution in Oceans
August 1, 2016
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/antarctic_sea_ice_mercury_pollution
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Antarctic Fish as a Global Pollution Sensor: Metals Biomonitoring in a Twelve-Year Period
2021
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmolb.2021.794946/full
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Antarctic Pollution Issues
December 2014
https://intlpollution.commons.gc.cuny.edu/antarctic-pollution-issues/
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Black carbon pollution from tourism and research increasing Antarctic snowmelt, study says
2022
Pollution generated by burning fossil fuels causes snow to darken, absorb more solar energy and melt faster
Antarctic sea ice falls to lowest level since measurements began in 1979
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/22/black-carbon-pollution-from-tourism-and-research-increasing-antarctic-snowmelt-study-says
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Improving climate model projections of carbon and heat uptake in the Antarctic Ocean
January 24, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-climate-carbon-uptake-antarctic-ocean.html
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A deeper dive into wintry, carbon-absorbing Antarctic waters
March 9, 2023
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-deeper-wintry-carbon-absorbing-antarctic.html
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Microplastics
in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica): A Forensic Approach for Discrimination
between Environmental and Vessel-Induced Microplastics
2021
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c05207
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Ancient Air Bubbles Trapped in Antarctic Ice Point to Cause of Oxygen Decline
January 8, 2022
https://scitechdaily.com/ancient-air-bubbles-trapped-in-antarctic-ice-point-to-cause-of-oxygen-decline/
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Contaminated suspended sediments toxic to an Antarctic filter feeder: Aqueous- and particulate-phase effects
09 December 2009
https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1897/08-328.1
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Dead dogs, leaking oil drums, batteries: Antarctica’s abandoned waste gets funding boost to kickstart the clean up
February 24, 2022
https://theconversation.com/dead-dogs-leaking-oil-drums-batteries-antarcticas-abandoned-waste-gets-funding-boost-to-kickstart-the-clean-up-177711
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Synthetic fibers discovered in Antarctic air, seawater, sediment and sea ice
November 23, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-synthetic-fibers-antarctic-air-seawater.html
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Restoring soils could remove up to ‘5.5bn tonnes’ of greenhouse gases every year
16.03.2020
https://www.carbonbrief.org/restoring-soils-could-remove-up-to-5-5bn-tonnes-of-greenhouse-gases-every-year/
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Worried about plastic pollution? Antarctic fuel-eating microbes may help in clean up
https://www.msn.com/en-in/health/nutrition/worried-about-plastic-pollution-antarctic-fuel-eating-microbes-may-help-in-clean-up/ar-AATyhN8
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Functional
expression of a novel α-amylase from Antarctic psychrotolerant fungus
for baking industry and its magnetic immobilization
28 February 2017
https://bmcbiotechnol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12896-017-0343-8
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The Antarctic: Data about the structure of the icy continent
December 10, 2019
https://www.geologypage.com/2019/12/the-antarctic-data-about-the-structure-of-the-icy-continent.html
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Why Antarctica and the Arctic are polar opposites
January 31, 2019
The Earth’s north and south polar regions are responding quite differently to climate change
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/why-antarctica-and-arctic-are-polar-opposites
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Polar Opposites: the Arctic and Antarctic
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/polar-opposites-arctic-and-antarctic
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Futuristic Carbon Based Adsorbents and their Versatile Applications
2022
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ast/2022/7948069/
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Post-coring
entrapment of modern air in some shallow ice cores collected near the
firn-ice transition: evidence from CFC-12 measurements in Antarctic firn
air and ice cores
2010
https://doaj.org/article/ab5a156bf46343eaa3950962e47f1798
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Antarctic seafloor exposed after 50 years of ice cover
17 March 2021
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56424338
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Lakes Drain under Antarctic Ice Sheet
2007
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/7615/lakes-drain-under-antarctic-ice-sheet
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Antarctic Glaciers Lost Stunning Amount of Ground in Recent Years
April 4, 2018
Linked to a warming ocean, ice retreat was more rapid than even at the end of the last Ice Age
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarctic-glaciers-lost-stunning-amount-of-ground-in-recent-years/
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Submarine landslides triggered by iceberg collision with the seafloor
24 June 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00767-4
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Early Melting Along the Antarctic Peninsula
November 21, 2020
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147608/early-melting-along-the-antarctic-peninsula
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Tiny fossils, huge landslides: Are diatoms the key to Earth's biggest slides?
February 12, 2018
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180212133446.htm
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Wandering icebergs could trigger tsunamis
August 9, 2021
Icebergs
aren't just a threat to unsinkable ships. Their ability to cause
underwater landslides poses a danger to coastal cities.
https://bigthink.com/hard-science/iceberg-marine-landslide/
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Atlantic Ocean Tsunamis: Rare but Possible
https://geology.com/noaa/atlantic-ocean-tsunami/
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Falkland Islands may lie in the path of landslide tsunami, study finds
March 16, 2020
Researchers
find British territory may have been hit by giant waves in the past —
but admit they only happen every one million years
https://inews.co.uk/news/falkland-islands-major-tsunami-risk-study-research-antarctic-ocean-408752
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Submarine landslides: processes, triggers and hazard prediction
27 June 2006
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2006.1810
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The Subantarctic Front as a sedimentary conveyor belt for tsunamigenic submarine landslides
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025322720300499
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Undersea landslides: Extent and significance in the Pacific Ocean, an update
November 2005
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26435669_Undersea_landslides_Extent_and_significance_in_the_Pacific_Ocean_an_update
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Large-scale submarine landslides, channel and gully systems on the southern Weddell Sea margin, Antarctica
2013
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025322713002570
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Underwater Antarctic volcanoes discovered in the Southern Ocean
July 11, 2011
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110711104755.htm
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Giant Undersea Volcanoes Found Off Antarctica
Mount Fuji-size peaks unexpected, scientists say.
July 16, 2011
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/110715-undersea-volcanoes-antarctica-science-tsunamis
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'A
fortunate accident': Scientists stumble across sea creatures living in
-2°C water on the Southern Ocean seabed underneath Antarctica
15 February 2021
British Antarctic Survey researchers drilled a borehole through 900m of ice
They then ventured further through the ocean water and down to the sea floor
Here they ricocheted off a large boulder and a camera caught sight of the rock
Revealed sponges and unidentified stalked animals on the surface, a world first
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9254883/Scientists-stumble-sea-creatures-underneath-Antarctica.html
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Submarine landslide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_landslide
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An Iceberg May Have Initiated a Submarine Landslide
A new study shows that icebergs may initiate submarine landslides when they collide with the seafloor.
20 July 2021
https://eos.org/articles/an-iceberg-may-have-initiated-a-submarine-landslide
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The planet’s largest landslides happen on submarine volcanoes
December 12, 2017
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171212114811.htm
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Reassessing geohazards of buried landslide deposits and their impacts on seabed ecosystems
March 23, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-reassessing-geohazards-landslide-deposits-impacts.html
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Gebra Slide: glacial and tectonic controls on recurrent submarine landsliding off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula
2016
https://mem.lyellcollection.org/content/46/1/417
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Waves of Deadly Brine Can Slosh After Submarine Landslides
28 January 2019
Brine
pools—hypersaline, low-oxygen waters deadly to many forms of ocean
life—can experience waves hundreds of meters high when hit by a
landslide, potentially overspilling their deep-sea basins.
https://eos.org/articles/waves-of-deadly-brine-can-slosh-after-submarine-landslides
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Submarine landslides triggered by iceberg collision with the seafloor
June 2021
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021NatGe..14..599N/abstract
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“Landslide Graveyard” Holds Clues to Long-Term Tsunami Trends
3 June 2022
A
new project looks to unearth information about and learn from ancient
underwater landslides buried deep beneath the seafloor to support New
Zealand’s resilience to natural hazards.
https://eos.org/science-updates/landslide-graveyard-holds-clues-to-long-term-tsunami-trends
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Huge undersea landslide discovered in Cook Strait
11 March 2008
https://niwa.co.nz/no18-2008/huge-undersea-landslide-discovered-in-cook-strait
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Seafloor landslides point to ancient tsunamis
February 7, 2013
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2013/02/seafloor-landslides-point-to-ancient-tsunamis/
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Return to Coalsack Bluff and the Permian Triassic boundary in Antarctica
January 2007
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007GPC....55...90R/abstract
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Methane gas release from the Storegga submarine landslide linked to early Holocene climate change: a speculative hypothesis
2007
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959683607076435
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Submarine canyons
https://www.mbari.org/submarine-canyons/
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Earthquakes May Prevent Underwater Landslides
4 April 2016
Smaller
quakes around the active edge of continental plates may contribute to
increased stability by promoting compaction and solidifying the top 100
meters of seafloor sediment.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/earthquakes-may-prevent-underwater-landslides
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Submarine slope failure primed and triggered by silica and its diagenesis
08 September 2006
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2117.2006.00297.x
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The Hillary Canyon and the Iselin Bank (Eastern Ross Sea, Antarctica): Alongslope and Downslope Route For Ross Sea Bottom Water
December 2015
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMEP13A0919D/abstract
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Image: Glacial 'aftershock' spawns Antarctic iceberg
February 16, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-image-glacial-aftershock-spawns-antarctic.html
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Antarctica hit by 30,000 earthquakes in 3 months
2020
https://watchers.news/2020/12/18/south-shetland-islands-bransfield-strait-earthquakes-2020/
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Earthquake impact on submarine slopes: Subtle erosion versus significant strengthening
June 26, 2019
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-earthquake-impact-submarine-slopes-subtle.html
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Mussels Arrive in Antarctica, an Ominous Sign
April 17, 2020
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2020-04-17-the-arrival-of-mussels-in-antarctica-changes-everything
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Ice Shelf Completely Disintegrates in East Antarctica
Mar 29, 2022
https://scitechdaily.com/ice-shelf-completely-disintegrates-in-east-antarctica/amp/
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Ice shelf collapses in previously stable East Antarctica
March 25, 2022
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Is Antarctica Losing Ice or Gaining It?
November 5, 2015
Scientists are wary of new research showing more ice on frozen continent
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-antarctica-losing-ice-or-gaining-it/
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Ice Gains In Some Parts Of Antarctica Aren't Offsetting Its Losses [Infographic]
2019
In
the past week or so I have been reading a few articles and social media
posts on the subject of Antarctica gaining ice mass. The articles are
talking about information from a study released by NASA in 2015 showing
that snowfall on the Eastern part of the continent is more than enough
to offset the melting of glaciers in the West. The social media posts
have been talking about how this proves that climate change was a hoax
all along. After all, how can sea levels be rising from glaciers melting
if Antarctica is gaining mass year after year? I took some time to
research the issue and read the actual study and today I thought I would
take some time and write a few paragraphs to help set the record
straight on this topic.
The study in question
In 2015 a
study was published by NASA, the lead author was Jay Zwally, a
glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The study showed
evidence that Antarctica had experienced a net gain of 112 billion tons
of ice annually between 1992 and 2001 and a gain of 82 billion tons
annually between 2003 and 2008. This information was not at all in line
with previous findings on the subject which insisted that Antarctica has
been losing ice mass because of global warming.
These new
findings were based on data that came from studying changes in the
surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet using radar altimeters. The
data was collected using two European Space Agency European Remote
Sensing satellites and NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite.
Basically,
the study shows that gains in snowfall in East Antarctica are more than
enough to offset the losses from melting glaciers on the West side of
the continent. These gains were not just in recent years but had been
the result of increased snowfall over the past 10,000 years or since the
last ice age. The study goes on to say that sea levels cannot be rising
because of glaciers melting in Antarctica because its actually gaining
ice.
Issues with the study
This information came as a bit
of a shock. After all the International Panel on Climate Change had been
releasing reports for a long time stating that Antarctica has been
losing mass and causing sea levels to rise. With this study saying the
opposite it’s clear that somebody had to be wrong. With that in mind,
the scientific community was cautious with this new information.
Since
2015 scientists have had a chance to look over the data and have had
time to do a few follow-up studies and the results are clear.
It
is agreed among scientists studying the situation that the Eastern area
is gaining a lot of ice due to thousands of years of continued snowfall.
However, measuring the size of that gain can be difficult at best. The
major issues with Zwally’s study are that it used altimeter data from
satellites, which is subject to systematic errors such as snowpack
penetration and telling the difference between snow that is on the
ground and snow that is still falling. Also, in order to calibrate their
measurements, Zwally’s team bounced lasers of the Southern Ocean which
may not have been reliable...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinanderton/2019/02/21/ice-gains-in-some-parts-of-antarctica-arent-offsetting-its-losses-infographic/?sh=5dfca5cc7030
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NASA satellites show Antarctica has gained ice despite rising global temperatures. How is that possible?
May 13, 2025
An abrupt change in Antarctica has caused the continent to gain ice. But this increase, documented in NASA satellite data, is a temporary anomaly rather than an indication that global warming has reversed, scientists say.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/antarctica/nasa-satellites-show-antarctica-has-gained-ice-despite-rising-global-temperatures-how-is-that-possible
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Is ice shifting from North to South Pole? Antarctica is gaining mass again, but Arctic tells a different story
May 5, 2025
https://www.wionews.com/web-stories/science-technology/is-ice-shifting-from-north-to-south-pole-antarctica-is-gaining-mass-again-but-arctic-tells-a-different-story-9036347
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Scientists Baffled by Sudden Antarctic Glacial Growth
June 22, 2025
https://climatecosmos.com/climate-science/scientists-baffled-by-sudden-antarctic-glacial-growth/
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Against all odds, Antarctic ice is growing again — here’s why
May 18, 2025
For the past 20 years, Antarctica’s ice sheet has been melting rapidly, but since 2021, it has started to grow again.
https://www.futura-sciences.com/en/against-all-odds-antarctic-ice-is-growing-again-heres-why_17702/
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Southern Ocean sea ice cover has gradually grown over the past 10,000 years
June 14, 2021
This visualization shows the growth of Antarctic sea ice over the austral winter of 2015. At its maximum extent in late winter, the sea ice covers an average area of more than 18 million square kilometers, essentially doubling the continent in size from summer to winter as the ice expands.
Salt levels in an ice core drilled at the South Pole are telling scientists what Antarctic sea ice conditions were like in ages past, information crucial to understanding how the southernmost continent will fare in a changing climate.
Antarctica is perpetually surrounded by a ring of sea ice in the Southern Ocean, but the amount of ice changes with the seasons. During a typical summer, the continent is surrounded by about 3 million square kilometers of ice, but that number can grow to more than 18 million square kilometers in the winter. The continent essentially doubles in size during the cold season, but scientists want to know more about how its sea ice extent has varied in centuries and millennia past.
By analyzing levels of sea salt in an ice core from the South Pole, researchers now have a record of how Antarctic sea ice has ebbed and flowed every season for the past 11,000 years. Their findings show the band of ice encircling the continent has gradually expanded over the past 10,000 years, with one notable dip in sea ice extent between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago.
The results help scientists tease out the intricate connections between sea ice and climate, according to the researchers, which could help them understand why Antarctic sea ice has remained relatively constant over time while Arctic sea ice has diminished by about 40 percent since the 1970s.
“This work is a building block in our overall picture of Antarctic climate,” said Dominic Winski, a climate scientist at the University of Maine and lead author of a new study detailing the findings. “If we don't understand the processes affecting sea ice, then I think we have little hope of understanding where we're headed as a planet.”
Sea ice floating around Ross Island in 1961. New research finds the extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica has gradually grown over the past 10,000 years.
A Salty Past
Sea ice is frozen ocean water that forms primarily at Earth's poles. This ice is an integral part of Earth’s climate system – it reflects sunlight back into space, helping to keep the planet cool, while also helping regulate the flow of ocean water around the globe, including the transport of heat and salt.
Scientists have only been able to directly study sea ice extent since satellite records began in 1979. But they can examine sea ice changes in the distant past by using levels of sea salt found in ice cores as a proxy.
Sea salt makes its way into ice cores in a few ways. In the Southern Ocean, salt from sea spray gets blown by the wind, eventually settling on Antarctic ice hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away. Additionally, sea ice is often covered by a layer of snow that gets soaked by waves. Winds then blow that salt-laden snow over Antarctica, where it settles and eventually gets incorporated into the vast ice sheet covering the continent. Salty ice also tends to form frost flowers – thin, flowerlike formations that grow on top of newly-formed sea ice. Strong winds in the Southern Ocean blow the delicate structures away, sending a puff of salt into the air, where it can later settle on Antarctic ice.
In the new study, Winski and his colleagues measured sea salt levels in the South Pole ice core, which was drilled during expeditions to the South Pole from 2014 to 2016. It is the longest ice core ever drilled from the South Pole, with the deepest part of the core being more than a mile below the surface of the ice. Scientists have used this ice core to reconstruct a record of Earth’s climate for the past 50,000 years.
At the South Pole, more than 1,000 miles from the ocean, there is evidence that more salt in an ice core layer means more sea ice was present at that time. The salt concentrations are tiny, measuring in the parts per billion range, but the levels are consistent and scientists can reliably measure them.
Winski and his colleagues measured salt concentrations in more than 70,000 samples of the South Pole ice core, which allowed them to estimate how Antarctic sea ice has grown and shrunk over every summer and winter for the past 11,000 years.
They found sea ice in the Southern Ocean has been steadily increasing since about 10,000 years ago. But they also discovered a major drop in salt concentrations – and by extension, sea ice – between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago. Combining their new data with previous climate records from this time, they suspect this dip in sea ice was due to changes in ocean circulation in the Atlantic Ocean that made the North Atlantic cooler but the South Atlantic warmer.
“It’s a hint that something pretty interesting might have been going on that links the North and South Atlantic during this time,” Winski said.
Sea ice and climate
Sea ice is an incredibly sensitive part of the climate system, so tracking how it varies over time helps scientists better understand what they’ve observed over the past several decades as the climate has changed, according to the researchers.
“We know that sea ice extent can change really rapidly from year to year, and at least in the Arctic, it's diminished by incredible amounts in just decades,” Winski said. “The more we learn about sea ice, the more we realize it can play a critical role during episodes of climate change.”
One thing scientists are just beginning to understand is why Arctic sea ice has declined so much, but Antarctic sea ice has remained relatively stable. The new results have given researchers more insight into the sea ice-climate system as a whole, which can help them understand what may happen in the coming decades.
“We have little chance of being able to forecast or prepare for changes in Southern Ocean sea ice if we do not fully understand the processes that influence these systems,” Winski said. “Ice core studies like this one can provide a host of information on past changes that may help us understand what is happening today.”
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program. NSF-funded research in this story: Erich Osterberg, Dartmouth College, Award No. 1443336; Karl Kreutz, University of Maine, Award No. 1443397; Jihong Cole-Dai, South Dakota State University, Award No. 1443663; Eric Steig, University of Washington, Award No. 1443105 and Award No. 1141839; Becky Alexander, University of Washington, Award No. 1702266
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4452/
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Study: Mass gains of Antarctic ice sheet greater than losses
Nov 05, 2015
A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.
NOTE: The findings reported here conflict with over a decade of other measurements, including previous NASA studies. However, challenges to existing findings are an integral part of the scientific process and can help clarify and advance understanding. Additional scrutiny and follow-up research will be required before this study can be reconciled with the preponderance of evidence supporting the widely accepted model of a shrinking Antarctic ice sheet.
A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.
The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.
According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.
“We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,” said Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study, which was published on Oct. 30 in the Journal of Glaciology
. “Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.” Zwally added that his team “measured small height changes over large areas, as well as the large changes observed over smaller areas.”
Scientists calculate how much the ice sheet is growing or shrinking from the changes in surface height that are measured by the satellite altimeters. In locations where the amount of new snowfall accumulating on an ice sheet is not equal to the ice flow downward and outward to the ocean, the surface height changes and the ice-sheet mass grows or shrinks.
But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally. “If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years — I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”
The study analyzed changes in the surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet measured by radar altimeters on two European Space Agency European Remote Sensing (ERS) satellites, spanning from 1992 to 2001, and by the laser altimeter on NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) from 2003 to 2008.
Zwally said that while other scientists have assumed that the gains in elevation seen in East Antarctica are due to recent increases in snow accumulation, his team used meteorological data beginning in 1979 to show that the snowfall in East Antarctica actually decreased by 11 billion tons per year during both the ERS and ICESat periods. They also used information on snow accumulation for tens of thousands of years, derived by other scientists from ice cores, to conclude that East Antarctica has been thickening for a very long time.
“At the end of the last Ice Age, the air became warmer and carried more moisture across the continent, doubling the amount of snow dropped on the ice sheet,” Zwally said.
The extra snowfall that began 10,000 years ago has been slowly accumulating on the ice sheet and compacting into solid ice over millennia, thickening the ice in East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica by an average of 0.7 inches (1.7 centimeters) per year. This small thickening, sustained over thousands of years and spread over the vast expanse of these sectors of Antarctica, corresponds to a very large gain of ice – enough to outweigh the losses from fast-flowing glaciers in other parts of the continent and reduce global sea level rise.
Zwally’s team calculated that the mass gain from the thickening of East Antarctica remained steady from 1992 to 2008 at 200 billion tons per year, while the ice losses from the coastal regions of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula increased by 65 billion tons per year.
“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said. “But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”
“The new study highlights the difficulties of measuring the small changes in ice height happening in East Antarctica,” said Ben Smith, a glaciologist with the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in Zwally’s study.
"Doing altimetry accurately for very large areas is extraordinarily difficult, and there are measurements of snow accumulation that need to be done independently to understand what’s happening in these places,” Smith said.
To help accurately measure changes in Antarctica, NASA is developing the successor to the ICESat mission, ICESat-2, which is scheduled to launch in 2018. “ICESat-2 will measure changes in the ice sheet within the thickness of a No. 2 pencil,” said Tom Neumann, a glaciologist at Goddard and deputy project scientist for ICESat-2. “It will contribute to solving the problem of Antarctica’s mass balance by providing a long-term record of elevation changes.”
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New research shows growth of East Antarctic Ice Sheet was less than previously suggested
May 5, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-growth-east-antarctic-ice-sheet.html
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West Antarctic glacier observed stealing ice from neighbor
8 May, 2025
Scientists have discovered a glacier in Antarctica committing “ice piracy” – stealing ice from its neighbour in a phenomenon previously thought to take hundreds or thousands of years.
Research led by the University of Leeds has revealed that this dramatic glacial theft has occurred over less than 18 years, challenging scientific understanding of Antarctica’s ice dynamics and potential sea level rise contributions.
Dr Pierre Dutrieux, climate researcher at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and study co-author, explained the significance of the findings:
“This study provides an interesting demonstration of ice piracy, where flow into one glacier gradually switches to flow into another glacier, as the ocean melts the grounding zone and re-configures ice flow...”
https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/west-antarctic-glacier-observed-stealing-ice-from-neighbour/
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“Antarctic Ice Cap Found Shrinking Toward Pole”
26 Feb 2025
“Tue, Jun 01, 1948 – Page 14
Antarctic Ice Cap Found Shrinking Toward Pole
OSLO, June 1 (UP).—A remarkable thinning out of the polar ice cap in the Antarctic is reported by a Norwegian expedition which found bare stretches of earth on an island thickly covered with ice only 20 years ago.”
https://iowaclimate.org/2025/02/26/antarctic-ice-cap-found-shrinking-toward-pole/
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Retreat history of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet since the Last Glacial Maximum
2014
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379113002898
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An early defrost
August 16, 2013
Nature paper suggests last ice age in West Antarctica ended at least 20,000 years ago
New research published online Aug. 14 in the prestigious journal Nature suggests that the last ice age in West Antarctica ended several thousand years earlier than previously thought.
The study is based on analysis of an ice core extracted from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by U.S. researchers, a multi-year project primarily funded by the National Science Foundation . Scientists spent the better part of a decade drilling and extracting an ice core 3,400 meters long, representing a climate history of about 68,000 years. Only the first 30,000 years have been analyzed so far. [See previous article — The last core: WAIS Divide deepens borehole for research into climate change.]
The data from the ice core suggest changes in the amount of solar energy triggered the warming of West Antarctica. The subsequent release of carbon dioxide from the Southern Ocean amplified the effect and resulted in warming on a global scale, eventually ending the ice age.
The date for the end of the last ice age, or glacial period, had been pegged at 20,000 years for the Northern Hemisphere and about 18,000 years ago for the Southern Hemisphere. The new analysis implies that parts of Antarctica began warming between 2,000 and 4,000 years earlier than previously thought.
"This deglaciation is the last big climate change that that we're able to go back and investigate," said T.J. Fudge , a University of Washington doctoral student in Earth and space sciences and lead corresponding author of the Nature paper. "It teaches us about how our climate system works."
For more information, see press releases from the University of Washington and Oregon State University .
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/2886/
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Thinning Arctic sea ice influences the atmosphere — with spinoff effects for Eurasia, study says
May 25, 2018
https://www.arctictoday.com/thinning-arctic-sea-ice-influences-atmosphere-spinoff-effects-eurasia-study-says/
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Warm ocean water is eroding Thwaites Ice Shelf from below (West Antarctica)
August 09, 2021
A first peek from the ocean below shows water eating away at the ice shelf’s critical anchor points
Scientists got their first glimpse at the ocean conditions surrounding the Thwaites Ice Shelf in 2019, and recently published results are worrisome for the rapidly melting ice shelf and the glacier behind it.
The first foray of an underwater vehicle beneath the ice shelf found there are three bedrock channels funneling warm water from the open ocean toward the ice. That warm water is melting the ice shelf at an alarming rate. Researchers who analyzed the data estimate there is enough heat flowing through just one of those channels to melt 85 gigatons of ice per year – enough water to fill about 36,000 Great Pyramids of Giza.
“Warm water is reaching the underside of the ice and melting it rapidly as it goes afloat,” said Ted Scambos, a polar scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder and U.S. lead of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration’s Science Coordination Office. “The remaining ice shelf… looks like it won't survive for more than another 10 years or so. Loss of the ice shelf, and more melt from ocean water, will cause Thwaites glacier to accelerate even more.”
“It sort of dawned on us slowly as we worked with the data… that the heat flow was really larger than we expected,” said Anna Wåhlin, an oceanographer at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and lead author of a recent study detailing the results.
What’s more, the results show warm water is hitting critical points anchoring the glacier to the seafloor. The researchers can’t say for sure whether what was observed in 2019 was an outlier, but if those ocean conditions persist, the ice shelf is in serious jeopardy.
“We think that means this probably is not sustainable,” Wåhlin said.
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4457/
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UW scientists suggest Pacific Ocean contributes to West Antarctic warming
April 22, 2011
New research from scientists at the University of Washington (UW) suggests that rising sea surface temperatures in the area of the Pacific Ocean along the equator and near the International Date Line drive atmospheric circulation that has caused some of the largest shifts in Antarctic climate in recent decades.
The warmer water generates rising air that creates a large wave structure in the atmosphere called a Rossby wave train, which brings warmer temperatures to West Antarctica during winter and spring.
While Antarctica is somewhat isolated by the vast Southern Ocean, the new results “show that it is still affected by climate changes elsewhere on the planet,” said Eric Steig , a professor at UW and co-author of the study published this month in the journal Nature Geoscience. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) .
The scientists used surface and satellite temperature observations to show a strong statistical connection between warmer temperatures in Antarctica, largely brought by westerly winds associated with high pressure over the Amundsen Sea adjacent to West Antarctica, and sea surface temperatures in the central tropical Pacific Ocean.
They found a strong relationship between central Pacific sea-surface readings and Antarctic temperatures during Southern Hemisphere winter months, June through August. The effect also appeared to a lesser degree in the spring months of September through November.
The observed circulation changes are in the form of a series of high- and low-pressure cells that follow an arcing path from the tropical Pacific to West Antarctica. That is characteristic of a textbook Rossby wave train pattern, said Qinghua Ding, lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at UW. He added the same pattern is consistently produced in climate models, at least during winter.
Using observed changes in tropical sea surface temperatures, the researchers found they could account for half to all of the observed winter temperature changes in West Antarctica, depending on which observations are used for comparison.
“This is distinct from El Niño ,” Steig said. That climate phenomenon, which affects weather patterns worldwide, primarily influences sea-surface temperatures farther east in the Pacific, nearer to South America.
Steig noted that the influence of Rossby waves on West Antarctic climate is not a new idea, but this is the first time such waves have been shown to be associated with long-term changes in Antarctic temperature.
The findings also could have implications for understanding the causes behind the thinning of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains about 10 percent of all the ice in Antarctica, according to the study’s authors.
Steig noted in a UW press release that the westerly winds created by the high pressure over the Amundsen Sea pushes cold water away from the edge of the ice sheet and out into the open ocean. It is then replaced by warmer water from deeper in the ocean, which is melting the seaward edge of the ice sheet from below.
A recent NASA -led study suggested that the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now the primary contributors to sea-level rise. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet could raise sea level by about six meters if it collapsed entirely. [See previous article: Meltdown.]
Other co-authors on the paper include David Battisti, a UW atmospheric sciences professor, and Marcel Küttel, a former UW postdoctoral researcher now working in Switzerland. Steig is also a principal investigator on the NSF-funded WAIS Divide ice core project in West Antarctica, which recently completed deep-coring operations. [See previous article: Deep core complete.]
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/2413/
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Garwood reveals layers of climate history from Last Glacial Maximum
March 16, 2012
A cliff section of ancient ice capped by layers of sediment in Garwood Valley stands more than 10 meters tall in most places. The ice was deposited in the valley when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet grew thousands of years ago.
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/2626/
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Ancient Ice Levels
April 20, 2017
Scientists drill into Antarctic bedrock to see if the Icy Continent was once a bit less icy
Today, a massive sheet of ice covers nearly all of West Antarctica, but it likely hasn’t always been that way.
Over the past few hundred thousand years, researchers think that the ice sheets have waxed and waned, varying in size as the region’s climate changed. As they fluctuated, the ice sheets would have captured so much frozen water that sea levels around the world would have risen and dropped accordingly.
The fate of the Antarctic ice sheets affects all parts of the planet. For scientists modelling future climate, the role the ice sheets play is one of the great unknowns, but it would certainly be significant. They estimate that if the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to collapse, for example, it could raise global sea level by up to 15 feet on average.
Counterintuitively, because of the interactions between the ice sheet and the Earth’s crust, the Northern Hemisphere would experience the biggest sea level rise from melting Antarctic ice.
To gather hard geologic evidence of how dynamic the ice cover has been in the past, and may be in the future, John Stone of the University of Washington and his team traveled to a remote region of the continent this past season.
“The aim of this project is to determine whether the ice sheet in West Antarctica has been thinner in the past,” Stone said. “Whether it has collapsed and contracted to a much smaller version of its present self.”
They flew deep into the barren landscape to drill down and collect a bedrock sample buried under more than 100 meters of ice. By analyzing its atomic properties, they’re able to test to see whether there was a time when the ice sheets of West Antarctica were once just a shadow of what they are today. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program.
“There’s a good deal of evidence from sea level change that ice sheets globally were smaller during the last interglacial 125,000 years ago,” Stone said. “So it’s widely presumed that West Antarctica participated in that deglaciation that led to higher sea levels.”
The researchers needed to get at the underlying bedrock beneath the ice that covers most of the continent today. They’re looking for evidence that the rocks once laid out on the surface, free of ice and totally exposed to cosmic rays. While it’s common for glacial researchers to analyze rocks on the surface to see how long they’ve been exposed, taking rock cores from beneath the ice is new.
“The cosmic radiation interacts with… and induces nuclear reactions inside the minerals of rocks, and changes atoms from one chemical isotope to another,” Stone said. “When rocks become exposed to cosmic rays they begin to build up quantities of isotopes like beryllium-10, aluminum-26, chlorine-36, helium-3 and neon-21, which are otherwise very rare isotopes.”
Many of these atomic variants are radioisotopes that are unstable and break down into other stable isotopes through radioactive decay. These radioisotopes build up as long as the rocks are exposed, but when these rocks are buried underneath multiple feet of cosmic-ray blocking ice, the radioisotopes break down at predictable rates.
Different isotopes have different rates of decay, or “half-lives,” which range from a few microseconds, to billions of years. Stone and his team focused on isotopes that have half-lives in the thousands and millions of years. By looking at the ratios of these different isotopes, the researchers can discern when the last time this rock had been exposed, and from that, the history of the ice sheet over the last few hundred thousand years.
“We will measure a whole family of isotopes which have different radioactive half-lives,” Stone said. “By comparing the concentrations of those isotopes, we’ll be able to tell whether the exposure was a long time in the past, or whether it happened fairly recently.”
In order to get to the rock still covered in ice, the team worked with a drill designed by the U.S. Ice Drilling Program for subglacial bedrock drilling known as the Agile Sub-Ice Geologic drill, or the ASIG drill. It’s adapted from a commercially available drill used for mineral exploration, but with a number of modifications to make it better at drilling through ice rather than rock.
The team originally hoped to take two cores during their field season. Unfortunately, just feet away from finishing their first hole, there was a problem and it had to be abandoned.
“That was a big disappointment, especially because it was the first of the two holes,” Stone said.
What exactly happened is still unclear, but after several days of troubleshooting, they made the decision to give up on their first attempt. Despite the setback, they focused on making sure their second attempt was successful...
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4305/
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The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years – and that foreshadows big changes for the rest of the planet
October 5, 2020
https://www.arctictoday.com/the-arctic-hasnt-been-this-warm-for-3-million-years-and-that-foreshadows-big-changes-for-the-rest-of-the-planet/
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Arctic sea ice is on pace for a new record-low winter maximum
March 7, 2018
https://www.arctictoday.com/arctic-sea-ice-pace-new-record-low-winter-maximum/
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Bering Sea ice was the lowest in 150 years this winter
April 11, 2018
https://www.arctictoday.com/bering-sea-ice-lowest-150-years-winter/
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Russia confirms record high temperature in Arctic Siberia
June 30, 2020
https://www.arctictoday.com/russia-confirms-record-high-temperature-in-arctic-siberia/
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Siberia’s heat wave is a ‘warning cry’ from the Arctic, climate scientists say
June 25, 2020
https://www.arctictoday.com/siberias-heat-wave-is-a-warning-cry-from-the-arctic-climate-scientists-say/
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The 2016 Bering Sea heat wave was the warmest on record
December 27, 2017
https://www.arctictoday.com/the-2016-bering-sea-heat-wave-was-the-warmest-on-record/
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Arctic sea ice shrinks to its second-lowest annual minimum extent ever
September 21, 2020
https://www.arctictoday.com/arctic-sea-ice-shrinks-to-its-second-lowest-annual-minimum-extent-ever/
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Massive icebergs once roamed off coast of UK
24 April, 2025
A new study reveals there was a time when massive icebergs, like the ones we see in Antarctica today, were drifting less than 90 miles off the UK coastline.
Scientists have for the first time discovered the distinctive plough-marks these spectacular giants carved as their undersides dragged across the floor of the North Sea, located off the east coast of the UK, some 18,000 to 20,000 years ago.
https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/massive-icebergs-once-roamed-off-coast-of-uk/
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Arctic ice extent is unlikely to hit a record-low minimum, but lingering ice is ‘thin and porous’
August 21, 2020
https://www.arctictoday.com/arctic-ice-extent-is-unlikely-to-hit-a-record-low-minimum-but-lingering-ice-is-thin-and-porous/
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For the first time, scientists have seen the birth of an Arctic ice stream
January 2, 2020
“In the satellite images, it seems like the entire west wing of the ice cap is just dumping into the sea.”
https://www.arctictoday.com/for-the-first-time-scientists-have-seen-the-birth-of-an-arctic-ice-stream/
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Heavy summer rains speed permafrost thaw, a new study finds
August 3, 2020
https://www.arctictoday.com/heavy-summer-rains-speed-permafrost-thaw-a-new-study-finds/
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Arctic clouds are more vulnerable to pollution than once thought
February 6, 2018
https://www.arctictoday.com/arctic-clouds-vulnerable-pollution-thought/
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Is it snowing microplastics in Siberia? Russian scientists find airborne fibers in remote samples
March 19, 2021
https://www.arctictoday.com/is-it-snowing-microplastics-in-siberia-russian-scientists-find-airborne-fibers-in-remote-samples/
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Microplastics may affect how Arctic sea ice forms and melts
September 25, 2019
https://www.arctictoday.com/microplastics-may-affect-how-arctic-sea-ice-forms-and-melts/
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Microplastic hotspots mapped across the Southern Ocean reveal areas of potential ecological impact
30 December 2024
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-79816-y
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An unusually cool ‘blue blob’ in the North Atlantic is slowing glacier loss in Iceland
February 17, 2022
A patch of unusually cold water in the North Atlantic Ocean, known as the “blue blob,” could forestall some of Iceland’s glacier melt in the next three decades, a new study says.
The cold water, south of Iceland and Greenland, is creating more snowfall over Iceland, replenishing the island’s glaciers as they melt and run off.
Fjallsarlon Glacier Lagoon with the Vatnajkull Glacier behind is seen on
Thursday August 12, 2021 in southeast Iceland within the vicinity of
Vatnajokull National Park, a UNESCO heritage site.
https://www.arctictoday.com/an-unusually-cool-blue-blob-in-the-north-atlantic-is-slowing-glacier-loss-in-iceland/
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How an underwater ‘heat blob’ could be contributing to Arctic sea ice loss
January 26, 2021
A complex global system of ocean currents is bringing more heat to the Arctic.
An underwater “heat blob” from the Atlantic is exacerbating the warming of the Arctic Ocean and contributing to the rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The study shows that the amount of heat transported to the Nordic Seas and Arctic Ocean by ocean currents has increased dramatically since 2001.
This poleward heat transport has been implicated as one possible cause of the warming of the Arctic Ocean and the rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice.
As warm surface waters travel to regions further north, they lose heat and gain in salinity as freshwater evaporates.
[The Arctic Ocean is becoming more like the Atlantic and Pacific, studies say]
When warm Atlantic water reaches the Arctic, it sinks to form a “heat blob” because the cool, fresh water from the Arctic is less salty and thus more buoyant.
This facilitates the formation of sea ice over the ocean. However, the increased transmission of heat to northern latitudes could hinder sea ice formation.
Scientists call this phenomenon “Atlantification.”
https://www.arctictoday.com/how-an-underwater-heat-blob-could-be-contributing-to-arctic-sea-ice-loss/
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Why winter sea ice re-growth in the Arctic has stalled — and what it means for the rest of the world
October 27, 2020
https://www.arctictoday.com/why-winter-sea-ice-re-growth-in-the-arctic-has-stalled-and-what-it-means-for-the-rest-of-the-world/
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Caves of Gas
April 26, 2017
Planet Earth is gassy.
All over the world, plumes of gasses that formed deep under the planet’s surface, pour out of active volcanoes and mix with the atmosphere. Tobias Fischer, a volcanologist at the University of New Mexico, spent two seasons exploring the frozen face of Antarctica’s Mount Erebus, the world’s southernmost active volcano, to better understand these fumes escaping from the depths of the Earth.
He and his team traveled to Antarctica to take the closest look yet at the gasses seeping out of the slopes of the volcano. Their project is supported by the National Science Foundation, which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program.
Scientists have been studying the fumes pouring out of the open crater at the peak of the mountain for years, Fischer’s is the first major attempt to understand the gasses coming off the sides, or the flank, of the volcano. They want to get as complete a picture as possible of all the emissions emanating from the mountain because they likely played a major role in Earth’s prehistoric climate.
“The bigger question is to understand what are the carbon-dioxide emissions from volcanoes globally,” Fischer said. “If we want to understand how climate has been influenced by carbon emissions from volcanoes, then we have to understand how much carbon is actually coming out of volcanoes… Erebus is a really good analogue, and so understanding that, we can use that data, we can extrapolate back into Earth’s history to see how it might have affected it.”
The gasses are the product of the Earth’s solid outer crust melting deep below the surface. At depths of several miles, the Earth’s rocky crust contacts the red-hot mantle. The extremely high temperatures and pressures at those depths liquefy the crust, releasing a range of gasses in the process.
What seeps out is a mixture of carbon dioxide, sulfur, water, nitrogen and the noble gases, some of which are common in normal air, but in very different proportions. They flow up to the surface through the same magma tubes that carry the molten rock up to crater of the volcano.
“Most of the gas would come out through the crater. That’s the plume that you see looking up at Erebus,” Fischer said. “But there’s also degassing going on... this degassing happens much deeper and so the gas comes out on the sides of the volcano.”
Measuring this flank degassing on volcanos in other parts of the world is difficult because it’s hard to spot where the invisible gasses leak out of the ground. However, because a thick sheet of ice covers Mount Erebus, these warm gasses carve out spectacular ice caves and ice towers that pinpoint exactly where these seeps are located.
“Mount Erebus is the ideal laboratory volcano,” Fischer said.
As the warm vapors rise out of the ground, they melt the overlying ice. This can create the dramatic ice caves that pockmark the sides of Mount Erebus. If the gasses are particularly hot, the water will evaporate and then refreeze where it contacts the cold air, forming giant ice towers called fumaroles.
Fischer and his team climbed into a number of these caves and fumaroles to sample the gasses that created them.
“Some ice caves you can just walk in, they’re horizontal. Some of them you have to climb up with rope and repel down into them,” Fischer said. “One of the caves is called Sauna Cave, and you actually have to climb up quite a bit then repel down 40 feet on a rope.”
Inside the caves, the team looked for areas on the ground that were devoid of frost, the surest sign that warm gasses were leaking out of the rocks at a particular spot.
Evaluating the Effervescent Emissions of Mount Erebus
“In the caves there are these areas that are warmer areas, but [the gasses] are still really hard to collect because it’s very diffuse and to make the measurements in the caves is challenging,” Fischer said.
When they found a spot with seeping gas, they would insert a probe into the ground connected to a pump. It drew in the emissions and pumped it into the team’s sampling vials to bring back to their home institutions for analysis.
“We don’t want to pump too fast because then we’re just sucking in the ambient air, and we don’t want to pump too slow because then there’ no gas coming through,” Fischer said. “Then we just leave it for 12 hours or 24 hours or whatever works.”
They also brought along an infrared spectrometer that they kept at camp. With it, they could immediately analyze the carbon dioxide levels of the gasses they collected.
“That’s extremely useful because you come all the way here, and you collect these samples but you don’t know if you got anything good,” Fischer said. “With that instrument that gives us really good hints.”
Though he’s studying all of the gaseous emissions, carbon dioxide is of particular interest to Fischer and his team. It’s a way to better understand how this carbon dioxide emitted by volcanoes affected Earth’s ancient climate.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat from the sun in Earth’s atmosphere. The more carbon dioxide concentrated in the atmosphere, the more heat gets trapped and the warmer the climate gets.
“We know that anthropogenic emissions, what we put out by burning fossil fuels, are much higher than what volcanoes put out, probably by a factor of 100,” Fischer said. “But before anthropogenic emissions happened, volcanoes were the main source of putting carbon into the atmosphere. And volcanic carbon emissions in the past have very likely influenced climate.”
The team collected samples from ten different caves and is in the midst of processing and studying them.
Already they encountered some surprising preliminary results. The team found isotopic evidence that some the carbon dioxide they collected seems to be coming from different sources below the surface. The main source is likely directly from the magma deep underground, as expected. However, in a few of the caves they found carbon dioxide with an isotope signature that seems to hint that it was created by some other underground process.
“It has implications for microbial life below the surface,” Fischer said. “If there is an envelope of hydrothermal water, perhaps the microbes live in that water. I don’t know.”
The team is continuing to study and map where these unusual samples came from on the mountain. It’s still too early to tell for sure what’s casing these anomalous results, but the results are tantalizing, and could lead to new directions for future research.
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4306/
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Oceans warming faster than expected, set heat record in 2018: scientists
January 16, 2019
https://www.arctictoday.com/oceans-warming-faster-than-expected-set-heat-record-in-2018-scientists/
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Warm water trapped in the Arctic could speed ice melt
September 4, 2018
Warm water is quickly accumulating about 50 meters below the surface of the Arctic Ocean, researchers found.
https://www.arctictoday.com/warm-water-trapped-arctic-waters-speed-ice-melt/
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A glacier that was once Greenland’s fastest melting is growing again — for now
March 27, 2019
Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier, which for the past two decades had been rapidly thinning and retreating, recently began advancing again, and has grown in thickness, a new study from NASA scientists has found.
Jakobshavn, which had been the single largest site of ice loss for the Greenland ice sheet, shifted in 2016, according to the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
[Greenland and the hunt for better climate science]
The researchers, from NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland project, attribute that shift to locally cooler ocean waters — tied to a natural cycle in the North Atlantic, explains National Geographic.
Jason Box, a top Greenland ice expert who wasn’t part of the study team, told the Associated Press that the findings came as a surprise, but that they don’t mean a permanent reprieve for the glacier.
“The good news is that it’s a reminder that it’s not necessarily going that fast,” he said. “But it is going.”
The study’s authors agree. One, OMG lead investigator Josh Willis, told USA Today that the shift is a “temporary break,” and that “seeing the oceans have such a huge impact on the glaciers is bad news for Greenland’s ice sheet.”
Greenland’s ice continues to melt rapidly, and a recent study found that it is the largest Arctic contributor to global sea level rise.
But the new study highlights the complexity of this melt and the difficulty scientists face in measuring it — and it points the way toward future research questions: “[P]rojections of Jakobshavn’s future contribution to sea-level rise that are based on glacier geometry are insufficient, and that accounting for external forcing is indispensable,” the study authors wrote.
https://www.arctictoday.com/greenlands-fastest-melting-glacier-is-growing-again-for-now/
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Greenland glaciers melt five times faster than 20 years ago
November 13, 2023
https://www.arctictoday.com/greenland-glaciers-melt-five-times-faster-than-20-years-ago/
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A Greenland glacier is growing. That doesn't mean melting is over.
March 25, 2019
A
pulse of cooler water at its edge let part of the glacier gain some
mass. But overall, the melting across Greenland continues apace.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/one-part-of-greenland-ice-growing
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Greenland’s most critical glacier is suddenly gaining ice, but that might not be a good thing
March 28, 2019
A close-up of the Jakobshavn glacier.
A view of the Jakobshavn Glacier from the window of a NASA research plane.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/27/world/climate-change-greenland-glacier-growing-wxc-trnd/index.html
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Greenland and Antarctica are gaining ice inland, but still losing it overall
April 30, 2020
Antarctic ice shelves and Greenland glaciers (like the one pictured) on the coasts are melting faster than inland snow is accumulating, leading to overall ice loss.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/greenland-antarctica-are-gaining-ice-inland-losing-melting-overall
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Major Greenland Glacier Is Growing
June 6, 2019
Jakobshavn Glacier in western Greenland is notorious for being the world’s fastest-moving glacier. It is also one of the most active, discharging a tremendous amount of ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet into Ilulissat Icefjord and adjacent Disko Bay—with implications for sea level rise. The image above, acquired on June 6, 2019, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, shows a natural-color view of the glacier.
Jakobshavn has spent decades in retreat—that is, until scientists observed an unexpected advance between 2016 and 2017. In addition to growing toward the ocean, the glacier was found to be slowing and thickening. New data collected in March 2019 confirm that the glacier has grown for the third year in a row, and scientists attribute the change to cool ocean waters.
“The third straight year of thickening of Greenland’s biggest glacier supports our conclusion that the ocean is the culprit,” said Josh Willis, an ocean scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and principal investigator of the Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) mission.
The maps above show how the glacier’s height changed between March 2016 and 2017 (top); March 2017 and 2018 (middle); and March 2018 and 2019 (bottom). The elevation data come from a radar altimeter that has been flown on research airplanes each spring as part of OMG. Blue areas represent where the glacier’s height has increased, in some areas by as much as 30 meters per year.
The change is particularly striking at the glacier’s front (solid blue area on the left) between 2016 and 2017. That’s when the glacier advanced the most, replacing open water and sea ice with towering glacial ice. The glacier has not advanced as much since then, but it continues to slow and thicken.
Willis compared the glacier’s behavior to silly putty. “Pull it from one end and it stretches and gets thinner, or squash it together and it gets thicker,” he said. The latter scenario is what is happening now as the glacier slows down: Notice that by the third year, thickening is occurring across an increasingly wide area.
Willis and colleagues think the glacier is reacting to a shift in a climate pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation, which has brought cold water northward along Greenland’s west coast. Measurements of the temperatures collected by the OMG team show that the cold water has persisted.
“Even three years after the cold water arrived, the glacier is still reacting,” Willis said. “I’m really excited to go back this August and measure the temperature again. Is it still cold? Or has it warmed back up?”
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145185/major-greenland-glacier-is-growing
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Greenland's ice is melting from the bottom up -- and far faster than previously thought, study shows
2022
Meltwater on the surface of the ice sheet falls through cracks to the base.
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Ice Gains In Some Parts Of Antarctica Aren't Offsetting Its Losses [Infographic]
2019
In
the past week or so I have been reading a few articles and social media
posts on the subject of Antarctica gaining ice mass. The articles are
talking about information from a study released by NASA in 2015 showing
that snowfall on the Eastern part of the continent is more than enough
to offset the melting of glaciers in the West. The social media posts
have been talking about how this proves that climate change was a hoax
all along. After all, how can sea levels be rising from glaciers melting
if Antarctica is gaining mass year after year? I took some time to
research the issue and read the actual study and today I thought I would
take some time and write a few paragraphs to help set the record
straight on this topic.
The study in question
In 2015 a
study was published by NASA, the lead author was Jay Zwally, a
glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The study showed
evidence that Antarctica had experienced a net gain of 112 billion tons
of ice annually between 1992 and 2001 and a gain of 82 billion tons
annually between 2003 and 2008. This information was not at all in line
with previous findings on the subject which insisted that Antarctica has
been losing ice mass because of global warming.
These new
findings were based on data that came from studying changes in the
surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet using radar altimeters. The
data was collected using two European Space Agency European Remote
Sensing satellites and NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite.
Basically,
the study shows that gains in snowfall in East Antarctica are more than
enough to offset the losses from melting glaciers on the West side of
the continent. These gains were not just in recent years but had been
the result of increased snowfall over the past 10,000 years or since the
last ice age. The study goes on to say that sea levels cannot be rising
because of glaciers melting in Antarctica because its actually gaining
ice.
Issues with the study
This information came as a bit
of a shock. After all the International Panel on Climate Change had been
releasing reports for a long time stating that Antarctica has been
losing mass and causing sea levels to rise. With this study saying the
opposite it’s clear that somebody had to be wrong. With that in mind,
the scientific community was cautious with this new information.
Since
2015 scientists have had a chance to look over the data and have had
time to do a few follow-up studies and the results are clear.
It
is agreed among scientists studying the situation that the Eastern area
is gaining a lot of ice due to thousands of years of continued snowfall.
However, measuring the size of that gain can be difficult at best. The
major issues with Zwally’s study are that it used altimeter data from
satellites, which is subject to systematic errors such as snowpack
penetration and telling the difference between snow that is on the
ground and snow that is still falling. Also, in order to calibrate their
measurements, Zwally’s team bounced lasers of the Southern Ocean which
may not have been reliable...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinanderton/2019/02/21/ice-gains-in-some-parts-of-antarctica-arent-offsetting-its-losses-infographic/?sh=5dfca5cc7030
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Synchronous Retreat of Southeast Greenland's Peripheral Glaciers
2022
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2022GL097756
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Climate change: For 25th year in a row, Greenland ice sheet shrinks
7 January 2022
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109352
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New observations from ICESat-2 show remarkable Arctic sea ice thinning in just three years
10 March 2022
https://news.agu.org/press-release/new-observations-from-icesat-2-show-remarkable-arctic-sea-ice-thinning-in-just-three-years/
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Nunavik is gaining ground while other coastlines erode
November 1, 2019
If you stand on the beach in Kuujjuaraapik on the Hudson Bay coast, your feet are firmly planted in Nunavik and, furthermore, Quebec.
But if you dip your toes in the frigid water, they are now in Nunavut.
The strange circumstances of Quebec’s northern border are a source of contention for the provincial government, which has sought to extend its jurisdiction into these waters.
But in the meantime, as a result of geomorphological changes, Nunavik is literally gaining ground.
While some other Arctic shorelines are eroding due to permafrost thaw or diminishing sea ice — take Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, for example — Nunavik’s shoreline is seeing the opposite.
What’s happening is a process called glacial isostatic adjustment, or glacial rebound. That’s when land once compressed by the weight of glaciers some 10,000 years ago is still slowly bouncing back to its natural height.
It’s rising at a rate of between five and 13 millimeters per year, according to a recent study.
“There are very few places in the world where we can see sea level fall,” said Antoine Boisson, who completed his PhD by taking an inventory of the Nunavik coastline, its unique features and evolution.
His thesis hasn’t yet been validated by Environment Canada, but that process is underway through its eSPACE program on Arctic coastal ecosystems.
Boisson’s work, under the supervision of Laval University’s Michel Allard, was in partnership with Quebec’s Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and Fight Against Climate Change, and will be used by the Kativik Regional Government in developing community emergency responses and land-use plans.
Up until now only a few studies have been done on portions of the Nunavik coastline, and in varying detail.
“Research on coastal processes and landforms in Nunavik is scattered,” Boisson said.
He said his work is the first comprehensive look at the entire 10,000-kilometer stretch of the coastline from Kuujjuaraapik to the eastern tip of Ungava Bay.
This included a survey by helicopter where researchers captured 47 hours of video and 40,000 photographs of Nunavik’s three coastal regions: Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay.
In all three regions, glacial rebound is mitigating the impacts of climate change and coastal risks affecting most other areas.
“In Kuujjuaraapik, the emergence rate is 1.3 meters per century. The land is emerging at a huge rate,” said Boisson.
Surpassing sea level rise, this emergence of the land is creating coastal features like raised beaches and boulder barricades — various rows of boulders up the sloping shore, as Boisson documented in Ungava Bay.
There are also areas where, unlike in most Arctic regions, the permafrost has been increasing in thickness since 2010 due to lower temperatures — though this isn’t the norm across Nunavik.
“When I speak at international conferences, I’m maybe the only one that sees sea level fall, the emergence of land and almost no erosion,” said Boisson.
But, he added, coastal risks shouldn’t be underestimated, because an increase in storm surges, which is when the sea level rises during a storm, and other variables could still threaten communities.
And there are outliers among the formations he’s studied, including a sand cliff in Umiujaq that has eroded at a rate of one meter per year for the past five years.
Areas like this, with little protection from islands off the coast, are more vulnerable to coastal erosion. That’s because the wind has a greater distance to pick up speed, creating big waves, as well as storm surges.
In the future, events like surges and permafrost thaw could be a particular risk for communities on sandy grounds, like Umiujaq, Inukjuak, Akulivik and Salluit, which lack the stability of a rocky coastline.
“Coastal erosion is considered low compared to other regions, like Tuktoyaktuk, but it should not be overlooked,” said Boisson.
Global sea level rise is expected to continue to exceed the rate of land elevation, but on the Nunavik coast, the sea level will still fall for the next hundred years, only at a gradually lower rate, according to his research.
But more study is needed in this area, Boisson said, to capture the dynamic nature of the coast and where risks could exist.
https://www.arctictoday.com/nunavik-gaining-ground-where-other-coastlines-erode/
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Study: Erosion has made the Bering Strait a meter deeper on the Alaska side than it used to be
June 26, 2023
https://www.arctictoday.com/study-erosion-has-made-the-bering-strait-a-meter-deeper-on-the-alaska-side-than-it-used-to-be/
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We built an AI model that analysed millions of images of retreating glaciers – what it found is alarming
January 21, 2025
https://www.arctictoday.com/we-built-an-ai-model-that-analysed-millions-of-images-of-retreating-glaciers-what-it-found-is-alarming/
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This year’s Arctic sea ice minimum extent is tied for tenth lowest on record
September 23, 2022
https://www.arctictoday.com/this-years-arctic-sea-ice-minimum-extent-is-tied-for-tenth-lowest-on-record/
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Arctic has not been as warm as today in over 7,500 years, study says
August 25, 2022
https://www.arctictoday.com/arctic-has-not-been-as-warm-as-today-in-over-7500-years-study-says/
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Record-smashing heatwaves are hitting Antarctica and the Arctic simultaneously
March 25, 2022
https://www.arctictoday.com/record-smashing-heatwaves-are-hitting-antarctica-and-the-arctic-simultaneously/
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Across the Arctic, lake ice is melting out earlier in the spring
January 3, 2017
https://www.arctictoday.com/across-the-arctic-lake-ice-is-melting-out-earlier-in-the-spring/
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A melting glacier keeps shrinking Sweden’s highest mountain
August 24, 2020
The glacier that tops what was once the country’s highest summit has shrunk by a meter each year this century.
https://www.arctictoday.com/a-melting-glacier-keeps-shrinking-swedens-highest-mountain/
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Tectonic evolution
April 29, 2011
Geologists study ancient Antarctic landscape as possible influence on climate
The Earth went into a deep freeze that lasted from about 350 to 275 million years ago when the climate passed into a greenhouse world that persisted until about 40 million years ago, the beginning of the present ice age...
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/2415/
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Ocean acidification
February 8, 2008
Calcifying sea critters may pay the price for increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
Victoria Fabry and Brad Seibel study what’s come to be known as “the other CO2 problem.”
Most of us are familiar with the first problem: The copious discharge of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere is forcing the Earth’s temperature to rise, causing a wide range of disruptions and changes to the world’s climate.
The oceans play an integral role in mitigating some of that CO2 by absorbing about a third of it as what scientists call a “carbon sink.” But that benefit comes at a cost to marine critters and ecosystems, as the carbon dioxide begins to change the seawater chemistry of the oceans.
A leading expert in ocean acidification from California State University San Marcos, Fabry is the principal investigator for a team of scientists in Antarctica studying how Southern Ocean pteropods, small gastropod mollusks (sea snails and slugs), may respond to higher acidic levels of seawater predicted for the next century.
These animals may be particularly vulnerable to seawater chemistry change because, as the oceans become more acidified and the pH level decreases, their ability to calcify and form shells and skeletons may be severely affected.
“Ocean acidification is going to impact many organisms that calcify,” Fabry said from her office at the Albert P. Crary Engineering and Science Center in McMurdo Station. “It’s going to happen in our lifetimes. It’s not far away.”
The pH level, measured in units, is a calculation of the balance of a liquid’s acidity and alkalinity. The lower a liquid’s pH number, the higher its acidity. The pH level for the world’s oceans was stable for tens of thousands of years, but has dropped one-tenth of a unit since the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s.
That represents a significant decrease, Fabry said, and current models predict the pH level may drop by as much as four-tenths of a unit by 2100 relative to the pre-industrial value. That could mean big trouble for calcifying organisms, particularly in the higher latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctic.
The reason: Most pteropods and other calcifiers, like corals, use the calcium carbonate minerals of calcite or aragonite to construct their shell coverings or skeletons. Normally, surface seawater is not corrosive to calcite and aragonite because the carbonate ion is at supersaturating concentrations. However, as ocean pH falls, so does the concentration of the carbonate ion.
Higher latitude waters are naturally less saturated, so the change in chemistry would affect these areas first. By 2040, under some CO2 emissions scenarios, surface waters of some regions may become undersaturated of aragonite, making those calcium carbonate structures constructed of aragonite vulnerable to dissolution.
At the end of the century, projections say most of the Southern Ocean and some regions of the subarctic Pacific will become undersaturated with respect to aragonite if CO2 emissions continue in a business-as-usual scenario. Data on the Arctic Ocean are pending.
“The high latitudes are the first areas that will have large expanses of surface waters that will be undersaturated with respect to aragonite. It’s not looking good,” Fabry said. “With increasing oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO2, we see CO2 increasing in the water and pH declining at time series stations at Bermuda, Hawaii and the Canary Islands. … And in high latitudes such as the Southern Ocean, what we’re going to have in the coming decades is surface seawater that is corrosive to aragonite. ”
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/1343/
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The magnetic North Pole is moving fast enough to worry scientists
January 24, 2019
And the U.S. government shutdown means NOAA scientists, who would normally be monitoring the movement, are furloughed.
The magnetic North Pole is moving at an alarming rate and forcing researchers to update a navigational model.
According to The Washington Post, almost half of the employees from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is responsible for updating the World Magnetic Model, are on furlough due to the government shutdown, as the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives refuses to fund U.S. President Donald Trump’s $5 billion border wall.
[A shifting north magnetic pole forces an unprecedented navigation fix]
Earth’s poles naturally shift and change due to unpredictable flows of molten liquid iron at the Earth’s core caused by the planet’s rotation. This liquid’s movement creates the Earth’s magnetic field.
However, an article posted in the journal Nature shows that the Earth’s magnetic North Pole has been moving at an unprecedented rate. The movement began in the mid-1990s and it is now headed towards Siberia at roughly 55 kilometers per year.
Scientists from the NOAA and the British Geological Survey study and update the World Magnetic Model every five years.
However, due to the dramatic movement, the model needs to be updated earlier than scheduled. The current government shutdown has forced the NOAA to postpone the update from January 15 to January 30.
This model is necessary for accurate civilian and military navigation. According to the report, the abrupt changes may be due to a geomagnetic pulse that occurred beneath South America in 2016.
In 2017, Phil Livermore a geophysicist from the University of Leeds detected a high-speed jet of liquid iron beneath Canada that seemed to be weakening the magnetic field in that area. Livermore believes this could be linked to the current changes in the earth’s magnetic field.
https://www.arctictoday.com/the-magnetic-north-pole-is-moving-fast-enough-to-worry-scientists/
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Scientists keep increasing their projections for how much the oceans will rise this century
April 27, 2017
https://www.arctictoday.com/scientists-keep-increasing-their-projections-for-how-much-the-oceans-will-rise-this-century/
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Submarine glide blocks from the Lower Cretaceous of the Antarctic Peninsula
1985
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/submarine-glide-blocks-from-the-lower-cretaceous-of-the-antarctic-qvWV1qcJQR
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In-depth Q&A: The IPCC’s special report on the ocean and cryosphere
25 September 2019
Earlier today in Monaco, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate – or “SROCC” for short.
“All people on Earth depend directly or indirectly on the ocean and cryosphere,” the report warns, noting that “human communities in close connection with coastal environments, small islands, polar areas and high mountains are particularly exposed” to changes, such as sea level rise and melting glaciers.
It is “virtually certain” that the global ocean has warmed unabated since 1970, the report stresses, while “global warming has led to widespread shrinking of the cryosphere”.
These changes are increasingly pushing adaptation responses “to their limits”, with the most vulnerable people having “the lowest capacity” to respond. Sustainable development and climate change resilience depend “critically on urgent and ambitious emissions reductions coupled with coordinated sustained and increasingly ambitious adaptation actions”.
In this detailed Q&A, Carbon Brief unpacks what the report says about how climate change is affecting the Earth’s ice and oceans – and the wider impacts that is having on sea levels, marine life and human society, as well as extreme events and potential “tipping points”.
Each section below (click on hyperlinks to jump down) explains, in turn, all of the report’s key findings. They include…
- The need for this report:“Pervasive ocean and cryosphere changes…are already being caused by human-induced climate change.”
- High mountain areas: Glaciers could lose a fifth of their mass this century if emissions are low, and more than 80% in regions such as Central Europe.
- Sea ice: There is “very high confidence” that Arctic sea ice has declined in all months of the year and around half the summer loss is due to human-caused warming.
- Ice sheets: Greenland melt is unprecedented in at least 350 years. With rising Antarctic loss, ice sheets are now contributing 700% more to sea levels than two decades ago.
- Implications of polar warming: Polar bears are travelling further due to less ice, while Arctic peoples and marine life face rising negative impacts due to warming.
- Abrupt changes and ‘tipping points’: The AMOC ocean current that brings warm water to Europe may already have weakened by 15%, but is “very unlikely to collapse” this century.
- Permafrost: Arctic near-surface permafrost faces “widespread disappearance”, with a 30-99% decrease in area if emissions are very high, releasing 10s to 100s of billions of tonnes of CO2.
- Sea level rise: The rate is accelerating and is “unprecedented” over the past century. Worst-case projections are higher than thought and a 2m rise by 2100 “cannot be ruled out”.
- Impacts for coasts and islands: Warming could “drastically alter” migration flows. If emissions are high, some island nations are “likely” to become “uninhabitable” this century.
- Marine life: Marine mammals could decline by 15% and fisheries by a quarter this century, if emissions are very high, while “almost all coral reefs will degrade” even if emissions are low.
- Extreme events: Cyclones, marine heatwaves and other extremes are becoming more severe and will exceed the limits of adaptation, causing “unavoidable loss and damage”.
- Socioeconomic implications: Changes to oceans and the cryosphere will impede the UN’s sustainable development goals and could expand the range of disease threats.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-the-ipccs-special-report-on-the-ocean-and-cryosphere/
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Earth's cryosphere shrinking by 87,000 square kilometers per year
July 1, 2021
Summary:
A new study reports the first global assessment of the extent of snow
and ice cover on Earth's surface -- a critical factor cooling the planet
through reflected sunlight -- and its response to warming temperatures.
The
global cryosphere -- all of the areas with frozen water on Earth --
shrank by about 87,000 square kilometers (about 33,000 square miles), a
area about the size of Lake Superior, per year on average, between 1979
and 2016 as a result of climate change, according to a new study. This
research is the first to make a global estimate of the surface area of
the Earth covered by sea ice, snow cover and frozen ground.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210701195242.htm
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Sea Ice Can Control Antarctic Ice Sheet Stability, New Research Finds
2022
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/05/14/sea-ice-can-control-antarctic-ice-sheet-stability-new-research-finds/
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Evolution of global temperature over the past two million years
2016
https://climate.fas.harvard.edu/files/climate/files/snyder_2016.pdf
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Ocean Cooling and Global Warming
April 1, 2008
https://archive.nytimes.com/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/ocean-cooling-and-global-warming/
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Antarctic and Southern Ocean influences on Late Pliocene global cooling
https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/252854
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Beetle study finds diversity in the sub-Antarctic linked to global cooling
June 10, 2021
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-beetle-diversity-sub-antarctic-linked-global.html
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Adaptation to Extreme Conditions: Thermal Water Biofilm Studies Could Help Understand Ancient Ecosystems
March 7, 2025
https://astrobiology.com/2025/03/adaptation-to-extreme-conditions-thermal-water-biofilm-studies-could-help-understand-ancient-ecosystems.html
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Global cooling yielded modern ecosystems 7 million years ago
Sept. 27, 2016
PROVIDENCE, R.I., Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Many of Earth's ecosystems got their start some 7 million years ago, as global temperatures began to plummet.
According to new research by scientists at Brown University, a prolonged period of global cooling at the end of the Miocene epoch ushered in the expansion of grasslands across Africa and Asia, as well as North and South America.
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Mackenzie River caused global cooling 13,000 years ago, study suggests
July 13, 2018
'It's something very active, and it's happening today,' says scientist
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/mackenzie-river-global-cooling-1.4742707
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Impact of global cooling on Early Cretaceous high pCO2 world during the Weissert Event
13 September 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25706-0
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Study debunks 'global cooling' concern of '70s
February 23, 2008
The supposed "global cooling" consensus among scientists in the 1970s — frequently offered by global-warming skeptics as proof that climatologists can't make up their minds — is a myth, according to a survey of the scientific literature of the era.
The '70s was an unusually cold decade. Newsweek, Time, The New York Times and National Geographic published articles at the time speculating on the causes of the unusual cold and about the possibility of a new ice age.
But Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends.
The study reports, "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age.
"A review of the literature suggests that, to the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking about the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales."
"I was surprised that global warming was so dominant in the peer-reviewed literature of the time," says Peterson, who was also a contributor to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report.
Scientific reports in the past decade, most notably the U.N. panel's Nobel Prize-winning efforts, have warned that human activities are warming the planet by increasing the release of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases into the atmosphere.
Skeptics have argued that climate change is cyclical, not fueled by the burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas. Peterson notes in the study that concerns over the frigid 1970s subsequently became representative of scientific division over global warming.
That was an unusually cold decade, especially the later years, across the Northern Hemisphere. In the USA, the winters of 1977-79 were three of the 11 coldest since the recording of temperatures began in the 1890s, according to climate center data. The winter of 1978-79 remains the coldest on record in the USA.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4335191&page=1
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Antarctic and Southern Ocean influences on Late Pliocene global cooling
April 11, 2012
Abstract
https://ccoc.stanford.edu/publications/antarctic-and-southern-ocean-influences-late-pliocene-global-cooling
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Increasing Antarctic Sea Ice under Warming Atmospheric and Oceanic Conditions
2006
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf
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Forcing of the Wintertime Antarctic Boundary Layer Winds from the NCEP–NCAR Global Reanalysis
2000
http://polarmet.osu.edu/PMG_publications/parish_cassano_jam_2001.pdf
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Driving force behind global cooling in the Cenozoic: an ongoing mystery
23 December 2015
Abstract
The stepwise cooling marks the long-time global climate change during the Cenozoic, particularly since the Oligocene/Eocene boundary. This climatic evolution has been punctuated by several warming such as the peak Cenozoic warmth at 52 Ma, the late Oligocene warming at ~25 Ma and the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum at 17–14 Ma. Concurring with the global temperature changes, the Asian paleoenvironment has been modulated by the global cooling and the tectonic uplift during the Cenozoic, but what have driven the global climatic changes remains unresolved. In this review paper, I hypothesize that a threshold CO2 level in combination with favorable orbital configuration, ocean circulation, enhanced ice albedo and possible roles of silicate mineral and basalt weathering together facilitated the development of glaciations in the Cenozoic and the past temperature change. The synchronous variations between Earth’s surface temperature and atmospheric CO2 level may indicate that the atmospheric CO2 content is the direct driving force for the global climatic cooling, but this hypothesis needs testing by using high-resolution geological record and paleoclimatic modeling.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11434-015-0973-y
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Sharks that hunted near Antarctica millions of years ago recorded Earth’s climate history in their teeth
July 12, 2021
https://theconversation.com/sharks-that-hunted-near-antarctica-millions-of-years-ago-recorded-earths-climate-history-in-their-teeth-164056
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Shark teeth found in Antarctica unlock mystery of Earth’s ancient climate cooling
July 15, 2021
Some 50 million years ago, the Earth shifted to a cooler climate. Here’s why
https://www.zmescience.com/science/shark-teeth-found-in-antarctica-unlock-mystery-of-earths-ancient-climate-cooling/
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Global Cooling Hiatus Driven by an AMOC Overshoot in a Carbon Dioxide Removal Scenario
08 July 2021
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021EF002165
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A permafrost warming in a cooling Antarctica?
30 June 2011
Abstract
The magnitude and even direction of recent Antarctic climate change is still debated because the paucity of long and complete instrumental data records. While along Antarctic Peninsula a strong warming coupled with large retreat of glaciers occurred, in continental Antarctica a cooling was recently detected. Here, the first existing permafrost data set longer than 10 years recorded in continental Antarctica is presented. Since 1997 summer ground surface temperature showed a strong warming trend (0.31°C per year) although the air temperature was almost stable. The summer ground surface temperature increase seemed to be influenced mainly by the increase of the total summer radiation as confirmed also by the increase of the summer thawing degree days. In the same period the active layer exhibited a thickening trend (1 cm per year) comparable with the thickening rates observed in several Arctic locations where air warming occurred. At all the investigated depths permafrost exhibited an increase of mean annual temperature of approximately 0.1°C per year. The dichotomy between active layer thickness and air temperature trends can produce large unexepected and unmodelled impacts on ecosystems and CO2 balance.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-011-0137-2
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CO2 Snow Deposition in Antarctica to Curtail Anthropogenic Global Warming
01 Feb 2013
Abstract
A scientific plan is presented that proposes the construction of carbon dioxide (CO2) deposition plants in the Antarctic for removing CO2 gas from Earth’s atmosphere. The Antarctic continent offers the best environment on Earth for CO2 deposition at 1 bar of pressure and temperatures closest to that required for terrestrial air CO2 “snow” deposition—133 K. This plan consists of several components, including 1) air chemistry and CO2 snow deposition, 2) the deposition plant and a closed-loop liquid nitrogen refrigeration cycle, 3) the mass storage landfill, 4) power plant requirements, 5) prevention of dry ice sublimation, and 6) disposal (or use) of thermal waste. Calculations demonstrate that this project is worthy of consideration, whereby 446 deposition plants supported by sixteen 1200-MW wind farms can remove 1 billion tons (1012 kg) of carbon (1 GtC) annually (a reduction of 0.5 ppmv), which can be stored in an equivalent “landfill” volume of 2 km × 2 km × 160 m (insulated to prevent dry ice sublimation). The individual deposition plant, with a 100 m × 100 m × 100 m refrigeration chamber, would produce approximately 0.4 m of CO2 snow per day. The solid CO2 would be excavated into a 380 m × 380 m × 10 m insulated landfill, which would allow 1 yr of storage amounting to 2.24 × 10−3 GtC. Demonstrated success of a prototype system in the Antarctic would be followed by a complete installation of all 446 plants for CO2 snow deposition and storage (amounting to 1 billion tons annually), with wind farms positioned in favorable coastal regions with katabatic wind currents.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/52/2/jamc-d-12-0110.1.xml
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Misleading posts claim record Antarctica cold disproves global warming
October 22, 2021
https://factcheck.afp.com/http%253A%252F%252Fdoc.afp.com%252F9Q68LD-1
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Drop in Greenhouse Gas Caused Global Cooling 34 Million Years Ago, Study Finds
August 6, 2021
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2021/08/06/greenhouse-gas-caused-global-cooling-34-million-years-ago-study-finds/
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Global cooling linked to increased glacial carbon storage via changes in Antarctic sea ice
14 October 2019
Abstract
Palaeo-oceanographic reconstructions indicate that the distribution of global ocean water masses has undergone major glacial–interglacial rearrangements over the past ~2.5 million years. Given that the ocean is the largest carbon reservoir, such circulation changes were probably key in driving the variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations observed in the ice-core record. However, we still lack a mechanistic understanding of the ocean’s role in regulating CO2 on these timescales. Here, we show that glacial ocean–sea ice numerical simulations with a single-basin general circulation model, forced solely by atmospheric cooling, can predict ocean circulation patterns associated with increased atmospheric carbon sequestration in the deep ocean. Under such conditions, Antarctic bottom water becomes more isolated from the sea surface as a result of two connected factors: reduced air–sea gas exchange under sea ice around Antarctica and weaker mixing with North Atlantic Deep Water due to a shallower interface between southern- and northern-sourced water masses. These physical changes alone are sufficient to explain ~40 ppm atmospheric CO2 drawdown—about half of the glacial–interglacial variation. Our results highlight that atmospheric cooling could have directly caused the reorganization of deep ocean water masses and, thus, glacial CO2 drawdown. This provides an important step towards a consistent picture of glacial climates.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0466-8
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Fact Check: Six months of record cold temperatures at the South Pole Amundsen-Scott station does not discredit climate change
November 8, 2021
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-antarctica-cold-idUSL1N2RZ1X4
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Plate tectonics as a driver for cooling around Antarctica during global climate transition from greenhouse to icehouse
9 November 2021
High-resolution simulations of ocean circulations 34 million years ago
are shedding a new light on the 50-year-old question about how and why
the Antarctic ice sheets formed. The simulations show that the tectonic
opening of Southern Ocean seaways caused a fundamental reorganisation
of ocean currents, heat transport and initiated a strong Antarctic
surface water cooling of 5 °C. The new study conducted by an
international team of researchers has been published in the November 9th issue of Nature Communications.
https://www.uu.nl/en/news/plate-tectonics-cooling-antarctica
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GLOBAL WARMING? NASA says Antarctic has been COOLING for past SIX years
Nov 28, 2015
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/622043/GLOBAL-WARMING-NASA-Antarctic-COOLING-six-years-Arctic-north-pole-climate-change
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50 years ago, scientists puzzled over a slight global cooling
Sulfate pollution turned out to be the culprit
November 21, 2019
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/50-years-ago-scientists-puzzled-over-slight-global-cooling
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Climate paradox: Warming is cooling parts of Antarctica
06/24/2021
https://www.eenews.net/articles/climate-paradox-warming-is-cooling-parts-of-antarctica/
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One part of Antarctica has been cooling since 1998 – here’s why
2016
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2098187-one-part-of-antarctica-has-been-cooling-since-1998-heres-why/
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Prehistoric global cooling caused by CO2, research finds
February 26, 2009
https://www.purdue.edu/uns/x/2009a/090226HuberPete.html
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Response of the Pacific inter-tropical convergence zone to global cooling and initiation of Antarctic glaciation across the Eocene Oligocene Transition
2016
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27507793/
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Antarctica is colder than the Arctic, but it’s still losing ice
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/antarctica-colder-arctic-it%E2%80%99s-still-losing-ice
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Far-Drifting Antarctic Icebergs Are Trigger of Ice Ages, Scientists Say
January 13, 2021
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/01/13/far-drifting-antarctic-icebergs-trigger-ice-ages/
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Antarctic sea ice reaches new record-low in February 2022
2022-03-13
https://cryo.met.no/en/antarctic-seaice-minimum-2022
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Southern Ocean cooling in a warming world
https://news.mit.edu/2016/southern-ocean-cooling-in-a-warming-world-0624
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Societal importance of Antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses
2021
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8423686/
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Colossal volcano behind 'mystery' global cooling Finally Found
2019
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/colossal-volcano-behind-mystery-global-cooling-found
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East Antarctic Summer Cooling Trends Caused by Tropical Rainfall Clusters
https://www.enn.com/articles/68119-east-antarctic-summer-cooling-trends-caused-by-tropical-rainfall-clusters
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Unusually strong cold weather outbreak spreads from Antarctica into central South America, bringing early winter temperature records and first snowfall after decades
04/07/2021
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/south-hemisphere-america-cold-winter-outbreak-fa/
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Water vapor in cold and clean atmosphere: a 3-year data set in the boundary layer of Dome C, East Antarctic Plateau
2022
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/1571/2022/
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Simulations show Antarctica's only insect is at risk due to global warming
2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-simulations-antarctica-insect-due-global.html
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Antarctica is warming, not cooling: study
January 22, 2009
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-antarctica-warming-idUSTRE50K5BM20090121
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Antarctic icebergs reduce effects of global warming in Southern Hemisphere
Aug. 13, 2019
Antarctic icebergs can temper or delay the impacts of global warming in the Southern Hemisphere, according to a new study.
The big picture is simple: as the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere grows, the planet gets warmer. Reality is more complicated. Hundreds of feedback mechanisms and thousands of variables can influence how quickly the planet warms.
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2019/08/13/Antarctic-icebergs-reduce-effects-of-global-warming-in-Southern-Hemisphere/8461565695062/
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Why Is the South Pole Warming So Quickly? It's Complicated
2020
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-the-south-pole-warming-so-quickly-its-complicated/
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Parts of Antarctica have been 40°C warmer than their March average
But a lesser heatwave in the Arctic may be of more concern
Mar 24th 2022
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/03/24/parts-of-antarctica-have-been-40degc-warmer-than-their-march-average
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Atmospheric boundary layer fluxes in the Antarctic Sea ice zone
2016
http://polarmet.osu.edu/AMOMFW_2016/0608_1100_Weiss.pdf
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Natural ocean fluctuations could help explain Antarctic sea ice changes
https://www.carbonbrief.org/natural-ocean-fluctuations-help-explain-antarctic-sea-ice-changes/
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A high-end sea level rise probabilistic projection including rapid Antarctic ice sheet mass loss
2017
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa6512
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West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat in the Amundsen Sea driven by decadal oceanic variability
13 August 2018
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0207-4
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Seasonal sea ice changes in the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica, over the period of 1979–2014
June 2015
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281266345_Seasonal_sea_ice_changes_in_the_Amundsen_Sea_Antarctica_over_the_period_of_1979-2014
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Sea ice algal biomass and physiology in the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
July 15 2014
https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/doi/10.12952/journal.elementa.000028/112943/Sea-ice-algal-biomass-and-physiology-in-the
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Modeling the Impact of Wind Intensification on Antarctic Sea Ice Volume
2013
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_2013.pdf
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Seabird hotspots on icebergs in the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
06 July 2017
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-017-2174-4
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Video: Antarctic Ice Mass Loss 2002-2023
August 23, 2023
https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/265/video-antarctic-ice-mass-loss-2002-2020/
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Pervasive Ice Retreat in West Antarctica
June 22, 2016
https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/88241/pervasive-ice-retreat-in-west-antarctica
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The Characteristics of Surface Albedo Change Trends over the Antarctic Sea Ice Region during Recent Decades
5 April 2019
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/11/7/821/htm
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Global Cooling During the Eocene-Oligocene Climate Transition
27 Feb 2009
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1166368
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Antarctic sea ice reaches all-time low, according to new scientific report
April 19th 2022
https://en.mercopress.com/2022/04/19/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-all-time-low-according-to-new-scientific-report
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Impact of global cooling on Early Cretaceous high pCO2 world during the Weissert Event
13 September 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25706-0
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Global cooling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
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The World Is Warming But the Antarctic Is Getting Colder
2016
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/antarctic-peninsula-cooled-in-past-two-decades-as-world-warmed#xj4y7vzkg
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Antarctica Is Gaining Ice, So Why Is the Earth Still Warming?
November 19, 2015
A view of glaciers and mountains covering West Antarctica, as captured from above on Oct. 29, 2014.
https://www.livescience.com/52831-antarctica-gains-ice-but-still-warming.html
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NASA satellites show Antarctica has gained ice despite rising global temperatures. How is that possible?
___________________________
NASA’s ICESat-2 Measures Arctic Ocean’s Sea Ice Thickness, Snow Cover
May 14, 2020
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Snow-ice contribution to the structure of sea ice in the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
23 July 2020
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/snowice-contribution-to-the-structure-of-sea-ice-in-the-amundsen-sea-antarctica/DD59C59BE13F453C6309BEDFB4B57C43
___________________________
Characteristics of methanesulfonic acid, non-sea-salt sulfate and organic carbon aerosols over the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
2020
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/20/5405/2020/
___________________________
Morphology and sedimentary processes on the continental slope off Pine Island Bay, Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica
May 01, 2006
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-abstract/118/5-6/606/125305/Morphology-and-sedimentary-processes-on-the
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Abbot Ice Shelf, structure of the Amundsen Sea continental margin and the southern boundary of the Bellingshausen Plate seaward of West Antarctica
2015
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681458/
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Modelling Circumpolar Deep Water intrusions on the Amundsen Sea continental shelf, Antarctica
2008
https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/modelling-circumpolar-deep-water-intrusions-on-the-amundsen-sea-c
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Mass loss of the Amundsen Sea Embayment of West Antarctica from four independent techniques
2014
Abstract
We compare four independent estimates of the mass balance of the Amundsen Sea Embayment of West Antarctica, an area experiencing rapid retreat and mass loss to the sea. We use ICESat and Operation IceBridge laser altimetry, Envisat radar altimetry, GRACE time-variable gravity, RACMO2.3 surface mass balance, ice velocity from imaging radars, and ice thickness from radar sounders. The four methods agree in terms of mass loss and acceleration in loss at the regional scale. Over 1992-2013, the mass loss is 83 ± 5 Gt/yr with an acceleration of 6.1 ± 0.7 Gt/yr2. During the common period 2003-2009, the mass loss is 84 ± 10 Gt/yr with an acceleration of 16.3 ± 5.6 Gt/yr2, nearly 3 times the acceleration over 1992-2013. Over 2003-2011, the mass loss is 102 ± 10 Gt/yr with an acceleration of 15.7 ± 4.0 Gt/yr2. The results reconcile independent mass balance estimates in a setting dominated by change in ice dynamics with significant variability in surface mass balance.
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4qz1s1mn
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Accelerated Sea-Level Rise from West Antarctica
Abstract
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1099650
___________________________
Collection of large benthic invertebrates in sediment traps in the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
2019
https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/16/2683/2019/
___________________________
Damage accelerates ice shelf instability and mass loss in Amundsen Sea Embayment
July 29, 2019
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1912890117
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The Formation and Late Quaternary Palaeoenvironmental History of Sediment Mounds in the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica
2018
This thesis presents the first high-resolution palaeoceanographic study of environmental changes in the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic continental margin during the Late Quaternary. This part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is currently experiencing rapid mass loss and longer-term records can provide important context for these changes.
Four piston cores, covering the last c. 375 kyrs, have
been studied from two of the five large sediment mounds which stand on
the continental rise of the eastern Amundsen Sea. Four of the mounds
have been previously been identified in the literature as sediment
drifts. The cores were analysed for sedimentology (grain size, physical
properties, spectrophotometry), mineralogy (clay minerals, sand fraction
composition) and geochemistry (XRF, biogenic silica content, TOC,
CaCO3). These data were used to infer the supply of terrigenous material
from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the amount of biological
productivity and the nature of the bottom current. Age constraints for
the ≤375 kyr records are derived from relative palaeomagnetic intensity,
diatom biostratigraphy, AMS 14C dates, tephrochronology and
lithostratigraphy.
Analysis of the sediments together with new
geophysical and bathymetric data suggests the mounds are mixed
contourite-turbidite drifts. Turbidity currents were initiated at the
margins of, and between, the mouths of Pine Island Trough East and West
and Abbot Trough. The turbidity currents eroded channels in the slope,
some of which connect to the deeply incised, maximum 20 km wide and 400
km long channels separating the drifts. The fine-grained fraction of the
turbidity currents was pirated and deposited on the drift crests by the
weak, eastwards-flowing bottom current, which may be Antarctic Bottom
Water or Lower Circumpolar Deep Water. The coarse-grained component of
the turbidity currents was largely constrained to the channels, with
occasional spill-over depositing sand and sandy muds on the drift
flanks. The drifts are long (250-433 km), narrow (38-130 km), stand up
to 900 m above the sea floor and are asymmetric, with a gently-sloping
western flank and steeper eastern flank resulting from sediment
interaction with the bottom current.
The sediments exhibit strong
cyclicity corresponding to glacial-interglacial cycles. During glacial
periods, deposition was mostly of grey, terrigenous, typically laminated
contourites with dispersed ice rafted debris and locally-sourced
kaolinite and illite. Sedimentation rates ranging from 0.1 to 17.2
cm/kyr reflect WAIS advance and retreat across the shelf. Bottom
currents captured the fine grained fraction of turbidity currents and
deposited laminated sediments, similar to those reported in the drifts
west of the Antarctic Peninsula, attributed to a steady bottom current
and the absence of bioturbation under perennial sea-ice. Manganese
contents suggest suboxic conditions during glacial periods. A laminated
sand and sandy mud turbidite deposit is present in a drift flank core.
Olive-brown,
bioturbated, diatom-bearing and often calcareous-foraminifera-bearing,
mixed contourite and hemi-pelagic muds were deposited in interglacial
periods. Sedimentation rates range from 0.2 to ≥3.7 cm/kyr reflecting
changes in productivity that were mostly controlled by sea-ice coverage.
The smectite content of surface samples from the drifts are larger than
any other known sample from the Amundsen Sea shelf or rise and suggest
that the bottom current also deposits far-travelled clay.
There
are no major depositional anomalies or thick IRD layers in the drift
cores that might indicate collapse of the WAIS. However,
millennial-scale cyclical variations in the provenance of terrigenous
material in PS58/255-2 during mid-late MIS 6 may reflect changes in ice
dynamics.
http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12659/
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Geophysical survey reveals tectonic structures in the Amundsen Sea embayment, West Antarctica
2007
Abstract
The Amundsen Sea embayment of West Antarctica is in a prominent
location for a series of tectonic and magmatic events from Paleozoic to
Cenozoic times. Seismic, magnetic and gravity data from the embayment
and Pine Island Bay (PIB) reveal the crustal thickness and some tectonic
features. The Moho is 24-22 km deep on the shelf. NE-SW trending
magnetic and gravity anomalies and the thin crust indicate a former rift
zone that was active during or in the run-up to breakup between Chatham
Rise and West Antarctica before or at 90 Ma. NW-SE trending gravity and
magnetic anomalies, following a prolongation of Peacock Sound, indicate
the extensional southern boundary to the
Bellingshausen Plate which was active between 79 and 61 Ma.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/srp/srp047/of2007-1047srp047.pdf
___________________________
Shear-wave velocity and attenuation structure beneath Antarctica determined from surface waves
1994
https://www.academia.edu/es/76678869/Shear_wave_velocity_and_attenuation_structure_beneath_Antarctica_determined_from_surface_waves
___________________________
Guest post: Deciphering the rise and fall of Antarctic sea ice extent
29 June 2021
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-deciphering-the-rise-and-fall-of-antarctic-sea-ice-extent/
___________________________
Subglacial bedforms reveal complex basal regime in a zone of paleo–ice stream convergence, Amundsen Sea embayment, West Antarctica
___________________________
Modelling the freshwater balance and influence of icebergs in the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
2021
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/447348/
___________________________
The macro- and megabenthic fauna on the continental shelf of the eastern Amundsen Sea, Antarctica.
2013
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00867552
___________________________
Photographic survey of benthos provides insights into the Antarctic fish fauna from the Marguerite Bay slope and the Amundsen Sea
2013
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/341126/
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New Links Between Greenhouse Gases and Sea Level Rise Found in the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica
Apr 07 2022
https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/50297/20220407/new-links-between-greenhouse-gases-sea-level-rise-found-amundsen.htm
___________________________
Antarctic sea ice experiences record low extent for the second time in 5 years
April 19, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-antarctic-sea-ice-extent-years.html
___________________________
The Role of Large-Scale Drivers in the Amundsen Sea Low Variability and Associated Changes in Water Isotopes From the Roosevelt Island Ice Core, Antarctica
2022
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1215704/v1
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Amundsen Sea
Large B-22 iceberg breaking off from Thwaites Glacier and remnants of the B-21 iceberg from Pine Island Glacier in Pine Island Bay to the right of the image
A proposed "underwater sill" blocking 50% of warm water flows heading
for the glacier could have the potential to delay its collapse and the
resultant sea level rise by many centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen_Sea
___________________________
Partial Mitigation of global warming through Antarctic Meltwater Anomalies
2020
http://oceans.mit.edu/JohnMarshall/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/MeltPaper210.29.2020.pdf
___________________________
Ocean heat flux under Antarctic sea ice in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas: two case studies
26 July 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/ocean-heat-flux-under-antarctic-sea-ice-in-the-bellingshausen-and-amundsen-seas-two-case-studies/BB2AA43A0C1E994C2F832CE71144A79E
___________________________
Ice and ocean processes in the Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctica
21 May 2010
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008JC005219
___________________________
Sources, variability and fate of freshwater in the Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctica
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967063717300420
___________________________
An improved bathymetry compilation for the Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctica, to inform ice-sheet and ocean models
2011
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/5/95/2011/tc-5-95-2011.pdf
___________________________
Quaternary Tephrochronology of the Scotia Sea and Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctica
1999
https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/4865/
___________________________
An improved bathymetry compilation for the Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctica, to inform ice-sheet and ocean models
October 2010
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49608882_An_improved_bathymetry_compilation_for_the_Bellingshausen_Sea_Antarctica_to_inform_ice-sheet_and_ocean_models
___________________________
The terrestrial biota of Charcot Island, eastern Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctica: an example of extreme isolation
06 May 2004
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/terrestrial-biota-of-charcot-island-eastern-bellingshausen-sea-antarctica-an-example-of-extreme-isolation/9963099BA5191B65EBFBB3041B546B96
___________________________
Sphaerodoridae (Annelida: Polychaeta) from the Bellingshausen Sea (Antarctica) with the description of two new species
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-010-0869-x
___________________________
The Shelf Circulation of the Bellingshausen Sea
May 2021
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351212544_The_Shelf_Circulation_of_the_Bellingshausen_Sea
___________________________
Hydroid assemblages from the Bellingshausen Sea (Antarctica): environmental factors behind their spatial distribution
Our planet is warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; but the warming differs from region to region, and it can also vary seasonally.
Our planet is warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; but the warming differs from region to region, and it can also vary seasonally. Over the last four decades scientists have observed a persistent austral summer cooling on the eastern side of Antarctica. This puzzling feature has received world-wide attention, because it is not far away from one of the well-known global warming hotspots – the Antarctic Peninsula.
A new study published in the journal Science Advances by a team of scientists from the IBS Center for Climate Physics at Pusan National University in South Korea, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Ewha Womans University, and National Taiwan University, uncovers a new mechanism that can explain the regional warming/cooling patchwork over Antarctica. At the heart of the mechanism are clusters of rainfall events in the western tropical Pacific, which release massive amounts of heat into the atmosphere by condensation of water vapor. Warm air rises over the organized rainfall clusters and sinks farther away. This pressure difference creates winds which are further influenced by the effect of earth’s rotation. The interplay of these factors generates a large-scale atmospheric pressure wave which travels from west to east along the equator with a speed of about several hundred kilometers per day and which drags along with it the initial rainfall clusters. This propagating atmospheric wave is known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), named after Roland Madden and Paul Julian, who discovered this phenomenon in 1971. The characteristic atmospheric pressure, convection and wind anomalies, which fluctuate on timescales of 20-70 days, can extend into the extratropics, reaching even Antarctica.
The international research team arrived at their conclusions by analyzing observational datasets and specially designed supercomputer climate model simulations. “Our analysis provides clear evidence that tropical weather systems associated with the Madden-Julian Oscillation can directly impact surface temperatures over East Antarctica.” says Prof. Pang-Chi Hsu from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, who co-led the study
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Antarctic Peaks Reveal Sea Rise Threat
2016
https://floodlist.com/protection/antarctic-peaks-reveal-sea-rise-threat
___________________________
High geothermal heat beneath West Antarctica glacier responsible for its melting
Aug 21, 2021
https://strangesounds.org/2021/08/high-geothermal-heat-beneath-antarctica-ice-melting.html
___________________________
Antarctic Tunnels: 820-foot-high Mystery Channels Discovered Under Antarctica Ice Cap
Aug 22, 2014
https://strangesounds.org/2014/08/antarctic-tunnels-820-foot-high-mystery-channels-discovered-antarctica-ice-cap.html
___________________________
Evidence of Recent Volcanic Eruptions Under the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet
2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/14/evidence-of-recent-volcanic-eruptions-under-the-western-antarctic-ice-sheet/
___________________________
Volcano discovered smoldering under a kilometer of ice in West Antarctica
2013
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/17/volcano-discovered-smoldering-under-a-kilometer-of-ice-in-west-antarctica/
___________________________
Underwater volcano in Antarctica triggers 85,000 earthquakes
April 27, 2022
The swarm of 85,000 earthquakes was the strongest seismic outburst ever recorded in Antarctica.
A long-dormant underwater volcano near Antarctica has woken up, triggering a swarm of 85,000 earthquakes.
The swarm, which began in August 2020 and subsided by November of that year, is the strongest earthquake activity ever recorded in the region. And the quakes were likely caused by a "finger" of hot magma poking into the crust, new research finds.
"There have been similar intrusions in other places on Earth, but this is the first time we have observed it there," study co-author Simone Cesca, a seismologist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, told Live Science. "Normally, these processes occur over geologic time scales," as opposed to over the course of a human life span, Cesca said. "So in a way, we are lucky to see this."
https://www.livescience.com/earthquake-swarm-antarctica-underwater-volcano
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Giant volcanoes lurk beneath Antarctic ice
January 5, 2018
The expanse of buried volcanoes raises questions about the future of the ice sheet
Mount Erebus, the world’s southernmost active volcano, rises 3,794 meters (12,477 feet) above the ice in Antarctica. It’s in the same region as the newly discovered buried volcanoes.
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/giant-volcanoes-lurk-beneath-antarctic-ice
___________________________
91 volcanoes discovered under Antarctic ice sheet
September 26, 2017
https://www.foxnews.com/science/91-volcanoes-discovered-under-antarctic-ice-sheet
___________________________
Hidden Volcanoes Melt Antarctic Glaciers from Below
June 09, 2014
The edge of the Thwaites glacier, shown here
in an image taken during Operation Icebridge, a NASA-led study of
Antarctic and Greenland glaciers. The blue along the glacier front is
dense, compressed ice.
https://www.livescience.com/46194-volcanoes-melt-antarctic-glaciers.html
___________________________
A 40-y record reveals gradual Antarctic sea ice increases followed by decreases at rates far exceeding the rates seen in the Arctic
July 1, 2019
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1906556116
___________________________
New paper finds West Antarctic glacier likely melting from geothermal heat below
2014
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/12/new-paper-finds-west-antarctic-glacier-likely-melting-from-geothermal-heat-below/
___________________________
Ice core tells 11,000-year history of explosive volcanic eruptions
June 30, 2021
First-of-its-kind record sheds light on ancient eruptions and climate conditions
An
ice core from West Antarctica is giving scientists insight into some
intriguing climate anomalies of ages past and deepening the mystery of a
volcanic eruption that destroyed a Greek island some 3,600 years ago.
Scientists
studying an ice core drilled at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide, or
WAIS Divide, are using volcanic ash deposits embedded within the layers
of ice to tally the number of explosive volcanic eruptions that
occurred over the past 11,000 years and to pin down exactly when those
eruptions happened.
The researchers counted deposits from 426
large eruptions during the 11,000-year period that occurred in the
Southern Hemisphere and in the Northern Hemisphere near the equator.
Analyzing the deposits will shed light on how clouds of ash and gas from
volcanic eruptions travel through the atmosphere and affect Earth’s
climate. Explosive eruptions, like the one at Mount Saint Helens in
1980, spew hot ash and gas into the atmosphere that block or reflect
sunlight, typically causing temperatures to drop.
Studying the
deposits from these eruptions will help researchers better understand
how Earth’s climate has varied throughout the Holocene, the modern
period since the most recent ice age ended roughly 11,000 years ago.
“Ice
cores happen to be one of the best ways we can get a very good handle
on both the records of past eruptions and how the climate interacts with
that or responds to that,” said Jihong Cole-Dai, an atmospheric chemist
at South Dakota State University and lead author of a new study
detailing the findings. “That was one of the goals of the WAIS Divide
project...”
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4453/
___________________________
Bransfield Strait
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bransfield_Strait
___________________________
Bransfield Basin
Glacial processes
Glacial processes have deposited a subglacial deformation till. The sediment that makes up this unit is derived from pressure melting of the glacier and from the substrate the glacier passed over. The subglacial deformation till unit is composed of a matrix-supported diamicton.[10]
Glacial marine processes
Glacial marine processes have deposited two different units within the region. One of the units comprises proglacial debris flows have deposited a matrix-supported diamicton with interbeds of laminated mud on the lower portion of the continental slope. The other depositional process is a mixture of rain out from the ice from either melting or instantaneous dumping from the surface of an overturned portion of ice, and from marine rain out. The terrigenous and biogenic material compounds together to form sandy muds with sparse clasts.[10]
Open marine processes
Open marine processes have deposited three units within the region. One of the units is a fining-upwards turbidity current deposit can be observed within the lower slope of the basin. Layers of volcanic ash around 1 to 4 centimetres (1⁄3 to 1+2⁄3 inches) thick are within the deposit. Another unit is a contorted/disturbed mud that makes up a slide unit. This unit is distinct because its angular contacts and disturbed structures that form from sediment reworking and plastic deformation from sliding. The third unit is a stratified mud with clast layers at the lower slope's foot. This unit is deposited from contour currents, and differences in clast size is attributed to shifting current conditions.[10]
Magmatism
The subduction event between the Phoenix plate and the Antarctic plate have built a volcanic arc consisting of low potassium to medium potassium content along the Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland Islands. Volcanism occurred in multiple events during 130–110, 90–70, 60–40, and 30–20 million years ago. The paucity can be interpreted as subducting younger crust or subsidence the post 20 million years arc after the basin formed.[8] Volcanism is widespread within the Quaternary which created a series of submarine volcanoes. The submarine volcanoes produce glassy lavas ranging in compositions similar to what would be expected in arcs higher in large-ion lithophile elements to enriched mid-ocean ridge basalts.[8]
The Bransfield Basin is abnormal when it comes to the style of volcanism that can be observed within the basin. Undersea volcanoes experience what is called bimodal volcanism.[11] Igneous rocks within the basin are andesite and basalt. The closer to the center of the undersea volcanoes the composition of the rocks shifts towards more felsic rock types such as rhyolite, rhyodacite, and dacite.[11] The source of this phenomenon is interpreted as a result from indicate formation from partial melting or fractional crystallization. This type of volcanism is commonly observed in Phanerozoic volcanic massive sulfide systems, and is not commonly observed in modern back-arc basins. Examples of where bimodal volcanism can be observed are the Okinawa Trough and the Sumizu Rift.[11]
The occurrence of incipient seafloor spreading in the basin is under controversy. Some researchers suggest that it does not occur within the basin because of the crustal thickness, magnetic anomaly patterns, and intracrustal diapirism.[2] Other geoscientists suggest that it is occurring and is related to seamount volcanism and normal faulting within the basin.[1][2]
Seismic swarm of 2020-2021
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bransfield_Basin
___________________________
New data on underwater volcanoes in Bransfield Strait, Antarctica
May 16, 2019
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-underwater-volcanoes-bransfield-strait-antarctica.html
___________________________
Tectonomagmatic activity and ice dynamics in the Bransfield Strait back-arc basin, Antarctica
22 January 2010
Abstract
[1] An array of moored hydrophones was used to monitor the spatiotemporal distribution of small- to moderate-sized earthquakes and ice-generated sounds within the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica. During a 2 year period, a total of 3900 earthquakes, 5925 icequakes and numerous ice tremor events were located throughout the region. The seismic activity included eight space-time earthquake clusters, positioned along the central neovolcanic rift zone of the young Bransfield back-arc basin. These sequences of small magnitude earthquakes, or swarms, suggest ongoing magmatic activity that becomes localized along isolated volcanic features and fissure-like ridges in the southwest portion of the basin. A total of 122 earthquakes were located along the South Shetland trench, indicating continued deformation and possibly ongoing subduction along this margin. The large number of icequakes observed show a temporal pattern related to seasonal freeze-thaw cycles and a spatial distribution consistent with channeling of sea ice along submarine canyons from glacier fronts. Several harmonic tremor episodes were sourced from a large (∼30 km2) iceberg that entered northeast portion of the basin. The spectral character of these signals suggests they were produced by either resonance of a small chamber of fluid within the iceberg, or more likely, due to periodicity of discrete stick-slip events caused by contact of the moving iceberg with the seafloor. These pressure waves appear to have been excited by abrasion of the iceberg along the seafloor as it passed Clarence and Elephant Islands.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009JB006295
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Massive earthquake swarm driven by magmatic intrusion at the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica
11 April 2022
Abstract
An earthquake swarm affected the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica, a unique rift basin in transition from intra-arc rifting to ocean spreading. The swarm, counting ~85,000 volcano-tectonic earthquakes since August 2020, is located close to the Orca submarine volcano, previously considered inactive. Simultaneously, geodetic data reported up to ~11 cm northwestward displacement over King George Island. We use a broad variety of geophysical data and methods to reveal the complex migration of seismicity, accompanying the intrusion of 0.26–0.56 km3 of magma. Strike-slip earthquakes mark the intrusion at depth, while shallower normal faulting the ~20 km long lateral growth of a dike. Seismicity abruptly decreased after a Mw 6.0 earthquake, suggesting the magmatic dike lost pressure with the slipping of a large fault. A seafloor eruption is likely, but not confirmed by sea surface temperature anomalies. The unrest documents episodic magmatic intrusion in the Bransfield Strait, providing unique insights into active continental rifting.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00418-5
___________________________
Mid-Late Holocene climate variabilities in the Bransfield Strait, Antarctic Peninsula driven by insolation and ENSO activities
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018222003108
___________________________
Crustal model of the Bransfield Rift, West Antarctica, from detailed OBS refraction experiments
01 August 1997
https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/130/2/506/760647?login=false
___________________________
Geotectonic evolution of the Bransfield Basin, Antarctic Peninsula: Insights from analogue models
April 2008
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231825207_Geotectonic_evolution_of_the_Bransfield_Basin_Antarctic_Peninsula_Insights_from_analogue_models
___________________________
BRAVOSEIS: Geophysical investigation of rifting and volcanism in the Bransfield strait, Antarctica
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0895981120303771
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Astrolabe Island and Iceberg A57a, Bransfield Strait, Antarctica, 2/21/2019, National Geographic Orion
21 Feb 2019
https://www.expeditions.com/expedition-stories/daily-expedition-reports/astrolabe-island-and-iceberg-a57a-bransfield-strait-antarctica/
___________________________
Lithospheric
structure of an incipient rift basin: Results from receiver function
analysis of Bransfield Strait, NW Antarctic Peninsula
2018
https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/vt150t70z?locale=en
___________________________
Crustal diapirism in Bransfield Strait, West Antarctica: Evidence for distributed extension in marginal-basin formation
July 1994
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/22/7/657/206150/Crustal-diapirism-in-Bransfield-Strait-West
___________________________
Invertebrates from the ANTARXXVII Leg1 expedition to the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica - data
July 1, 2021
https://www.gbif.org/dataset/25bf34e6-48ef-41aa-9b62-876ca0c66a2a
___________________________
Surface currents in the Bransfield and Gerlache Straits, Antarctica
February 2002
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222694220_Surface_currents_in_the_Bransfield_and_Gerlache_Straits_Antarctica
___________________________
Deep structure and new experimental data of the Bransfield Strait volcanoes (West Antarctica)
2021
http://uaj.uac.gov.ua/index.php/uaj/article/download/661/576/
___________________________
Upper crustal structure of Deception Island area (Bransfield Strait, Antarctica) from gravity and magnetic modelling
06 June 2005
Abstract
Deception Island is a young, active volcano located in the south-western part of Bransfield Strait, between the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland archipelago. New gravity and magnetic data, from a marine geophysical cruise (DECVOL-99), were analysed. Forty-eight survey lines were processed and mapped around Deception Island to obtain Bouguer and magnetic anomaly maps. These maps show well- defined groups of gravity and magnetic anomalies, as well as their gradients. To constrain the upper crustal structure, we have performed 2+1/2D forward modelling on three profiles perpendicular to the main anomalies of the area, and taking into account previously published seismic information. From the gravity and magnetic models, two types of crust were identified. These were interpreted as continental crust (located north of Deception Island) and more basic crust (south of Deception Island). The transition between these crustal types is evident in the Bouguer anomaly map as a high gradient area trending NE–SW. Both magnetic and gravity data show a wide minimum at the eastern part of Deception Island, which suggests a very low bulk susceptibility and low density intrusive body. With historical recorded eruptions and thermal and fumarolic fields, we interpret this anomaly as a partially melted intrusive body. Its top has been estimated to be at 1.7 km depth using Euler deconvolution techniques.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/upper-crustal-structure-of-deception-island-area-bransfield-strait-antarctica-from-gravity-and-magnetic-modelling/5451EA064985C6BCDE8B531B4E5D7BE9
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Electron microprobe characterization of ash layers in sediments from the central Bransfield basin (Antarctic Peninsula): evidence for at least two volcanic sources
28 January 2003
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Seismic crustal structure of the Bransfield Strait, West Antarctica
1997
https://journals.pan.pl/Content/110908/PDF/1997-3-4_171-225.pdf?handler=pdf
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Highly branched isoprenoids for Southern Ocean sea ice reconstructions: a pilot study from the Western Antarctic Peninsula
2019
https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/16/2961/2019/
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Recent Seismic Activity at Bransfield Strait, Antarctica
2021
http://ijeska.com/index.php/ijeska/article/view/91
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Benthic carbon fixation and cycling in diffuse hydrothermal and background sediments in the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica
2020
Sedimented hydrothermal vents are likely to be widespread compared to hard substrate hot vents. They host chemosynthetic microbial communities which fix inorganic carbon (C) at the seafloor, as well as a wide range of macroinfauna, including vent-obligate and background non-vent taxa. There are no previous direct observations of carbon cycling at a sedimented hydrothermal vent. We conducted 13C isotope tracing experiments at three sedimented sites in the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica, which showed different degrees of hydrothermalism. Two experimental treatments were applied, with 13C added as either algal detritus (photosynthetic C), or as bicarbonate (substrate for benthic C fixation). Algal 13C was taken up by both bacteria and metazoan macrofaunal, but its dominant fate was respiration, as observed at deeper and more food-limited sites elsewhere. Rates of 13C uptake and respiration suggested that the diffuse hydrothermal site was not the hot spot of benthic C cycling that we hypothesised it would be. Fixation of inorganic C into bacterial biomass was observed at all sites, and was measurable at two out of three sites. At all sites, newly fixed C was transferred to metazoan macrofauna. Fixation rates were relatively low compared with similar experiments elsewhere; thus, C fixed at the seafloor was a minor C source for the benthic ecosystem. However, as the greatest amount of benthic C fixation occurred at the “Off Vent” (non-hydrothermal) site (0.077±0.034 mg C m−2 fixed during 60 h), we suggest that benthic fixation of inorganic C is more widespread than previously thought, and warrants further study.
https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/17/1/2020/
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Preliminary Results from a Marine Geophysics Survey of Orca Volcano in the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica
Dec 2019
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019AGUFM.T33F0422S/abstract
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What's Under Antarctica? Quake Waves Give First Look
April 6, 2012
Mount Sidley, the highest volcano in Antarctica, may have a lot of company lurking out of sight. Scientists are using seismographs to hunt for hidden volcanoes in Antarctica.
https://www.livescience.com/19546-antarctica-seismic-image-geology.html
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Huge Earthquake Swarm Detected in Antarctica as Inactive Volcano Awakens
Apr 29, 2022
While it may seem like Antarctica is totally devoid of volcanic activity, there is substantial evidence of volcanoes below the Antarctic Ice Sheet, according to NASA's Climate Change and Global Warming website. Some of these are currently active or have been in the recent geologic past.
The exact number of volcanoes in Antarctica remains a mystery but one recent study identified 138 of them in West Antarctica alone. Despite this, it appears from the available evidence that there have been no dramatic volcanic eruptions in the region in the recent geologic past.
It is important to note, however, there is a lack of data regarding volcanism in many parts of Antarctica because the continent is covered in ice and the remoteness of many of the volcanoes makes studying them a challenge.
The international team of researchers taking part in the study come from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences Potsdam in Germany, the Italian National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics, the Polish Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geophysics, the Missouri University of Science and Technology, and the German Aerospace Center.
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Volcanic pipe
Volcanic pipes or volcanic conduits are subterranean geological structures formed by the violent, supersonic eruption of deep-origin volcanoes. They are considered to be a type of diatreme. Volcanic pipes are composed of a deep, narrow cone of solidified magma (described as "carrot-shaped"), and are usually largely composed of one of two characteristic rock types — kimberlite or lamproite. These rocks reflect the composition of the volcanoes' deep magma sources, where the Earth is rich in magnesium. They are well known as the primary source of diamonds, and are mined for this purpose. Volcanic pipes are relatively rare by this definition based on minerals and depth of the magma source, but on the other hand volcanic diatremes are common, indeed the second commonest form of volcanic extrusion (that is magma that reaches the surface).
Formation
Volcanic pipes form as the result of violent eruptions of deep-origin volcanoes.[1] These volcanoes originate at least three times as deep as most other volcanoes, and the resulting magma that is pushed toward the surface is high in magnesium and volatile compounds such as water and carbon dioxide. As the body of magma rises toward the surface, the volatile compounds transform to gaseous phase as pressure is reduced with decreasing depth. This sudden expansion propels the magma upward at rapid speeds, resulting in a supersonic Plinian eruption.
Kimberlite pipes
In kimberlite pipes, the eruption ejects a column of overlying material directly over the magma column, and does not form a large above-ground elevation as typical volcanoes do; instead, a low ring of ejecta known as a tuff ring forms around a bowl-shaped depression over the subterranean column of magma. Over time, the tuff ring may erode back into the bowl, leveling out the depression by filling it with washed-back ejecta. Kimberlite pipes are the source of most of the world's commercial diamond production, and also contain other precious gemstones and semi-precious stones, such as garnets, spinels, and peridot.
Lamproite pipes
Lamproite pipes operate similarly to kimberlite pipes, except that the boiling water and volatile compounds contained in the magma act corrosively on the overlying rock, resulting in a broader cone of eviscerated rock (the ejection of this rock also forms a tuff ring, like kimberlite eruptions). This broad cone is then filled with volcanic ash and materials. Finally, the degassed magma is pushed upward, filling the cone. The result is a funnel shaped deposit of volcanic material (both solidified magma, and ejecta) which appears mostly flat from the surface.
Volcanic Pipe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_pipe
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Volcanic and igneous plumbing systems
Volcanic and igneous plumbing systems (VIPS) consist of interconnected magma channels and chambers through which magma flows and is stored within Earth's crust.[1] Volcanic plumbing systems can be found in all active tectonic settings, such as mid-oceanic ridges, subduction zones, and mantle plumes, when magmas generated in continental lithosphere, oceanic lithosphere, and in the sub-lithospheric mantle are transported. Magma is first generated by partial melting, followed by segregation and extraction from the source rock to separate the melt from the solid.[1] As magma propagates upwards, a self-organised network of magma channels develops, transporting the melt from lower crust to upper regions.[1] Channelled ascent mechanisms include the formation of dykes[3] and ductile fractures that transport the melt in conduits.[4] For bulk transportation, diapirs carry a large volume of melt and ascent through the crust.[5] When magma stops ascending, or when magma supply stops, magma emplacement occurs.[2] Different mechanisms of emplacement result in different structures, including plutons, sills, laccoliths and lopoliths.
Schematic sketch of the volcanic and igneous plumbing systems (after Burchardt, 2018).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_and_igneous_plumbing_systems
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Ice cores reveal multiple major volcanic eruptions in the 13th century
February 25, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-ice-cores-reveal-multiple-major.html
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A series of fortunate events—Antarctic zircons tell story of early volcanism
November 27, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-series-fortunate-eventsantarctic-zircons-story.html
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Heat-loving bacteria from an Antarctic volcano could help tackle oil contamination
October 3, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-heat-loving-bacteria-antarctic-volcano-tackle.html
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Scientists investigate how oil affects smallest organisms in Antarctic waters
September 21, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-scientists-oil-affects-smallest-antarctic.html
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Antarctic ice melt may fuel eruptions of hidden volcanoes
January 6, 2025
New research finds that ice melt in Antarctica could lead to more subglacial eruptions, affecting volcanoes such as Mount Erebus, seen here.
The movement of molten metals in Earth's outer core generates a vast
magnetic field that protects the planet from potentially harmful space
weather. Throughout Earth's history, the structure of the magnetic field
has fluctuated. However, data suggest that averaged over sufficient
time, the field may be accurately approximated by a geocentric axial
dipole (GAD) field—the magnetic field that would result from a bar
magnet centered within Earth and aligned along its axis of rotation...
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-antarctic-ice-fuel-eruptions-hidden.html
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Volcanic eruptions trigger ice formation in clouds
May 21, 2025
Schematic illustrating how volcanic ash particles affect cirrus clouds.
When a volcano erupts, it can spew ash high into the atmosphere—inserting aerosols right where clouds typically form. How exactly these aerosols impact cloud formation has long been a mystery to atmospheric scientists.
In a study published in Science Advances, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) analyzed 10 years of satellite data to determine that volcanic ash particles can trigger cloud formation by providing a surface for ice to coalesce.
"Our research helps close a significant knowledge gap about whether and how volcanic eruptions influence cloud formation," said LLNL scientist and author Lin Lin. "We show that volcanic ash particles can trigger ice cloud formation by acting as sites for ice nucleation."
Clouds reflect sunlight and trap heat, and because they cover about 70% of Earth's surface at any given time, they play a critical role in the planet's energy balance. For accurate atmospheric models, researchers must understand clouds and the aerosols that affect them. Volcanic eruptions offer a unique, real-world opportunity to observe how particles influence cloud properties.
The scientists examined radar and lidar data from two NASA missions, CloudSat and CALIPSO. By drawing from multiple datasets and instruments, they were able to piece together a coherent picture.
After ash-rich volcanic eruptions, the team saw clear and consistent changes in the satellite data. Clouds hosted fewer but larger ice crystals, and cirrus clouds—high, wispy clouds made mostly of ice—were more frequent. The same was not the case for ash-poor eruptions...
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-volcanic-eruptions-trigger-ice-formation.html
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Antarctic lava yields clues to Earth's past magnetic field
February 4, 2021
Rock samples collected near the Antarctic volcano Mount Erebus, seen here in the distance, harbor fingerprints of Earth’s ancient magnetic field. A new analysis delves into discrepancies between these fingerprints and predictions from a long-standing approximation of the field.
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-antarctic-lava-yields-clues-earth.html
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Coseismic piezoelectric effects due to a dislocation: 1. An analytic far and early-time field solution in a homogeneous whole space
2000
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031920100001771
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Drilling Mechanisms Using Piezoelectric Actuators Developed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Earthquake lights resembling bluish flames or lightning apparently originate from charges in stressed rocks
Spooky lights heralding the onset of earthquakes have been tied to divine portents or UFO sightings in the past. But the true culprit may be certain rocks that release electric charges when stressed by the Earth's seismic shifts, researchers say.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/mystery-of-earthquake-lights-traced-to-electrical-charges-in-rocks
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Gold nugget formation from earthquake-induced piezoelectricity in quartz
02 September 2024
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01514-1
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Earthquakes can trigger quartz into forming giant gold nuggets, study finds
September 2, 2024
Gold nuggets form inside quartz veins, which are cracks in the rock infilled with mineral-rich hydrothermal fluids.
In quartz veins, gold preferentially solidifies onto existing gold deposits, forming large clusters of nuggets.
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Gold Dust Spews Out Of The World's Most Southern Active Volcano In Antarctica
April 25, 2025
Mount Erebus on Antarctica’s Ross Island looking majestic and mysterious.
A satellite image of Mount Erebus breaking through the clouds of Antarctica on November 25, 2023.
If you look closely at satellite images of this geological giant, you'll notice slight hints of red in its summit crater. Remarkably, this is a searingly hot lava lake that's been bubbling since at least 1972. The volcano regularly pumps out plumes of gas and steam. In past bouts of volcanic activity, it has been known to eject boulders of partially molten rock known as “volcanic bombs”.
Strangest of all, scientists have found that its gusts of gas are loaded with tiny crystals of metallic gold, no larger than 20 micrometers. Over the course of a single day, it's estimated that the volcano spews out around 80 grams of gold – that's worth around $6000.
The gold dust travels far and wide. Antarctic researchers have detected traces of the gold in ambient air up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) from the volcano.
The volcano is perhaps most notorious, however, for the Mount Erebus disaster. On November 28, 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901 flew head-on into the side of the volcano, killing all 257 people onboard.
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The Seasonal Variation of the Direct Current Global Electric Circuit: 1. A New Analysis Based on Long-Term Measurements in Antarctica
11 March 2025
Abstract
It has long been noted that the seasonal behavior of the global electric circuit (GEC) is difficult to reliably determine from measurements of atmospheric electrical parameters, largely owing to prominent annual cycles of aerosols affecting the conductivity in most continental locations. Here we discuss earlier studies in this direction and present further analysis of this problem using the results of potential gradient (PG) measurements at the Vostok station in Antarctica during 2006–2020. Collected at the high and remote Antarctic Plateau, Vostok PG values form a unique continuous data set indicating the variation of atmospheric electricity on different timescales; on the annual timescale the uniformity and consistency of the data turn out to be especially important (in particular, seasonal behavior of GEC parameters at specific UTC hours may be substantially different from the respective diurnal mean variation). PG measurements at Vostok indicate the highest and lowest values of the diurnal mean GEC intensity during the Northern Hemisphere summer and winter, respectively; this variation generally agrees with the available results of air—Earth current measurements. The seasonal variation of the GEC has been previously linked to the annual cycle of insolation; our findings further support this relationship, as it can provide a physical explanation not only for the summer PG maximum observed at Vostok but also for a small local minimum inside this maximum. The dominance of the Northern Hemisphere in the resulting variation is apparently related to the latitudinally asymmetrical distribution of land over the Earth's surface.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024JD042633
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Stratospheric electric fields and currents measured at Syowa Station, Antarctica—1. The vertical component
1977
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0021916977901611
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Atmospheric Global Circuit Variations from Vostok and Concordia Electric Field Measurements
01 Mar 2017
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/74/3/jas-d-16-0159.1.xml
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Atmospheric circuit influences on ground-level pressure in the Antarctic and Arctic
2008
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2007JD009618
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Antarctic Atmospheric Electricity and Ionospheric Convection
Proposal Summary
https://www.uh.edu/research/spg/ago96sum.html
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The global atmospheric electric circuit, solar activity and climate change
2000
Abstract
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364682600001127
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Electric Field Measurements in the Antarctic Reveal Patterns Related to the El Niño—Southern Oscillation
21 October 2021
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021GL095389
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On the connection between the atmospheric electric field measured at the surface and the ionospheric electric field in the Central Antarctica
2010
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364682609003277
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Earth electricity: A review of mechanisms which cause telluric currents in the lithosphere
January 2014
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The Global Representativeness of Fair-Weather Atmospheric Electricity Parameters From the Coastal Station Maitri, Antarctica
Abstract
Atmospheric electricity parameters (AEP) measurements from Antarctica predominantly feature either the potential gradient (PG) and/or air-Earth current (AEC) density. We report for the first time simultaneous measurements of the bipolar ions concentration/conductivity, PG, and AEC density. AEP measurements were carried out at Maitri (70.8°S, 11.8°E) from December 2018 to November 2019. We formulated a few criteria, irrespective of the weather conditions, to select the electrically quiet days and some additional criteria based on the conductivity measurements to discern globally representative data (GRD) from such days. The measurements of the PG and AEC density over the Antarctic plateau demonstrated the diurnal curves similar to the Carnegie pattern, which represents the global thunderstorms and electrified shower clouds (ESCs) occurring on different continents and oceans, we regard the data having such trend as GRD. We found significant variability in the concentration of small bipolar ions/conductivity in the austral summer which in turn affects GRD. However, the concentration of bipolar ions is nearly consistent at ∼250 negative ions cm−3 and ∼300 positive ions cm−3 in winter and enhances the probability of GRD. Such differences can arise out of the prevalent planetary boundary layer processes in the two seasons. When the PG varied between ∼50 Vm−1 and ∼150 Vm−1 and the maximum range of conductivity variations was ∼0.2 × 10−14 ℧ m−1, the AEPs represented the signatures of the global thunderstorm and ESC activities.
Key Points
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Atmospheric electrical conductivity is the key parameter to discern globally representative data (GRD) over the Maitri, Antarctica
-
GRD is discernible on a day when conductivity is consistent, and such days are most common in local winter
-
In the austral summer, the planetary boundary layer (PBL) processes produce local electrical signals that interfere with the global signals
Plain Language Summary
Monitoring of the atmospheric electricity parameters is a simple technique to monitor global thunderstorm activity and electrified shower clouds. For this, the data need to be free from local disturbances. Obtaining such data in Antarctic Plateau was found to be successful. On the other hand, the coastal Antarctic stations, experience local or regional contributions in it. This paper attempts to provide some techniques to obtain globally representative data (GRD). This paper suggests that the diurnal variation of the concentration of bipolar small ions strongly impacts the GRD. Therefore a day free from the diurnal variation of the concentration of bipolar ions is essential to discern the global signals. The winter season appears to be a better season for this as the summer season experiences mild convection activity that causes local and regional electrical signals that contaminate the data.
Figure 1
The geographical location of Maitri and the sites of measurement of potential gradient and air-Earth current. The inserted wind rose shows the predominant wind direction on the days free from the circumpolar low-pressure system. The barren land seen in the figure is part of Schirmacher Oasis.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022JD037696
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Antarctica is covered in volcanoes, could they erupt?
April 7, 2024
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List of volcanoes in Antarctica
Table
A 2017 study claimed to have found 138 volcanoes, of which 91 were previously unknown. Some volcanoes are entirely under the ice sheet.[1][2] Unconfirmed volcanoes are not included in the table below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_Antarctica
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Massive Antarctic volcanic eruptions linked to abrupt Southern hemisphere climate changes
September 4, 2017
New findings published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) by Desert Research Institute (DRI) Professor Joseph R. McConnell, Ph.D., and colleagues document a 192-year series of volcanic eruptions in Antarctica that coincided with accelerated deglaciation about 17,700 years ago.
A 15-meter pan-sharpened Landsat 8 image of the Mount Takahe volcano rising more than 2,000 meters (1.2 miles) above the surrounding West Antarctic ice sheet in Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica.
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-massive-antarctic-volcanic-eruptions-linked.html
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Geophysical evidence of a large occurrence of mud volcanoes associated with gas plumbing system in the Ross Sea (Antarctica)
2023
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987123001949
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Kimberlite
Kimberlite is an igneous rock and a rare variant of peridotite. It is most commonly known as the main host matrix for diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an 83.5-carat (16.70 g) diamond called the Star of South Africa in 1869 spawned a diamond rush and led to the excavation of the open-pit mine called the Big Hole. Previously, the term kimberlite has been applied to olivine lamproites as Kimberlite II, however this has been in error.
Kimberlite occurs in the Earth's crust in vertical structures known as kimberlite pipes, as well as igneous dykes and can also occur as horizontal sills. Kimberlite pipes are the most important source of mined diamonds today. The consensus on kimberlites is that they are formed deep within Earth's mantle. Formation occurs at depths between 150 and 450 kilometres (93 and 280 mi), potentially from anomalously enriched exotic mantle compositions, and they are erupted rapidly and violently, often with considerable carbon dioxide and other volatile components. It is this depth of melting and generation that makes kimberlites prone to hosting diamond xenocrysts.
Despite its relative rarity, kimberlite has attracted attention because it serves as a carrier of diamonds and garnet peridotite mantle xenoliths to the Earth's surface. Its probable derivation from depths greater than any other igneous rock type, and the extreme magma composition that it reflects in terms of low silica content and high levels of incompatible trace-element enrichment, make an understanding of kimberlite petrogenesis important. In this regard, the study of kimberlite has the potential to provide information about the composition of the deep mantle and melting processes occurring at or near the interface between the cratonic continental lithosphere and the underlying convecting asthenospheric mantle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberlite
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Amundsen's Attainment of the South Pole
1912
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26010352
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Antarctic Stations - Bases - Currently Occupied
https://www.coolantarctica.com/Community/antarctic_bases.php
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Features of Extreme Precipitation at Progress Station, Antarctica
September 2018
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327657397_Features_of_Extreme_Precipitation_at_Progress_Station_Antarctica
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Future progress in Antarctic science: improving data care, sharing and collaboration
22 July 2013
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/earth-and-environmental-science-transactions-of-royal-society-of-edinburgh/article/abs/future-progress-in-antarctic-science-improving-data-care-sharing-and-collaboration/C127C3A6E30C1BC1195F926A1E95A2D5
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Antarctic ozone hole is 13th largest on record and expected to persist into November
October 27, 2021
The 2021 Antarctic ozone hole reached its maximum area on October 7 and ranks 13th largest since 1979, scientists from NOAA and NASA reported today. This year’s ozone hole developed similarly to last year's: A colder than usual Southern Hemisphere winter lead to a deep and larger-than-average hole that will likely persist into November or early December.
“This is a large ozone hole because of the colder than average 2021 stratospheric conditions, and without a Montreal Protocol offsite link, it would have been much larger,” said Paul Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
What we call the ozone hole is a thinning of the protective ozone layer in the stratosphere (the upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere) above Antarctica that begins every September. Chlorine and bromine derived from human-produced compounds are released from reactions on high-altitude polar clouds. The chemical reactions then begin to destroy the ozone layer as the sun rises in the Antarctic at the end of winter.
https://www.noaa.gov/news/antarctic-ozone-hole-is-13th-largest-on-record-and-expected-to-persist-into-november
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A decade of progress in observing and modelling Antarctic subglacial water systems
28 January 2016
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0294
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Circulation, mixing, and production of Antarctic Bottom Water
1999
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S007966119900004X
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Biogeochemistry and limnology in Antarctic subglacial weathering: molecular evidence of the linkage between subglacial silica input and primary producers in a perennially ice-covered lake
15 April 2015
https://progearthplanetsci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40645-015-0036-7
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Heatwaves and snow: What's really happening to the Antarctic climate?
18/04/2022
Last month Antarctica experienced a record-breaking heatwave, and unusually high amounts of snowfall in some places. Climate Now asks experts on the ice to explain what's really happening on the frozen continent.
Last month, Antarctica experienced a record-breaking heatwave and unusually high amounts of snowfall in some places, leaving scientists puzzled.
In this special episode of Climate Now, we explore the latest data from the frozen continent and explore how this extreme environment is changing as the planet warms.
Sea ice extent 26% below average
The latest Copernicus data shows the Antarctic sea ice extent was 26 per cent below average last month - the second lowest on record.
Conger ice shelf collapse
In the wake of the record temperatures, another dramatic image from Antarctica made the headlines in March. The Sentinel-2 spacecraft took 'before and after' photos of the 1.2 square kilometer Conger ice shelf - an area the size of Rome - which collapsed after years of instability.
It is premature to link the collapse of Conger to the March heatwave. However AWI scientist Hartmut Helmer told Euronews that the satellite images are consistent with a known effect of rainfall on glaciers - the liquid water will penetrate into existing cracks in the ice, and then freeze.
"So when you freeze this fresh water in the cracks, then you actually crack the whole ice shelf, and then that causes these little sugar cubes", as can be seen in the image on the right.
"Such heatwaves might cause in certain areas this kind of disintegration," Helmer concludes.
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Antarctic Treaty signatories make marine protection progress
May 8, 2014
https://phys.org/news/2014-05-antarctic-treaty-signatories-marine.html
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Death of a Treaty: The Decline and Fall of the Antarctic Minerals Convention
1989
https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vjtl/vol22/iss3/4/
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Progress update on Antarctic toothfish inter-connectivity project
https://meetings.ccamlr.org/en/wg-fsa-18/64
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Unexplored Antarctic meteorite collection sites revealed through machine learning
26 Jan 2022
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj8138
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Falklands - South Georgia - Antarctic Peninsula
https://www.aqua-firma.com/experiences/falklands-south-georgia-antarctic-peninsula
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An ancient, Antarctic-specific species complex: large divergences between multiple Antarctic lineages of the tardigrade genus Mesobiotus
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790322000422
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Scientists create new map showing ice-free Antarctica in more detail than ever before
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Integrated provenance characteristics of glacial-marine sediment from East and West Antarctica
2007
https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/ea/of2007-1047ea060.pdf
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1.5 million-year-old Antarctic ice is helping scientists predict the future of climate change
03/12/2021
https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/12/02/how-can-1-5-million-year-old-antarctic-ice-help-us-to-predict-the-future-of-climate-change
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700-year-old Antarctic ice cores reveal unexpected impact on Earth's atmosphere
Oct. 6, 2021
Humans have been affecting the atmosphere longer than previously thought and at more significant levels.
https://www.cnet.com/science/700-year-old-antarctic-ice-cores-reveal-unexpected-impact-on-earths-atmosphere/
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Past Antarctic Warming Linked to Greenhouse Gas
February 28, 2013
https://www.livescience.com/27549-carbon-dioxide-caused-antarctica-warming.html
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Sudden Disappearance of Giant Antarctic Lake Leaves Massive Crater – 200 Billion Gallons of Water Gone
June 29, 2021
Landsat 8 image of the Antarctic doline with summer meltwater
https://scitechdaily.com/sudden-disappearance-of-giant-antarctic-lake-leaves-massive-crater-200-billion-gallons-of-water-gone/
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Talking about Iceberg Melt Rates and Glacier Frontal Ablation: Seller and Heim Glacier, Antarctica
May 18, 2020
https://blogs.agu.org/fromaglaciersperspective/2020/05/18/talking-about-iceberg-melt-seller-and-heim-glacier-antarctica/
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The variety and distribution of submarine glacial landforms and implications for ice-sheet reconstruction
30 November 2016
https://mem.lyellcollection.org/content/46/1/519
___________________________
New Research Details the Net Retreat of Antarctic Glacier Grounding Lines
April 2, 2018
https://scitechdaily.com/research-details-net-retreat-of-antarctic-glacier-grounding-lines/
___________________________
Natural Hazards of the Antarctic Tectonic Region
https://antarctic-plate-tectonics.weebly.com/natural-hazards-of-the-antarctic-tectonic-region.html
___________________________
Active leak of sea-bed methane discovered in Antarctica for first time
July 22, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-leak-sea-bed-methane-antarctica.html
___________________________
Emissions of nitrous oxide and methane from Antarctic Tundra: role of penguin dropping deposition
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1352231002003400
___________________________
Methanogens in the Antarctic Dry Valley permafrost
05 June 2018
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29878114/
___________________________
'Waterfall' of microbes in Antarctic sea floor leads to discovery of methane leak
July 22, 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-antarctica-methane-idUSKCN24N31U
___________________________
Billions of Tons of Methane Lurk Beneath Antarctic Ice
August 29, 2012
https://www.livescience.com/22793-methane-antarctic-ice.html
___________________________
Potential methane reservoirs beneath Antarctica
August 29, 2012
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120829131628.htm
___________________________
Antarctic Methane: A New Factor in the Climate Equation
August 29, 2012
https://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctic-methane-a-new-factor-in-the-climate-equation-14913
___________________________
First evidence of widespread active methane seepage in the Southern Ocean, off the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia
2014
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X1400421X
___________________________
Scientists studied microbes feeding on Antarctica’s first methane leak – here’s what they found
Aug 20, 2020
Antarctica holds up to a quarter of the planet’s marine methane.
The first known methane leak in Antarctica could be a worrying sign of more to come.
Ocean-dwelling microorganisms eat methane, preventing it from being released into the atmosphere.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/antarctica-methane-leak-microorganisms/
___________________________
Methane-Eating Bacteria Discovered Under The Antarctic Shelf
Aug 3, 2017
Deep
beneath the ice of the South Pole exists a lifeform that could help us
manage greenhouse gas emissions. The bacteria that live there survive by
digesting methane, acting as a phenomenal biofilter between the frozen
environment and the rest of the planet.
In 2013, an international
and interdisciplinary team of scientists drilled 800 meters (2,600
feet) into the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where they reached Lake
Whillans. The researchers collected samples of water and sediments that
had been isolated from the atmosphere for many thousands of years. Their
results are published in Nature Geoscience.
"Not only is this
important for the global climate, but methane oxidation could be a
widespread means of life for microbes in the deep, permanently cold
biosphere beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet," lead author Alexander
Michaud, from Montana State University, said in a statement.
The
team looked at the genome of the bacteria and at the concentration of
methane in the sample. They believe there is a large reservoir of
methane under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and, if their findings are
correct, the bacteria may be helping to prevent the gas from releasing
into the atmosphere.
While there’s less methane than carbon
dioxide, it’s actually a much more potent greenhouse gas. Over a period
of 20 years, it has warmed the planet 86 times as much as CO2. This
means that if there are indeed methane deposits, it’s better to keep
them from getting into the atmosphere.
Through methane oxidation,
these bacteria living in Lake Whillans may be able to consume more than
99 percent of the methane, representing a significant carbon sink.
The
presence of this complex environment also raises the intriguing
possibility of life on the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter, although
this is still early on all fronts. We have no concrete evidence of life
outside Earth and we have barely started to study what lies beneath the
Antarctic ice.
"It took more than a decade of scientific and
logistical planning to collect the first clean samples from an Antarctic
subglacial environment, but the results have transformed the way we
view the Antarctic continent," added co-author John Priscu of Montana
State University.
Understanding potential sources of methane and
where methane can “sink” might help us refine our climate models and
maybe even find ways to improve the capture of greenhouse gases.
https://www.iflscience.com/methane-eating-bacteria-discovered-under-the-antarctic-shelf-43094
___________________________
Methane-eating microbes may reduce release of gases as Antarctic ice sheets melt
July 31, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-methane-eating-microbes-gases-antarctic-ice.html
___________________________
Bacteria ate up all the methane that spilled from the Deepwater Horizon well
January 6, 2011
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/bacteria-ate-up-all-the-methane-that-spilled-from-the-deepwater-horizon-well
___________________________
Hidden Lake Formation
The Hidden Lake Formation is a Late Cretaceous geologic formation in Antarctica. The sandstones and siltstones of the formation were deposited in a deltaic environment.
Indeterminate megalosaur remains have been recovered from it.[2] Also many plant fossils and ichnofossils of Planolites sp. and Palaeophycus sp. have been found in the formation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Lake_Formation
___________________________
Combating ecosystem collapse from the tropics to the Antarctic
25 February 2021
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15539
___________________________
Rapid radiation of Southern Ocean shags in response to receding sea ice
27 March 2022
Abstract
Aim
Understanding how natural populations respond to climatic shifts is a fundamental goal of biological research in a fast-changing world. The Southern Ocean represents a fascinating system for assessing large-scale climate-driven biological change, as it contains extremely isolated island groups within a predominantly westerly, circumpolar wind and current system. Blue-eyed shags represent a paradoxical seabird radiation—a circumpolar distribution implies strong dispersal capacity yet their species-rich nature suggests local adaptation and isolation. Here we attempt to resolve this paradox in light of the history of repeated cycles of climate change in the Southern Ocean.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jbi.14360
___________________________
Magnetospheric Substorms: Introduction
1977
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-1164-8_6
___________________________
Relationship Between Geomagnetic Storms and Auroral/Magnetospheric Substorms: Early Studies
09 December 2020
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2020.604755/full
___________________________
Effect of magnetic storms and substorms on the low- latitude/ equatorial ionosphere
2006
https://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/ilws_goa2006/361_Sastri.pdf
___________________________
A Review of Studies of Geomagnetic Storms and Auroral/Magnetospheric Substorms Based on the Electric Current Approach
08 January 2021
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2020.604750/full
___________________________
The evolving concept of a magnetospheric substorm
1999
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364682698001199
___________________________
A MECHANISM FOR MAGNETOSPHERIC SUBSTORMS
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19960000800/downloads/19960000800.pdf
___________________________
Near-Earth magnetic signature of magnetospheric substorms and an improved substorm current model
2008
https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/26/2781/2008/angeo-26-2781-2008.pdf
___________________________
Energy Flux in the Earth’s Magnetosphere: Storm-Substorm Relationship
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-1069-6_15/cover/
___________________________
Accelerated thinning of the near-Earth plasma sheet caused by a bubble-blob pair
2011
https://www.academia.edu/es/62706584/Accelerated_thinning_of_the_near_Earth_plasma_sheet_caused_by_a_bubble_blob_pair
___________________________
Auroral Arcs
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/auroral-arcs
___________________________
Aurora
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora
___________________________
GPS scintillation in the high arctic associated with an auroral arc
27 March 2008
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2007SW000349
___________________________
Multiple transpolar auroral arcs reveal insight about coupling processes in the Earth's magnetotail
2020 Jun 29
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32601186/
___________________________
Measuring the Thicknesses of Auroral Curtains
1991
https://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic44-3-231.pdf
___________________________
Active auroral arc powered by accelerated electrons from very high altitudes
18 January 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79665-5
___________________________
Solar wind dependence of the occurrence and motion of polar auroral arcs: A statistical study
2002
https://people.kth.se/~kullen/finaltpapaper.pdf
___________________________
Discrete Auroral Arcs and Nonlinear Dispersive Field Line Resonances
1999
https://www.academia.edu/4089502/Discrete_Auroral_Arcs_and_Nonlinear_Dispersive_Field_Line_Resonances
___________________________
Narrowing of the discrete auroral arc by the ionosphere
1 October 2007
We
investigate the role of the ionosphere in the development of intense,
narrow discrete auroral arcs. Our study shows that interactions between a
pair of downward and upward magnetic field-aligned currents (FACs) and
the ionosphere can lead to the narrowing of the upward current channel
and broadening of the downward current channel such that the total width
of the initial current pair remains the same. In this case the
intensity of the upward current increases, and the intensity of the
large-scale downward current decreases. Conditions promoting this
asymmetry between the upward and downward FACs include low ionospheric
conductivity (≤1 mho) and a moderate magnitude of the current density
(<5 μA/m 2 ). Simulations show that the ionosphere causes significant
asymmetry not only in the structure and amplitude of the currents but
also in the structure and amplitude of the corresponding parallel
electric fields. The dynamics of the parallel electric field in the
upward current channel is similar to the dynamics of the current itself,
but the dynamics of the field in the downward current channel differs
from the dynamics of the current. The major difference is that the width
of the downward current channel becomes broader with time but the scale
size of the parallel electric field becomes smaller inside the channel.
This effect is quite important for understanding the parallel electron
acceleration in the auroral zone. In particular, it may explain why the
so-called "black" auroral arcs, which are produced by the electrons
flowing along the magnetic field lines from the ionosphere, always
appear in the form of very narrow, discrete dark lines.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Narrowing-of-the-discrete-auroral-arc-by-the-Streltsov/8e1d758f78f79fae1fed77a2797fd4914b3936be
___________________________
North-South Asymmetry in the Geographic Location of Auroral Substorms correlated with Ionospheric Effects
22 November 2018
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35091-2
___________________________
A
comparative study of auroral morphology distribution between the
Northern and Southern Hemisphere based on automatic classification
20 Mar 2018
https://gi.copernicus.org/articles/7/113/2018/
___________________________
Multiple transpolar auroral arcs reveal insight about coupling processes in the Earth’s magnetotail
June 2020
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342552808_Multiple_transpolar_auroral_arcs_reveal_insight_about_coupling_processes_in_the_Earth's_magnetotail
___________________________
Quiescent Discrete Auroral Arcs: A Review of Magnetospheric Generator Mechanisms
2019
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10188751
___________________________
Relation of polar auroral arcs to magnetotail twisting and IMF rotation: a systematic MHD simulation study
2004
https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/22/951/2004/angeo-22-951-2004.pdf
___________________________
Observation of electron density in the auroral ionosphere-Results of the Antarctic rockets S-310JA-11 and -12
31 January 1988
https://core.ac.uk/display/51483477
___________________________
It’s No Waltz Across Texas but the Northern Lights do in Fact Dance Across the Night Sky
February 3, 2017
https://texashillcountry.com/northern-lights-dance-across-night-sky/
___________________________
'Cannibal' solar flare brings rare aurora borealis to Colorado
March 31, 2022
The northern lights were seen in Colorado on Wednesday; more chances to see the aurora are on the way.
https://www.9news.com/article/weather/cannibal-solar-flare-brings-rare-aurora-borealis-colorado/73-da2585c7-a360-49cc-96a5-7d5e04f6779d
___________________________
Aurora: Illuminating the Sun-Earth Connection
https://www.nasa.gov/aurora
___________________________
Aurora
https://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/polar/EPO/auroral_poster/aurora_all.pdf
___________________________
The Northern Lights and other auroras are disappearing from some parts of Earth — but scientists predict a big comeback
Dec 10, 2017
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-auroras-solar-cycle-minimum-maximum-related-2017-12?op=1
___________________________
10 Things No One Ever Tells You About the Northern Lights
https://luxeadventuretraveler.com/northern-lights/
___________________________
Where to see the southern lights
Travelling in Tasmania? Keep your eyes peeled for one of nature’s most magnificent shows.
___________________________
Antarctica's Sunrise, Sunset & The Green Flash Phenomenon
May 23rd, 2024
The Green Flash at Sunset (or Sunrise)
Speaking of mirages: Among the most famous and elusive optical phenomena that can be observed in Antarctica’s pristine skies is the rarely observed and much-coveted green flash. The green flash describes a generally very fleeting smudge, disc, or rim of emerald—or, sometimes, blue—flaring out above the Sun when it’s nearly or entirely below the horizon.
Clear, clean, still air and a very level horizon provide the best conditions for observing the green flash. The White Continent’s icy seascapes and high, flat (and little-visited) Polar Plateau offer a prime setup, even if the odds of spotting the green flash during any given Antarctica sunset are low.
Indeed, so uncommon and unpredictable is the green flash that over the centuries it’s sometimes been passed off as a mariner’s myth. Yet photographs exist that prove its existence, and some Antarctic tourists have indeed lucked out with a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse.
The 1929 Green Flash Observation at Little America in Antarctica
On October 16, 1929, members of Admiral Richard Byrd’s first Antarctic expedition enjoyed one heck of a green-flash spectacle—perhaps the most impressive ever recorded by human observers—from the Little America base on the Ross Ice Shelf.
They saw the green flash on and off for more than a half-hour, much longer than the usual momentary, don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it firing. An academic analysis in 2015 suggested that a combination of factors likely accounted for this extended show. These included “strong atmospheric refraction” facilitating a so-called Novaya Zemyla-style mirage—which can produce a distorted image of the Sun when it’s actually several degrees below the horizon—as well as the expedition members effectively landing themselves two sunsets by climbing up Little America’s radio towers during the event.
https://www.antarcticacruises.com/guide/antarctica-sunrise-sunset-and-the-green-flash
___________________________
Someone Detonated a Nuclear Weapon And We Don't Know Who
Jun 20, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijaeqm7pHzc&t=9s
___________________________
Nuclear Explosion seen from New Zealand!
2022
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2kU-OzhexUk
___________________________
Record-breaking winter winds have blown old Arctic sea ice into the melt zone
August 10, 2021
https://www.arctictoday.com/record-breaking-winter-winds-have-blown-old-arctic-sea-ice-into-the-melt-zone/
___________________________
Africa: A Geomagnetic Storm Has Hit Earth - a Space Scientist Explains What Causes Them
8 October 2024
https://allafrica.com/stories/202410080323.html
___________________________
Solar Storm Threat Is Back as Giant Sunspot Cluster Reappears
It’s back! After unleashing the strongest geomagnetic storm in more than 20 years, the notorious sunspot cluster AR3664 is once again visible and still spewing copious amounts of radiation into space.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center recorded a solar flare erupting from the southeast limb of the Sun on Monday. Sunspot AR3664 is likely responsible for the flare, which was classified as a strong X2.8.
https://gizmodo.com/sunspot-cluster-returns-auroras-repeat-possible-sun-1851503363
___________________________
Magnetospheric substorm (Recently Published Documents)
2021
https://www.sciencegate.app/keyword/215451
___________________________
Magnetospheric substorms and discrete arcs of the polar aurora
November 2013
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257911031_Magnetospheric_substorms_and_discrete_arcs_of_the_polar_aurora
___________________________
The earth's magnetosphere under continued forcing - Substorm activity during the passage of an interplanetary magnetic cloud
1993
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19930053284
___________________________
Polar and Magnetospheric Substorms
1968
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-010-3461-6
___________________________
Scintillation producing ionospheric structures over Antarctic plateau during substorm events
December 2019
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019AGUFMSM41A..07D/abstract
___________________________
Substorm
2021
1. Introduction
Substorms are the fundamental process of magnetospheric dynamics [Akasofu, 1968; McPherron, 1995]. Although significant progress has been made in understanding the physics of substorms, there is serious controversy on a number of important issues. One of the issues is what process is responsible for the onset of substorms. Magnetic reconnection at a near-Earth neutral line (NENL) is a widely accepted mechanism [Hones, 1984; Baker et al., 1996, 1999]. In the NENL model, magnetic reconnection onset occurs in the near tail on the closed field lines of the plasma sheet between -20 and -30 RE. The reconnection causes the formation of plasmoids and the release of the energy stored in the tail into the ionosphere. A statistical study of Geotail measurements provides evidence of the reconnection location and support for the NENL model [Nagai et al., 1998]. The current disruption, which occurs in the near-Earth magnetosphere, is another candidate mechanism [Lui, 1991, 1996]. In the current disruption model, the substorm onset location is near the boundary between the tail-like and the dipolar-like field regions, and rarefaction waves launched in the disruption region propagate antisunward and lead to the X-line reconnection. Both models recognize the existence of the magnetic reconnection in the near tail. The dispute is whether the reconnection is a cause or a consequence of the substorm onset.
Another issue is what triggers substorm onsets. It is found that substorm onsets are often coincident with a northward turning of the IMF or a solar wind pressure impulse after a few hours of southward IMF [Cann et al., 1975, 1977; Kokubun et al., 1977; Rostoker, 1983; Petrinec and Russell, 1996]. Such a correlation results in the conjecture that the substorm onset might be triggered by a sudden change in the solar wind. On the other hand, it is observed that substorm onsets can also occur when there is no obvious triggers from the solar wind
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/substorm
___________________________
North-South Asymmetry in the Geographic Location of Auroral Substorms correlated with Ionospheric Effects
2018
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30467409/
___________________________
Common solar wind drivers behind magnetic storm–magnetospheric substorm dependency
19 November 2018
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35250-5
___________________________
Magnetospheric substorms.
1972
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19720050237
___________________________
Substorms
https://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wsubstrm.html
___________________________
A magnetospheric substorm observed at Sanae, Antarctica
March 1987
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1987JGR....92.2461G/abstract
___________________________
On magnetic storms and substorms
2006
https://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/ilws_goa2006/320_Lakhina.pdf
___________________________
Geomagnetic storm and substorm aurora observed from Spitsbergen
27 October 2009
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/polar-record/article/abs/geomagnetic-storm-and-substorm-aurora-observed-from-spitsbergen/87DDB80D2E08FCC805228D8F8FDB7EAE
___________________________
Effects of Magnetospheric Plasma on Auroral Substorm (Reports of the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition)
1972
https://core.ac.uk/display/201412109
___________________________
Correction to “Interchange instability in the inner magnetosphere associated with geosynchronous particle flux decreases”
2004
https://www.academia.edu/es/53004496/Correction_to_Interchange_instability_in_the_inner_magnetosphere_associated_with_geosynchronous_particle_flux_decreases_
___________________________
What is Aurora Borealis and what are Aurora Borealis colors
January 2, 2023
https://worldwidetravel.tips/northern-lights/what-is-aurora-borealis-colors/
___________________________
Aurora Throughout Our Solar System
Jun 3, 2021
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/aurora-throughout-our-solar-system
___________________________
Aurora Borealis Facts: How the Northern Lights Work
May 12, 2022
https://earthhow.com/aurora-borealis-northern-lights/
___________________________
20 Aurora Borealis Facts You will Love to Know
https://hello-aurora.com/news/20-aurora-facts
___________________________
Auroras: The Northern and Southern Lights
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/auroras
___________________________
Scientist From NASA Makes The Aurora Borealis In A Big Glass Jar
2016
https://bitrebels.com/technology/scientist-nasa-aurora-borealis-glass/
___________________________
Newfound Martian Aurora Actually the Most Common; Sheds Light on Mars’ Changing Climate
2019
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2019/mars-proton-aurora-common
___________________________
Auroras on Mars
May 11, 2015
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/11may_aurorasonmars/
___________________________
Aurora on Mars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_on_Mars
___________________________
NASA Spacecraft Detects Aurora and Mysterious Dust Cloud around Mars
2015
https://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/nasa-spacecraft-detects-aurora-and-mysterious-dust-cloud-around-mars
___________________________
Auroras on Mars
May 11, 2015
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/auroras-on-mars/
___________________________
New Type of Aurora on Mars Stunned Scientists
28.04.2022
https://universemagazine.com/en/new-type-of-aurora-on-mars-stunned-scientists/
___________________________
Why Auroras Are Red on Mars
NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft picked up on a dazzling light display on the Red Planet.
2015
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/why-auroras-are-red-on-mars/388493/
___________________________
Strong Solar Storm Sparked Planet-Wide Aurora on Mars
October 11, 2017
https://www.space.com/38416-solar-storm-mars-auroras-nasa-maven.html
___________________________
Regolith
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regolith
Regolith (/ˈrɛɡəlɪθ/)[1][2] is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestrial planets and moons.
___________________________
Nemesis (The Death Star) - Solomon's Temple Investigation Marathon #1119
April 27. 2025
https://archive.org/details/solomons-temple-1119
___________________________
REMOTE SENSING SPACE WEATHER EVENTS THROUGH IONOSPHERIC RADIO: THE AARDD
2011
https://www.ursi.org/proceedings/procGA11/ursi/H11-4.pdf
___________________________
What's Causing Those Mysterious 'Bursts' From Deep Space?
___________________________
Crumbling planets might trigger repeating fast radio bursts
April 18, 2022
It’s one more hypothesis among many for the source of these flares
Fragmenting planets sweeping extremely close to their stars might be the cause of mysterious cosmic blasts of radio waves.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fast-radio-burst-planet-neutron-star-cosmic
___________________________
We Caught Something Moving in Deep Space
2022
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VFDOQgv8oMY
___________________________
What’s a pulsar? Why does it pulse?
July 15, 2022
https://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-pulsar/
___________________________
Pulsar
A
pulsar (pulsating star, on the model of quasar)[1] is a highly
magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic
radiation out of its magnetic poles.[2] This radiation can be observed
only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Earth (similar to the
way a lighthouse can be seen only when the light is pointed in the
direction of an observer), and is responsible for the pulsed appearance
of emission. Neutron stars are very dense and have short, regular
rotational periods. This produces a very precise interval between pulses
that ranges from milliseconds to seconds for an individual pulsar.
Pulsars are one of the candidates for the source of ultra-high-energy
cosmic rays (see also centrifugal mechanism of acceleration).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar
___________________________
What are pulsars?
January 24, 2023
https://www.space.com/32661-pulsars.html
___________________________
Why Are Magnetars So Scary?
Our
knowledge of the universe is always expanding, much like the universe
itself. This means that we occasionally discover something new, or come
up with a new model to explain data we didn't quite understand before.
One such astronomical phenomena is the magnetar, a powerful type of
neutron star that was first proposed in 1979. That year, astronomers
suggested that certain blasts of gamma and X-ray radiation and radio
pulses might be explained by stars with exceptionally powerful magnetic
fields.
Since then, astronomers have identified dozens of
magnetars in and around the Milky Way. If you're curious what a magnetar
is, how they come to exist in the galaxy, and why astronomers consider
them among the scariest objects in the universe, read on...
https://science.howstuffworks.com/magnetars.htm
___________________________
Magnetar
A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field (~109 to 1011 T, ~1013 to 1015 G).[1] The magnetic-field decay powers the emission of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma rays.[2]
The existence of magnetars was proposed in 1992 by Robert Duncan and Christopher Thompson[3] following earlier work by Katz[4] on the Soft Gamma Repeater SGR 0525-66, then called a gamma-ray burst.
Their proposal sought to explain the properties of transient sources of gamma rays, now known as soft gamma repeaters (SGRs).[5][6] Over the following decade, the magnetar hypothesis became widely accepted, and was extended to explain anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs). As of July 2021, 24 magnetars have been confirmed.[7]
It has been suggested that magnetars are the source of fast radio bursts (FRB), in particular as a result of findings in 2020 by scientists using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar
___________________________
Magnetars: The Strongest Magnetic Fields in the Universe
March 23, 2025
https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/magnetars-the-strongest-magnetic-fields-in-the-universe
___________________________
Most distant quasar with powerful radio jets discovered
8 March 2021
With the help of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have discovered and studied in detail the most distant source of radio emission known to date. The source is a “radio-loud” quasar — a bright object with powerful jets emitting at radio wavelengths — that is so far away its light has taken 13 billion years to reach us. The discovery could provide important clues to help astronomers understand the early Universe.
Quasars are very bright objects that lie at the centre of some galaxies and are powered by supermassive black holes. As the black hole consumes the surrounding gas, energy is released, allowing astronomers to spot them even when they are very far away.
The newly discovered quasar, nicknamed P172+18, is so distant that light from it has travelled for about 13 billion years to reach us: we see it as it was when the Universe was just around 780 million years old. While more distant quasars have been discovered, this is the first time astronomers have been able to identify the telltale signatures of radio jets in a quasar this early on in the history of the Universe. Only about 10% of quasars — which astronomers classify as “radio-loud” — have jets, which shine brightly at radio frequencies [1].
P172+18 is powered by a black hole about 300 million times more massive than our Sun that is consuming gas at a stunning rate. “The black hole is eating up matter very rapidly, growing in mass at one of the highest rates ever observed,” explains astronomer Chiara Mazzucchelli, Fellow at ESO in Chile, who led the discovery together with Eduardo Bañados of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.
The astronomers think that there’s a link between the rapid growth of supermassive black holes and the powerful radio jets spotted in quasars like P172+18. The jets are thought to be capable of disturbing the gas around the black hole, increasing the rate at which gas falls in. Therefore, studying radio-loud quasars can provide important insights into how black holes in the early Universe grew to their supermassive sizes so quickly after the Big Bang.
“I find it very exciting to discover ‘new’ black holes for the first time, and to provide one more building block to understand the primordial Universe, where we come from, and ultimately ourselves,” says Mazzucchelli.
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2103/
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We Finally Know What Creates These Eerie Whistling Sounds in Space
16 November 2017
Using data from two different satellites, astronomers have linked an eerie-sounding phenomenon called a whistler mode chorus to sudden bursts of electrons in the magnetosphere.
Every now and then, the drizzle of charged particles that seeps through Earth's protective magnetic shell erupts into a sudden downpour. Researchers have had their suspicions as to the cause, and now they think they've finally nailed it.
Researchers from the University of Minnesota have combined information collected by NASA's Van Allen Probes mission and the FIREBIRD II CubeSat to show microbursts of electrons hitting our atmosphere timed almost perfectly with a common plasma wave surrounding our planet.
It's a small discovery, but could have big implications, since having charged particles showering down into our atmosphere has more important effects than just pretty polar auroras.
Virtual hurricanes of charged particles ripping through space put our delicate web of satellite and surface technology at significant risk.
Knowing how we can predict and prepare for such inevitable plasma storms is high on the list of priorities for astronomers, making research like this invaluable.
Waves of charged particles – or plasma – pulse through Earth's magnetic field at various speeds and frequencies that can be detected and re-interpreted as audible sounds. Plasma waves can produce a variety of 'songs', depending on where they're located and how they're moving.
One of the stranger sounding plasma wave soundtracks is known as a whistler mode chorus, which you can experience in the track below.
While electrons constantly slip free from their electromagnetic channels to sprinkle down onto our atmosphere, we've known for some time that they can occasionally turn into a solid downpour called a microburst.
Astronomers have speculated that these electron bursts could be the source of the chorus, but until now they have never been sure.
"Observing the detailed chain of events between chorus waves and electrons requires a conjunction between two or more satellites," says lead author Aaron Breneman, a physicist from the University of Minnesota.
"There are certain things you can't learn by having only one satellite – you need simultaneous observations at different locations."
One of those locations was roughly 500 kilometres (310 miles) up, where a small satellite called FIREBIRD II collects data on electrons hitting the ionosphere.
The second was from higher up, where a pair of probes loop in a wide, elliptical orbit that takes them more than 21,000 kilometres (over 13,000 miles) from the surface as they study the rings of radiation called Van Allen belts.
Analysing the combined data, the team found chorus waves out in the Van Allen belts began chirping immediately before FIREBIRD II detected microbursts.
Again, it's one small piece of a puzzle, but with each piece that is locked in place we'll be better able to monitor and manage our response to the delicacy of our Earth's magnetic fields - and their influence on the high tech instruments we use around the globe every day.
https://www.sciencealert.com/plasma-wave-origins-of-space-electron-microbursts-confirmed
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Electron Microbursts Induced by Nonducted Chorus Waves
2021
Microbursts, short-lived but intense electron precipitation observed by low-Earth-orbiting satellites, may contribute significantly to the losses of energetic electrons in the outer radiation belt. Their origin is likely due to whistler mode chorus waves, as evidenced by a strong overlap in spatial correlation of the two. Despite previous efforts on modeling bursty electron precipitation induced by chorus waves, most, if not all, rely on the assumption that chorus waves are ducted along the field line with zero wave normal angle. Such ducting is limited to cases when fine-scale plasma density irregularities are present. In contrast, chorus waves propagate in a nonducted way in plasmas with smoothly varying density, allowing wave normals to gradually refract away from the magnetic field line. In this study, the interaction of ducted and nonducted chorus waves with energetic electrons is investigated using test particle simulation. Substantial differences in electron transport are found between the two different scenarios, and resultant electron precipitation patterns are compared. Such a comparison is valuable for interpreting low Earth-orbiting satellite observations of electron flux variation in response to the interaction with magnetospheric chorus waves.
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Mysterious Pulsating Auroras Exist, And Scientists Might Have Figured Out What Causes Them
16 February 2018
Researchers have directly observed the scattering electrons behind the shifting patterns of light called pulsating auroras, confirming models of how charged solar winds interact with our planet's magnetic field.
With those same winds posing a threat to technology, it's comforting to know we've got a sound understanding of what's going on up there.
The international team of astronomers used the state-of-the-art Arase Geospace probe as part of the Exploration of energization and Radiation in Geospace (ERG) project to observe how high energy electrons behave high above the surface of our planet.
Dazzling curtains of light that shimmer over Earth's poles have captured our imagination since prehistoric times, and the fundamental processes behind the eerie glow of the aurora borealis and aurora australis – the northern and southern lights – are fairly well known.
Charged particles, spat out of the Sun by coronal mass ejections and other solar phenomena, wash over our planet in waves. As they hit Earth's magnetic field, most of the particles are deflected around the globe. Some are funnelled down towards the poles, where they smash into the gases making up our atmosphere and cause them to glow in sheets of dazzling greens, blues, and reds.
Those are typically called active auroras, and are often photographed to make up the gorgeous curtains we put onto calendars and desktop wallpapers.
But pulsating auroras are a little different.
Rather than shimmer as a curtain of light, they grow and fade over tens of seconds like slow lightning. They also tend to form higher up than their active cousins at the poles and closer to the equator, making them harder to study.
This kind of aurora is thought to be caused by sudden rearrangements in the magnetic field lines releasing their stored solar energy, sending showers of electrons crashing into the atmosphere in cycles of brightening called aurora substorms.
"They are characterised by auroral brightening from dusk to midnight, followed by violent motions of distinct auroral arcs that eventually break up, and emerge as diffuse, pulsating auroral patches at dawn," lead author Satoshi Kasahara from the University of Tokyo explains in their report.
Confirming specific changes in magnetic field are truly responsible for these waves of electrons isn't easy. For one thing, mapping the magnetic field lines with precision requires putting equipment into the right place at the right time in order to track charged particles trapped within them.
While the rearrangements of the magnetic field seem likely, there's still the question of whether there's enough electrons in these surges to account for the pulsating auroras.
This latest study has now put that question to rest.
The researchers directly observed the scattering of electrons produced by shifts in channelled currents of charged particles, or plasma, called chorus waves.
Electron bursts have been linked with chorus waves before, with previous research spotting electron showers that coincide with the 'whistling' tunes of these shifting plasma currents. But now they knew the resulting eruption of charged particles could do the trick.
"The precipitating electron flux was sufficiently intense to generate pulsating aurora," says Kasahara.
The clip below does a nice job of explaining the research using neat visuals. Complete with a wicked thumping dance beat.
The next step for the researchers is to use the ERG spacecraft to comprehensively analyse the nature of these electron bursts in conjunction with phenomena such as auroras.
These amazing light shows are spectacular to watch, but they also have a darker side.
Those light showers of particles can turn into storms under the right conditions. While they're harmless enough high overhead, a sufficiently powerful solar storm can cause charged particles to disrupt electronics in satellites and devices closer to the surface.
Just last year the largest flare to erupt from the Sun in over a decade temporarily knocked out high frequency radio and disrupted low-frequency navigation technology.
Getting a grip on what's between us and the Sun might help us plan better when even bigger storms strike.
This research was published in Nature.
https://www.sciencealert.com/pulsating-aurora-northern-lights-electron-microbursts
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Torsion: The Key to the Theory of Everything
March 5, 2012
https://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/torsion-the-key-to-theory-of-everything/
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Relativistic Electron Microbursts as High-Energy Tail of Pulsating Aurora Electrons
23 APR 2021
Abstract
In this study, by simulating the wave-particle interactions, we show that subrelativistic/relativistic electron microbursts form the high-energy tail of pulsating aurora (PsA). Whistler-mode chorus waves that propagate along the magnetic field lines at high latitudes cause precipitation bursts of electrons with a wide energy range from a few kiloelectron volts (PsA) to several megaelectron volts (relativistic microbursts). The rising tone elements of chorus waves cause individual microbursts of subrelativistic/relativistic electrons and the internal modulation of PsA with a frequency of a few hertz. The chorus bursts for a few seconds cause the microburst trains of subrelativistic/relativistic electrons and the main pulsations of PsA. Our simulation studies demonstrate that both PsA and relativistic electron microbursts originate simultaneously from pitch angle scattering by chorus wave-particle interactions along the field line.
Key Points
- We demonstrate that subrelativistic/relativistic electron microbursts are the high-energy tail of pulsating aurora electrons
- Our simulation studies demonstrate that both pulsating aurora and relativistic electron microbursts originate simultaneously
- Pulsating aurora electron and relativistic electron microbursts are the same product of chorus wave-particle interactions
Plain Language Summary
Pulsating aurora electron and relativistic electron microbursts are precipitation bursts of electrons from the magnetosphere to the thermosphere and the mesosphere with energies ranging from a few kiloelectron volts to tens of kiloelectron volts and subrelativistic/relativistic, respectively. Our computer simulation shows that pulsating aurora electron (low energy) and relativistic electron microbursts (relativistic energy) are the same product of chorus wave-particle interactions, and relativistic electron microbursts are high-energy tail of pulsating aurora electrons. The relativistic electron microbursts contribute to significant loss of the outer belt electrons, and our results suggest that the pulsating aurora activity can be often used as a proxy of the radiation belt flux variations.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL090360
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Microbursts of the UV atmospheric emission in the auroral zone
2024
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7 Things You Should Know About Microbursts
05/11/2024
1) Microbursts start with a cumulonimbus cloud
While microbursts can form from airmass storms and squall lines, single-cell storms seem to produce most of them.
2) Next up, heavy precipitation
Microbursts start when heavy precipitation falls from a cloud. As the rain falls, it starts pulling air down with it. At the same time, the air starts evaporating the rain, which cools the air even more. Since the cooler air is more dense than the warm air around it, it descends even faster, forming a microburst.
3) There are two types: dry and wet microbursts
Dry microbursts are the most common type. With a dry microburst, all of the precipitation evaporates before the column of descending air reaches the ground. This makes them particularly dangerous, because they can be hard to see.
Wet microbursts, as you probably guessed, contain liquid precip when they hit the ground.
4) When they hit the ground, look out
When a microburst hits the ground (at up to 6,000 FPM, by the way), it spreads out, creating a vortex ring around the outside of the microburst.
5) Next comes the low level wind shear
This is where microbursts are really dangerous. If you fly through one, you'll initially have increased performance. But as you enter the microburst, your headwind rapidly switches to a tailwind, causing you to sink. If you're close to the ground, you may not have enough climb performance to fly out of the microburst before you hit the ground. And that would make for a very bad day.
6) Rule of thumb: the total shear is double the peak wind
If the outflow speed of a microburst is 30 knots, you'll experience 60 knots of shear as you cross the microburst. And it all can happen in a very short period of time. Think about what would happen to your Cessna 172 if you went from 100 knots to 40 knots in the matter of a few seconds...
7) So how do you avoid them?
How do you avoid a microburst? Don't fly underneath storms, visible virga shafts, or rain shafts. Microbursts don't last long, but they can be extremely dangerous, even while they're dissipating. The best option is always to steer clear and divert around them.
https://www.boldmethod.com/blog/lists/2024/05/7-things-you-need-to-know-about-microbursts/
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Discovery of Microbursts Leads to Safer Air Travel
During a storm, powerful downdrafts of air can form, blasting towards the Earth with explosive force. Microbursts--drafts only several hundred yards wide--can gust at speeds approaching 150 miles per hour, and can be particularly dangerous for aircraft that are taking off or landing. Before the introduction of Doppler radar weather-detection systems at airports, scientists estimate that microbursts caused as many as 20 major airline accidents, resulting in over 500 deaths.
https://www.nsf.gov/news/discovery-microbursts-leads-safer-air-travel
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Meteorology: Understanding Microbursts
11 November, 2015
https://xcmag.com/magazine-articles/understanding-microbursts-meteorology-column-from-issue-163/
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Microbursts & Gliding, Part V
September 15, 2022
https://wingsandwheels.com/blog/post/microbursts-and-gliding-part-v
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Why Don’t Planes Fly over Antarctica?
1. Weather Conditions
2. A Lack of Visibility
3. A Lack of Infrastructure
4. Navigation and Other Concerns
https://aerocorner.com/blog/planes-over-antarctica/
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Flying Over Antarctica: Why Planes Avoid the Region
February 28, 2025
https://thevistavoice.com/flying-over-antarctica-why-planes-avoid-the-region/
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Pilot reveals why commercial planes don't fly over Antarctica – and it's not illegal
Jan 31, 2025
https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/2006561/pilot-planes-artarctica-flights
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Paragliding Safety: How to Avoid the Rotor (Mount Caburn)
Dec 13, 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdFqaFAfbpw
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The Lee and Rotor
The lee, short for leeward, is the backside, opposite the windward side of an object. The term lee-side and “rotor zone” may be used interchangeably. Both terms refer to areas behind an object which is obstructing the wind flow. As the speed of the wind and roughness of the obstruction increases, so does the amount and intensity of the turbulence. If the wind speed is relatively low and/or the terrain is smooth or rounded, the level of turbulence will be relatively low. Conversely, if the winds are high and/or the terrain is rough, such as a sharp ridge or mountain, the level of turbulence in the lee will be high. You may hear pilots talk about flying in the lee, but you should understand the serious risk involved before attempting it yourself. Thermals in the lee side are protected from the wind and have a chance to build, but when they do release, they are pushing up into an air mass that is moving horizontally, which may create severe turbulence and shear. Also, if you fly into this area looking for lee-side thermals, you are flying into an area of mechanical turbulence.
Rotor is the reason it’s imperative for you to know the direction of the winds around you, as well as the wind at the surface. Knowing the direction and speed of the forecasted winds will keep you from launching into lee-side conditions, or flying into rotor at some point during your flight. When flying in the mountains, be especially cautious, around ridges and valleys, the opportunities for encountering rotor are greatly increased. It is easy to get wind forecasts from weather sources and/or by watching the drift of the clouds, so there is no excuse for being unaware.
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Vortex shedding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_shedding
In fluid dynamics, vortex shedding is an oscillating flow that takes place when a fluid such as air or water flows past a bluff (as opposed to streamlined) body at certain velocities, depending on the size and shape of the body. In this flow, vortices are created at the back of the body and detach periodically from either side of the body forming a Kármán vortex street. The fluid flow past the object creates alternating low-pressure vortices on the downstream side of the object. The object will tend to move toward the low-pressure zone.
If the bluff structure is not mounted rigidly and the frequency of vortex shedding matches the resonance frequency of the structure, then the structure can begin to resonate, vibrating with harmonic oscillations driven by the energy of the flow. This vibration is the cause for overhead power line wires humming in the wind,[1] and for the fluttering of automobile whip radio antennas at some speeds. Tall chimneys constructed of thin-walled steel tubes can be sufficiently flexible that, in air flow with a speed in the critical range, vortex shedding can drive the chimney into violent oscillations that can damage or destroy the chimney.
Vortex shedding was one of the causes proposed for the failure of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge (Galloping Gertie) in 1940, but was rejected because the frequency of the vortex shedding did not match that of the bridge. The bridge actually failed by aeroelastic flutter.[2]
A thrill ride, "VertiGo" at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio suffered vortex shedding during the winter of 2001, causing one of the three towers to collapse. The ride was closed for the winter at the time.[3] In northeastern Iran, the Hashemi-Nejad natural gas refinery's flare stacks suffered vortex shedding seven times from 1975 to 2003. Some simulation and analyses were done, which revealed that the main cause was the interaction of the pilot flame and flare stack. The problem was solved by removing the pilot.
Vortex shedding behind a circular cylinder. In this animation, the flows on the two sides of the cylinder are shown in different colors, to show that the vortices from the two sides alternate.
Vortex shedding as winds pass Heard Island (bottom left) in the southern Indian Ocean resulted in this Kármán vortex street in the clouds
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Kármán vortex street
In fluid dynamics, a Kármán vortex street (or a von Kármán vortex street) is a repeating pattern of swirling vortices, caused by a process known as vortex shedding, which is responsible for the unsteady separation of flow of a fluid around blunt bodies.[1]
It is named after the engineer and fluid dynamicist Theodore von Kármán,[2] and is responsible for such phenomena as the "singing" of suspended telephone or power lines and the vibration of a car antenna at certain speeds. Mathematical modeling of von Kármán vortex street can be performed using different techniques including but not limited to solving the full Navier-Stokes equations with k-epsilon, SST, k-omega and Reynolds stress, and large eddy simulation (LES) turbulence models,[3][4] by numerically solving some dynamic equations such as the Ginzburg–Landau equation,[5][6][7] or by use of a bicomplex variable.
Visualisation of the vortex street behind a circular cylinder in air (on the left); the flow is made visible through release of glycerol vapour in the air near the cylinder
Kármán vortex street caused by wind flowing around the Juan Fernández Islands off the Chilean coast (left), and a satellite loop of Von Kármán vortices near Socorro Island (right).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_vortex_street
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Venturi effect
The Venturi effect is the reduction in fluid pressure that results when a moving fluid speeds up as it flows from one section of a pipe to a smaller section. The Venturi effect is named after its discoverer, the Italian physicist Giovanni Battista Venturi, and was first published in 1797.
The effect has various engineering applications, as the reduction in pressure inside the constriction can be used both for measuring the fluid flow and for moving other fluids (e.g. in a vacuum ejector).
Idealized flow in a Venturi tube
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect
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Changes in Antarctic temperature, wind and precipitation in response to the Antarctic Oscillation
14 September 2017
Abstract
Output of a 14 year integration with a high-resolution (55 km ×55 km) regional atmospheric climate model is used to study the response of Antarctic near-surface climate to the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO), the periodical strengthening and weakening of the circumpolar vortex in the Southern Hemisphere. In spite of the relatively short record, wind, temperature and precipitation show widespread and significant AAO-related signals. When the vortex is strong (high AAO index), northwesterly flow anomalies cause warming over the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) and adjacent regions in West Antarctica and the Weddell Sea. In contrast, cooling occurs in East Antarctica, the eastern Ross Ice Shelf and parts of Marie Byrd Land. Most of the annual temperature signal stems from the months March–August. The spatial distribution of the precipitation response to changes in the AAO does not mirror temperature changes but is in first order determined by the direction of flow anomalies with respect to the Antarctic topography. When the vortex is strong (high AAO index), the western AP becomes wetter, while the Ross Ice Shelf, parts of West Antarctica and the Lambert Glacier basin, East Antarctica, become drier.
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10 Most Unpredictable Weather Phenomena
January 2, 2025
Supercells
Supercells are the giants of the storm world, commanding respect and caution from both meteorologists and storm chasers alike. These massive, swirling thunderstorms are capable of producing severe weather that can leave a trail of devastation in their wake. What makes supercells particularly daunting is their erratic nature. They can escalate rapidly, shifting from a benign cloud cluster to a full-blown storm with alarming speed. This unpredictability often leaves meteorologists scrambling to provide timely warnings. Within these colossal storms, conditions can be ripe for the formation of tornadoes, golf-ball-sized hail, and flash floods. Each minute with a supercell feels like walking on a tightrope—one wrong step, and everything changes.
Tornadoes
Heat Bursts
Volcanic Lightning (Dirty Thunderstorms)
Volcanic lightning, also enchantingly referred to as “dirty thunderstorms,” is as mesmerizing as it is enigmatic. When a volcano erupts, it spews forth ash and particles into the atmosphere. These particulates can lead to the creation of static electricity, resulting in captivating lightning storms that illuminate the volcanic plume. The artwork painted by these electrical discharges against the darkened sky is nothing short of magical. Given the chaotic nature of volcanic activities and the conditions needed for electrical charges to accumulate, predicting these thunderstorms is extremely challenging. Despite their unpredictability, they offer a visual spectacle that photographers and scientists alike eagerly await.
Microbursts
Microbursts are like the “microwave bursts” of the weather world—intense, brief, and potentially destructive. These downbursts of wind occur when cold air descends swiftly during a thunderstorm, emitting high-speed winds upon impact with the ground. They can flatten trees and buildings in seconds and are especially perilous for aviation. Pilots dread the thought of encountering a microburst, as it can severely affect an aircraft’s lift, sometimes with disastrous consequences. One moment, the sky may seem calm, and the next, the air is whipping with intense force. It’s this sudden and localized destruction that keeps microbursts high on the list of unpredictable weather phenomena.
Polar Vortex Disruptions
The polar vortex is traditionally confined to the arctic regions, swirling with icy air. However, its boundaries are not always stable. When the vortex breaks apart, frigid air can spill southward, resulting in unexpected cold snaps in areas far from the poles. These disruptions are notorious for their unpredictability, transforming mild winters into brutally cold episodes. One day you might enjoy a sunny, crisp afternoon, and the next, you’re bundling up against bone-chilling winds. Such drastic shifts catch even the most prepared regions off guard, adding another layer of unpredictability to weather forecasting.
Haboobs (Dust Storms)
Haboobs, with their mysterious name and towering presence, paint a picture straight out of a desert scene. Massive walls of dust are stirred by collapsing thunderstorms, sweeping through arid regions with an ominous presence. The visual is cinematic, as these dust storms can reduce visibility to mere meters. What makes them particularly challenging to predict is their sudden onset and speed. One minute you’re basking in clear skies, and the next, you’re engulfed in a cloud of swirling dust. For travelers and residents in arid regions, the booth heralds caution and preparedness, a reminder of nature’s unpredictability.
Thundersnow
A weather marvel that fuses two seemingly opposing elements, thundersnow redefines what we know about winter storms. Picture a heavy snowstorm punctuated by dramatic flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder. As rare as it is surprising, thundersnow often accompanies intense winter storms. The conditions necessary for its formation are specific, making it a rarity, much like a blue moon. It’s not just the visual spectacle that captures attention—the eerie combination of snow muffling the landscape, contrasted with the roaring thunder, creates an unforgettable experience. For weather enthusiasts, witnessing thundersnow is akin to spotting a mythical creature.
Waterspouts
Cousins to tornadoes, waterspouts are swirling columns of air and water rising over oceans or lakes. While they appear less menacing than their terrestrial counterparts, their formation can be just as unpredictable. One moment the water is calm, and the next, a spout may form, twisting its way upward. They can pose serious threats to marine vessels and coastal areas, as their movements are hard to forecast. Waterspouts often dissipate without incident, yet their sudden appearance keeps mariners on their toes. While encounters with these swirling phenomena can make for thrilling tales, they are best observed from a safe distance.
Ball Lightning
Ball lightning is one of the most mystifying phenomena, fascinating scientists and curious minds alike. Imagine glowing spheres of light, floating through the air during a thunderstorm, defying explanation and capturing our imagination. Unlike typical lightning that zigzags across the sky, ball lightning is much more elusive, with no clear path or behavior. Their appearance can last from mere seconds to several minutes, leaving some to question if what they witnessed was real. Despite years of research, ball lightning remains one of the least understood weather occurrences, adding an element of mystery to storms. Witness stories often border on the incredulous, with ball lightning sometimes seen hovering outside windows or floating harmlessly through homes.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/meteorology/10-most-unpredictable-weather-phenomena/ar-AA1yeEVr
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A swarm of 85,000 earthquakes at the Antarctic Orca submarine volcano
Volcanoes can be found even off the coast of Antarctica. At the deep-sea volcano Orca, which has been inactive for a long time, a sequence of more than 85,000 earthquakes was registered in 2020, a swarm quake that reached proportions not previously observed for this region. The fact that such events can be studied and described in great detail even in such remote and therefore poorly instrumented areas is now shown by the study of an international team published in the journal “Communications Earth and Environment.” Led by Simone Cesca from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) Potsdam, researchers from Germany, Italy, Poland and the United States were involved. With the combined application of seismological, geodetic and remote sensing techniques, they were able to determine how the rapid transfer of magma from the Earth’s mantle near the crust-mantle boundary to almost the surface led to the swarm quake.
The Orca volcano between the tip of South America and Antarctica
Swarm quakes mainly occur in volcanically active regions. The movement of fluids in the Earth’s crust is therefore suspected as the cause. Orca seamount is a large submarine shield volcano with a height of about 900 metres above the sea floor and a base diameter of about 11 kilometres. It is located in the Bransfield Strait, an ocean channel between the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands, southwest of the southern tip of Argentina.
“In the past, seismicity in this region was moderate. However, in August 2020, an intense seismic swarm began there, with more than 85,000 earthquakes within half a year. It represents the largest seismic unrest ever recorded there,” reports Simone Cesca, scientist in GFZ’s Section 2.1 Earthquake and Volcano Physics and lead author of the now published study. At the same time as the swarm, a lateral ground displacement of more than ten centimetres and a small uplift of about one centimetre was recorded on neighbouring King George Island.
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Chile earthquake fractured ice in Antarctica
11 August 2014
https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/Online/6426/Chile-earthquake-fractured-ice-in-Antarctica
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Antarctica Is Being Rumbled by Hidden Earthquakes We Never Even Knew Existed
05 June 2018
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Mantle convection and possible mantle plumes beneath Antarctica – insights from geodynamic models and implications for topography
9 September 2021
Abstract
https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/abs/10.1144/M56-2020-2
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The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic barometric pressure pulse and meteotsunami travel recorded in several Antarctic stations
2024
Abstract
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga/Hunga-Ha'apai eruption on January 15, 2022 sent off a plume of ash material up to the stratosphere and triggered a meteotsunami and barometric pressure pulse that rippled through the atmosphere and oceans all around the world. The nature of the volcanic event and its global impacts on the oceans, atmosphere, lithosphere and the cryosphere are a matter of debate. Here we present a first overview of the time travel of the sound atmospheric pressure wave through the Antarctic continent based on in situ measurements, which represented a unique event observed through the polar ice sheet during the instrumental meteorological era. In addition, we estimated the tsunami travel time of the Hunga-Tonga event from a first order model to infer its impact over the Antarctic Sea ice and ice shelves. One outcome from our observations and modeling is the detection of the meteotsunami in the Antarctic Peninsula and the impact of the continental relief over the atmospheric pressure wave dispersion.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39607102/
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Geochemical and visual indicators of hydrothermal fluid flow through a sediment-hosted volcanic ridge in the Central Bransfield Basin (Antarctica).
24 Jan 2013
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/23359806
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Tides regulate the flow and density of Antarctic Bottom Water from the western Ross Sea
08 March 2023
Abstract
Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) stores heat and gases over decades to centuries after contact with the atmosphere during formation on the Antarctic shelf and subsequent flow into the global deep ocean. Dense water from the western Ross Sea, a primary source of AABW, shows changes in water properties and volume over the last few decades. Here we show, using multiple years of moored observations, that the density and speed of the outflow are consistent with a release from the Drygalski Trough controlled by the density in Terra Nova Bay (the “accelerator”) and the tidal mixing (the “brake”). We suggest tides create two peaks in density and flow each year at the equinoxes and could cause changes of ~ 30% in the flow and density over the 18.6-year lunar nodal tide. Based on our dynamic model, we find tides can explain much of the decadal variability in the outflow with longer-term changes likely driven by the density in Terra Nova Bay.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31008-w
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Last Interglacial subsurface warming on the Antarctic shelf triggered by reduced deep-ocean convection
20 April 2024
Abstract
'
The Antarctic ice-sheet could have contributed 3 to 5 m sea-level equivalent to the Last Interglacial sea-level highstand. Such an Antarctic ice-mass loss compared to pre-industrial requires a subsurface warming on the Antarctic shelf of ~ 3 °C according to ice-sheet modelling studies. Here we show that a substantial subsurface warming is simulated south of 60 °S in an equilibrium experiment of the Last Interglacial. It averages +1.2 °C at ~ 500 m depth from 70 °W to 160 °E, and it reaches +2.4 °C near the Lazarev Sea. Weaker deep-ocean convection due to reduced sea-ice formation is the primary driver of this warming. The associated changes in meridional density gradients and surface winds lead to a weakened Antarctic Circumpolar Current and strengthened Antarctic Slope Current, which further impact subsurface temperatures. A subsurface warming on the Antarctic shelf that could trigger ice-mass loss from the Antarctic ice-sheet can thus be obtained during warm periods from reduced sea-ice formation.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01383-x
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Deep Convection as the Key to the Transition From Eocene to Modern Antarctic Circumpolar Current
19 December 2023
Abstract
From the Eocene (∼50 million years ago) to today, Southern Ocean circulation has evolved from the existence of two ocean gyres to the dominance of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). It has generally been thought that the opening of Southern Ocean gateways in the late Eocene, in addition to the alignment of westerly winds with these gateways or the presence of the Antarctic ice sheet, was a sufficient requirement for the transition to an ACC of similar strength to its modern equivalent. Nevertheless, models representing these changes produce a much weaker ACC. Here we show, using an eddying ocean model, that the missing ingredient in the transition to a modern ACC is deep convection around the Antarctic continent. This deep convection is caused by cold temperatures and high salinities due to sea-ice production around the Antarctic continent, leading to both the formation of Antarctic Bottom Water and a modern-strength ACC.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL104847
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Antarctic sea ice multidecadal variability triggered by Southern Annular Mode and deep convection
08 November 2024
Abstract
Antarctic sea ice exerts great influence on Earth’s climate by controlling the exchange of heat, momentum, freshwater, and gases between the atmosphere and ocean. Antarctic sea ice extent has undergone a multidecadal slight increase followed by a substantial decline since 2016. Here we utilize a 300-yr sea ice data assimilation reconstruction and two NOAA/GFDL and five CMIP6 model simulations to demonstrate a multidecadal variability of Antarctic sea ice extent. Stronger westerlies associated with the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) enhance the upwelling of warm and saline water from the subsurface ocean. The consequent salinity increase weakens the upper-ocean stratification, induces deep convection, and in turn brings more subsurface warm and saline water to the surface. This salinity-convection feedback triggered by the SAM provides favorable conditions for multidecadal sea ice decrease. Processes acting in reverse are found to cause sea ice increase, although it evolves slower than sea ice decrease.
Introduction
Antarctic sea ice (Fig. 1a) contributes to Earth’s climate through the exchange of heat, momentum, freshwater, and gases between the atmosphere and ocean. Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) and its anomaly (Fig. 1b) show a slightly increasing trend in the past few decades1,2, but abruptly declines after 20163,4. The increasing SIE trend can be caused by various processes: (1) deepening of the Amundsen Sea Low5 driven by the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO)6 and possibly linked to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation7, (2) intensification of westerlies associated with a positive trend of Southern Annular Mode (SAM) arising from stratospheric ozone depletion8,9 and increasing greenhouse gases10, although the role of ozone is debated11, (3) increased freshwater from basal melting of Antarctic ice shelves12, although the role of freshwater is also debated13,14,15, (4) enhanced upper-ocean stratification due to brine rejection associated with sea ice increase16, and (5) weakening of Southern Ocean deep convection17. The sea ice decrease in 2016 could have been caused by more poleward warm air advection accompanied by a negative phase of the SAM3 and atmospheric teleconnection from the tropics18. Since then, the persistence of low sea ice could have been related to the warmer upper Southern Ocean19,20,21. However, due to short observation records, it remains unclear what the relative roles were of natural variability and possibly climate change.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01783-z
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An Extreme High Temperature Event in Coastal East Antarctica Associated With an Atmospheric River and Record Summer Downslope Winds
03 February 2022
Abstract
High surface temperatures are important in Antarctica because of their role in ice melt and sea level rise. We investigate a high temperature event in December 1989 that gave record temperatures in coastal East Antarctica between 60° and 100°E. The high temperatures were associated with a pool of warm lower tropospheric air with December temperature anomalies of >14°C that developed in two stages over the Amery Ice Shelf. First, there was near-record poleward warm advection within an atmospheric river. Second, synoptically driven downslope flow from the interior reached unprecedented December strength over a large area, leading to strong descent and further warming in the coastal region. The coastal easterly winds were unusually deep and strong, and the warm pool was advected westwards, giving a short period of high temperatures at coastal locations, including a surface temperature of 9.3°C at Mawson, the second highest in its 66-year record.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021GL097108
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Intense atmospheric rivers can weaken ice shelf stability at the Antarctic Peninsula
14 April 2022
Abstract
The disintegration of the ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have spurred much discussion on the various processes leading to their eventual dramatic collapse, but without a consensus on an atmospheric forcing that could connect these processes. Here, using an atmospheric river detection algorithm along with a regional climate model and satellite observations, we show that the most intense atmospheric rivers induce extremes in temperature, surface melt, sea-ice disintegration, or large swells that destabilize the ice shelves with 40% probability. This was observed during the collapses of the Larsen A and B ice shelves during the summers of 1995 and 2002 respectively. Overall, 60% of calving events from 2000–2020 were triggered by atmospheric rivers. The loss of the buttressing effect from these ice shelves leads to further continental ice loss and subsequent sea-level rise. Under future warming projections, the Larsen C ice shelf will be at-risk from the same processes.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00422-9
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Atmospheric rivers help create massive holes in Antarctic sea ice
November 11, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-atmospheric-rivers-massive-holes-antarctic.html
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Atmospheric river
An atmospheric river (AR) is a narrow corridor or filament of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere. Other names for this phenomenon are tropical plume, tropical connection, moisture plume, water vapor surge, and cloud band.
Atmospheric rivers consist of narrow bands of enhanced water vapor transport, typically along the boundaries between large areas of divergent surface air flow, including some frontal zones in association with extratropical cyclones that form over the oceans.[3][4][5][6] Pineapple Express storms are the most commonly represented and recognized type of atmospheric rivers; the name is due to the warm water vapor plumes originating over the Hawaiian tropics that follow various paths towards western North America, arriving at latitudes from California and the Pacific Northwest to British Columbia and even southeast Alaska.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_river
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Atmospheric rivers in Antarctica
February 2025
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388869515_Atmospheric_rivers_in_Antarctica
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Climatology and surface impacts of atmospheric rivers on West Antarctica
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Shift in atmospheric rivers could affect Antarctic sea ice, glaciers
November 23, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-shift-atmospheric-rivers-affect-antarctic.html
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Stronger winds heat up West Antarctic ice melt
July 17, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-stronger-west-antarctic-ice.html
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Localized rapid warming of West Antarctic subsurface waters by remote winds
17 July 2017
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3335
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Antarctic Atmospheric River Climatology and Precipitation Impacts
27 March 2021
Abstract
The Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) is sensitive to short-term extreme meteorological events that can leave long-term impacts on the continent's surface mass balance (SMB). We investigate the impacts of atmospheric rivers (ARs) on the AIS precipitation budget using an AR detection algorithm and a regional climate model (Modèle Atmosphérique Régional) from 1980 to 2018. While ARs and their associated extreme vapor transport are relatively rare events over Antarctic coastal regions (∼3 days per year), they have a significant impact on the precipitation climatology. ARs are responsible for at least 10% of total accumulated snowfall across East Antarctica (localized areas reaching 20%) and a majority of extreme precipitation events. Trends in AR annual frequency since 1980 are observed across parts of AIS, most notably an increasing trend in Dronning Maud Land; however, interannual variability in AR frequency is much larger. This AR behavior appears to drive a significant portion of annual snowfall trends across East Antarctica, while controlling the interannual variability of precipitation across most of the AIS. AR landfalls are most likely when the circumpolar jet is highly amplified during blocking conditions in the Southern Ocean. There is a fingerprint of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) on AR variability in West Antarctica with SAM+ (SAM−) favoring increased AR frequency in the Antarctic Peninsula (Amundsen-Ross Sea coastline). Given the relatively large influence ARs have on precipitation across the continent, it is advantageous for future studies of moisture transport to Antarctica to consider an AR framework especially when considering future SMB changes.
Key Points
-
Atmospheric rivers in Antarctica are rare events but are a key contributor to the ice sheet's surface mass balance
-
Their impact on precipitation is most pronounced in East Antarctica where they are responsible for a majority of extreme precipitation events
-
Atmospheric rivers are contributing to modern snowfall trends and controlling overall precipitation variability across Antarctica
Plain Language Summary
The Antarctic continent, like many deserts in the world, receives a large percentage of its yearly precipitation from just a few intense precipitation events. Atmospheric rivers (ARs), narrow corridors of intense moisture transporting moisture from low to high latitudes, are commonly associated with heavy rain and snowfall in the midlatitudes like the west coasts of North/South America and Europe. In Antarctica, ARs are rarer with most near-coastal regions in Antarctica experiencing AR conditions a few days per year but still have a major influence on the surface mass balance of the ice sheet. ARs are responsible for 10%–20% of the total snowfall across East Antarctica. Although a modest percentage, this contribution to the snowfall budget is the component that has been driving parts of the positive annual snowfall trends in Dronning Maud and negative trends in Wilkes Land. Also, ARs control the year-to-year variability of precipitation across most of the ice sheet. Given the link between ARs and snowfall accumulation trends, increased future AR activity would result in higher snowfall accumulation on the Antarctic continent and possibly offset some sea-level rise from dynamic ice loss, but this must be considered in balance with increased melting frequency already documented with ARs.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JD033788
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Atmospheric River Brings Warmth and Rainfall to the Northern Antarctic Peninsula During the Mid-Austral Winter of 2023
29 June 2024
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL108391
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Strong Warming Over the Antarctic Peninsula During Combined Atmospheric River and Foehn Events: Contribution of Shortwave Radiation and Turbulence
04 August 2023
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022JD038138
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West Antarctic surface melt triggered by atmospheric rivers
28 October 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0460-1
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Dry Ice: How Expanding Antarctic Sea Ice is Drying the Atmosphere Over the Southern Ocean
April 2, 2021
Lower Evaporation in Polar Regions May Impact Ocean Circulation and Global Climate
It may seem counterintuitive that Earth’s coldest, iciest places are actually some of the driest places on our planet. But Earth’s polar regions see significantly less evaporation – the conversion of liquid water on Earth’s surface into gaseous water vapor in our atmosphere -- than other parts of our world, largely due to the presence of sea ice. New NASA research using a sophisticated satellite instrument shows the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica has been evaporating less water to the atmosphere, with potential impacts on global ocean circulation and Earth’s climate.
Evaporation is a key part of the global water cycle, the process by which water circulates continuously between Earth’s surface (land and ocean) and the atmosphere. As the Sun heats up water from lakes, rivers and the ocean, the resulting water vapor condenses to form clouds and then returns to the surface as precipitation as rain and snow. About 85 percent of atmospheric water vapor evaporates from the surface of Earth’s ocean; with tropical regions having the highest levels of evaporation, due to their warm temperatures and close proximity to the ocean. Evaporation plays a key role in weather and climate. Less evaporation means less water vapor in the air, which can change precipitation patterns around the globe.
An evaporation blocker
The presence of sea ice completely changes the dynamics of evaporation, however. This layer of frozen ocean water covers much of the Arctic Ocean and Southern Ocean, with the extent and thickness changing seasonally due to temperatures. “You can think of sea ice as a blanket that covers the ocean, similar to when people put covers over their swimming pools to keep evaporation down,” said Eric Fetzer, project scientist for NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite. “So, when there’s a lot of sea ice, you just don’t get much evaporation.”
“The reason why we care about changing sea ice conditions in this region is because sea ice prohibits the interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere,” said Linette Boisvert, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “That can affect the water cycle, clouds, and precipitation patterns across the globe.”
Boisvert first became interested in the connection between sea ice and evaporation while working on her doctorate, when she used AIRS data to measure evaporation in the Arctic Ocean and the Greenland Ice Sheet. Inspired by this previous work, she decided to do a similar study in Antarctica. “We wanted to see if we could use AIRS to estimate evaporation from the Southern Ocean and Antarctic sea ice surfaces, using the same method and same data we’d used in the other studies,” she said.
Data from satellite instruments are extremely valuable in Antarctica, due to the region’s lack of ground observation data. “There just aren’t a lot of observations in the Southern Ocean, because it’s hard to get ships down there to take measurements,” said Boisvert.
AIRS was chosen for the study because of its ability to accurately chart temperature and humidity changes over both the Arctic Ocean and the Southern Ocean. The instrument is also a workhorse when it comes to “seeing through” cloud cover, which poses an obstacle to most instruments. To produce daily estimates of evaporation from the Southern Ocean, the study also used wind speeds from NASA’s Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2), a global modeled atmospheric data set.
The Southern Ocean's decreasing trend
The team’s findings revealed a decreasing trend in annual evaporation over most of the Southern Ocean for the study period 2003-2016. According to Boisvert, one possible reason for the decrease is that until a few years ago, Antarctic sea ice extent was increasing slightly (this contrasts with the Arctic, which has seen a consistent decline in sea ice extent since the late 1970s.) More sea ice would have insulated the ocean surface from the atmosphere and reduced evaporation. Since 2015, however, the Southern Ocean has actually seen a large decrease in sea ice cover. “If the trend of decreased sea ice continues, it will be interesting to see if that changes the evaporation,” said Boisvert.
Boisvert says the findings are important because if the rate of evaporation in polar regions decreases, it can potentially impact other elements of the climate process, such as ocean circulation.
The ocean circulation connection
Ocean circulation refers to the large-scale movement of water that transports heat around the planet via surface and deep ocean currents. While surface currents are easy to visualize because they’re triggered by winds, deep ocean currents are like invisible forces that work behind the scenes, driven by water density.
When ocean water evaporates, most of the salt is left behind; hence, more evaporation means saltier water. Because salt water is more dense than fresh water, it tends to sink. “Evaporation really matters in certain polar regions, because by evaporating water from the surface, you actually make the ocean saltier,” said Fetzer. “You’re basically concentrating salt in the ocean, and that heavy salt water then sinks.”
Fresh water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but seawater freezes at approximately 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit. So when the more dense, salty water sinks, the fresher water left at the surface can freeze more easily. “Evaporation affects whether and how sea ice forms, and conversely, evaporation is modulated by sea ice,” said Fetzer. “So, you have this interplay between evaporation and sea ice formation, and it all ties into the ocean circulation around Antarctica.”
The Ross Sea's increasing trend
While the results showed that evaporation decreased in most of the Southern Ocean, the study also revealed an increase in evaporation in the Ross Sea, which is adjacent to an ice shelf that spawns strong katabatic winds (cold and dry winds that blow downslope from higher elevations). “There is less sea ice coverage in that area, due to these katabatic winds which force the sea ice way from the ice shelf, and when the wind blows over this area of open water in the Ross Sea, you get a lot of evaporation occurring there,” said Boisvert. Her next step, she said, is to look specifically at this increase in the Ross Sea area, and AIRS data will again be an integral part of the study.
“People don’t really use AIRS too much in the polar regions—it’s used more widely in the mid-latitudes,” she said. “But being able to use these satellite-derived datasets to estimate evaporation at the poles can give us lots of insight into what’s going on in those regions.”
“In the global evaporation picture, the polar regions are not all that important because there is so much evaporation happening in the tropics. But locally, it matters a lot,” said Fetzer. “By changing sea ice and evaporation in the polar regions, you can actually change the entire deep ocean circulation, sea ice formation and local cloud cover, and that could have a big effect on climate.”
https://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/news/180/dry-ice-how-expanding-antarctic-sea-ice-is-drying-the-atmosphere-over-the-southern-ocean/
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Rising atmospheric moisture escalates the future impact of atmospheric rivers in the Antarctic climate system
14 May 2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02333-x
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Sea level rise from West Antarctic mass loss significantly modified by large snowfall anomalies
17 March 2023
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36990-3
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Atmospheric Response to Antarctic Sea-Ice Reductions Drives Ice Sheet Surface Mass Balance Increases
2023
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/36/19/JCLI-D-23-0056.1.xml
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Climate data guide content with tag Sea Level Pressure
Years of record
- to
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/variables/atmosphere/sea-level-pressure
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Warmer Antarctic summers in recent decades linked to earlier stratospheric final warming occurrences
24 January 2024
Abstract
Since the 2000s, the pause of the strong Antarctic cooling and later stratospheric final warming onset trends has been identified. Here we employ composite and congruence analysis using reanalysis and in-situ data to propose a linkage between pivotal changes in the surface temperature trends and the timing of stratospheric final warming events. In early stratospheric final warming events, the positive polar cap height anomaly developed in the stratosphere in early October, descending to the troposphere and surface in late spring and summer, resulting in high-pressure anomalies, which led to warmer surfaces in most of Antarctica. In late stratospheric final warming occurrences, opposing or weaker behaviors were observed. The trend toward earlier stratospheric final warming appears to play a considerable role in warmer summers over parts of interior Antarctica through the strengthening of the anti-cyclonic surface pressure anomaly. This could influence the regional sea-ice modulation over the Southern Ocean.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01221-0
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A twentieth century perspective on summer Antarctic pressure change and variability and contributions from tropical SSTs and ozone depletion
06 October 2017
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL075079
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Antarctic Seasonal Pressure Reconstructions 1905-2013
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/antarctic-seasonal-pressure-reconstructions-1905-2013
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Antarctic Barometric Pressure
10 April 1913
https://www.nature.com/articles/091135a0
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Atmospheric surface pressure over the interior of Antarctica
12 May 2004
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An assessment of recent global atmospheric reanalyses for Antarctic near surface air temperature
2019
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016980951930016X
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Antarctic ice mass variations from 1979 to 2017 driven by anomalous precipitation accumulation
23 November 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77403-5
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Powerful 'rivers in the sky' could cause Antarctic Peninsula's biggest ice shelf to collapse
April 14, 2022
When
temperatures in Antarctica soared to 38 degrees Celsius above normal --
around 70 Fahrenheit -- in March, a teetering ice shelf the size of Los
Angeles collapsed. Scientists don't know what role the extreme
temperatures may have played in the event, but the heat rushed in
through what's known as an atmospheric river, a long plume of moisture
that transports warm air and water vapor from the tropics to other parts
of the Earth.
A new study published Thursday shows that these
"rivers in the sky" -- which dump rain and snow when they make landfall
-- are also causing extreme temperatures, surface melt, sea-ice
disintegration and large ocean swells which are destabilizing ice
shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, a long, spindly mountain chain that
points northwards to the tip of South America.
These conditions were
observed during the collapse of two of the peninsula's ice shelves --
Larsen A and B -- in the summers of 1995 and 2002, respectively. And
now, as the climate crisis is projected to warm the Earth further, the
biggest remaining ice shelf, Larsen C, is also at risk of total
collapse, the study says.
The authors of the study, published in
the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment, used
algorithms, climate models and satellite observations to determine that
60% of the peninsula's calving events -- where an iceberg breaks off an
ice shelf or glacier -- were triggered by atmospheric rivers between
2000 and 2020.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/14/world/antarctica-larsen-c-ice-shelf-atmospheric-rivers-climate-intl/index.html
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Convection in the antarctic ice sheet leading to a surge of the ice sheet and possibly to a new ice age
1970
Abstract
The Antarctic surge theory of Pleistocene glaciation is reexamined in the context of thermal convection theory applied to the Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet surges when a water layer at the base of the ice sheet reaches the edge of the ice sheet over broad fronts and has a thickness sufficient to drown the projections from the bed that most strongly hinder basal ice flow. Frictional heat from convection flow promotes basal melting, and, as the ice sheet grows to the continental shelf of Antarctica, a surge of the ice sheet appears likely.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17799300/
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Southern Ocean deep convection as a driver of Antarctic warming events
20 February 2016
Abstract
Simulations with a free-running coupled climate model show that heat release associated with Southern Ocean deep convection variability can drive centennial-scale Antarctic temperature variations of up to 2.0°C. The mechanism involves three steps: Preconditioning: heat accumulates at depth in the Southern Ocean; Convection onset: wind and/or sea ice changes tip the buoyantly unstable system into the convective state; and Antarctic warming: fast sea ice-albedo feedbacks (on annual-decadal time scales) and slow Southern Ocean frontal and sea surface temperature adjustments to convective heat release (on multidecadal-century time scales) drive an increase in atmospheric heat and moisture transport toward Antarctica. We discuss the potential of this mechanism to help drive and amplify climate variability as observed in Antarctic ice core records.
Key Points
- Southern Ocean deep convection events can explain up to 2.0°C warming in Antarctica
- Ocean adjustments to buoyancy loss causes an approximately 50 year lag in the Antarctic temperature response
- Southward atmospheric heat flux anomalies propagate the warming signal to Antarctica
1. Introduction
Deep waters rising to the surface along isopycnals in the Southern Ocean (SO) exchange heat and carbon with the global atmosphere [Rintoul and Naveira Garabato, 2013]. Intense cooling, sea ice production, and wind-driven advection at the SO surface then return these waters to deep and intermediate depths, closing the SO overturning circulation, and connecting the atmosphere with the ocean interior [Marshall and Speer, 2012]. It is estimated that ~75% of the ocean store of anthropogenic heat and ~40% of the store of anthropogenic carbon enter the ocean interior through this region [Roemmich et al., 2015; Frölicher et al., 2015]. It follows that past changes in SO overturning could be an important driver of climate variability in Antarctica and the southern high latitudes [e.g., Latif et al., 2013; Menviel et al., 2015].
The dominant mode of deep water production in the modern SO is via brine rejection during sea ice formation on the Antarctic continental shelves [Rintoul and Naveira Garabato, 2013]. A second mode, involving deep convection in the open ocean, has also been documented [e.g., Gordon, 1991]. In 1974 when the first satellite microwave data were obtained from the Antarctic sea ice zone, a 250,000 km2 open ocean polynya was observed in the winter sea ice pack of the Weddell Sea [Carsey, 1980]. The ocean mixed layer in the polynya extended to 3000 m depth, with strong upwelling of relatively warm (with respect to the surface) deep waters, supporting an average winter surface heat flux of 136 Wm−2 [Gordon, 1982]. An estimated 2–3 Sv (1 sverdrup = 106 m3 s−1) of dense bottom water was produced in the polynya from the intense surface cooling and subsequent deep sinking [Gordon, 1982]. Although initially thought to be a permanent feature, the polynya closed after 3 years, and no open ocean deep convection beyond isolated events lasting some weeks has not been observed since [Gordon, 2014].
While clearly rare in the modern SO, open ocean deep convection may have been more common in the past. Two thirds of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change class global climate models show open ocean deep convection under preindustrial boundary conditions; the convection shuts down in most of these models in the 21st century due to anthropogenic freshening of SO surface layers [de Lavergne et al., 2014]. Gordon [2014] argues that deep convection was more common in the past and was potentially the dominant mode of SO deep water formation during the glacial when the ice sheets advanced over the Antarctic continental shelf [Golledge et al., 2013], capping the dominant sites of today's deep water formation in the coastal polynyas. The presence of SO deep convection in both observations and climate models raises questions about the possible climate impacts of shifts between the convective and nonconvective modes.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL067861
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Currents and convection cause enhanced gas exchange in the ice–water boundary layer
05 Jul 2016
Abstract
The presence of sea ice acts as a physical barrier for air–sea exchange. On the other hand it creates additional turbulence due to current shear and convection during ice formation. We present results from a laboratory study that demonstrate how shear and convection in the ice–ocean boundary layer can lead to significant gas exchange. In the absence of wind, water currents beneath the ice of 0.23 m s−1 produced a gas transfer velocity (k) of 2.8 m d−1, equivalent to k produced by a wind speed of 7 m s−1 over the open ocean. Convection caused by air–sea heat exchange also increased k of as much as 131 % compared to k produced by current shear alone. When wind and currents were combined, k increased, up to 7.6 m d−1, greater than k produced by wind or currents alone, but gas exchange forcing by wind produced mixed results in these experiments. As an aggregate, these experiments indicate that using a wind speed parametrisation to estimate k in the sea ice zone may underestimate k by ca. 50 % for wind speeds <8 m s−1.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/tellusb.v68.32803
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Role of the Antarctic Circumpolar Circulation in Current Asymmetric Arctic and Antarctic Warming
07 July 2024
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2024GL110265
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Antarctic Circumpolar Current
Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is an ocean current that flows clockwise (as seen from the South Pole) from west to east around Antarctica. An alternative name for the ACC is the West Wind Drift. The ACC is the dominant circulation feature of the Southern Ocean and has a mean transport estimated at 137 ± 7 Sverdrups (Sv, million m3/s),[1][2] or possibly even higher,[3] making it the largest ocean current. The current is circumpolar due to the lack of any landmass connecting with Antarctica and this keeps warm ocean waters away from Antarctica, enabling that continent to maintain its huge ice sheet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current
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Impacts of Strengthened Antarctic Circumpolar Current on the Seasonality of Arctic Climate
13 March 2025
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2025GL115211
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Antarctic circumpolar current's role in the Antarctic ice system: An overview
2011
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018211001799
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Melting Antarctic ice sheets are slowing Earth's strongest ocean current, research reveals
March 3, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-antarctic-ice-sheets-earth-strongest.html
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Antarctica has its own ‘shield’ against warm water – but this could now be under threat
May 23, 2025
A little-known ocean current surrounds Antarctica, shielding it from warm water further north. But our new research shows Antarctica’s melting ice is disrupting this current, putting the continent’s last line of defence at risk.
We found meltwater from Antarctica is speeding up the current, known as the Antarctic Slope Current. And it’s set to become even faster by mid-century.
A faster current could be more unstable. This means eddies of warm water could eat away at Antarctica’s ice, posing a major concern for the stability of the Earth’s climate system.
Faster ice-melt means faster sea-level rise. Humanity must act now to preserve this natural phenomena that helps Antarctica’s ice shelves remain intact.
Melting of Antarctic ice has global consequences
Antarctica is melting as the world warms. This causes sea levels to rise. Even just a few centimetres of sea-level rise can double the chance of flooding in vulnerable coastal regions.
Previous research has shown meltwater is also slowing the global network of deep ocean currents. These currents transport water, heat and nutrients around the planet, so a global slow-down has huge ramifications.
It’s therefore crucial to reduce further loss of Antarctic ice, to stabilise our global climate system.
The Antarctic Slope Current moves ocean water westward over the continental slope, close to the coast. It acts as a barrier, preventing warm waters from further north from reaching the ice.
In this way, the current provides an important line of defence keeping warmer water at bay. It doesn’t stop Antarctica from melting, because warming air temperatures still cause this. But it slows the process...
However, our research shows this defence is under threat.
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West Antarctic Ice Sheet Cloud Cover and Surface Radiation Budget from NASA A-Train Satellites
2017
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26388522
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Atmospheric blocking and temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula
2024
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969724029991
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Antarctic currents supplying 40% of world's deep ocean with nutrients and oxygen slowing dramatically
May 25, 2023
These deep ocean tides supply almost half of the world's oceans with vital nutrients and oxygen, but melting ice shelves are slowing them down.
Deep ocean currents around Antarctica that are vital to marine life have slowed by 30% since the 1990s and could soon grind to a complete halt, a new study finds.
These currents, known as Antarctic bottom waters, are powered by dense, cold water from the Antarctic continental shelf that sinks to depths below 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). The water then spreads north into the Pacific and eastern Indian oceans, fueling a network of currents called the global meridional overturning circulation and supplying 40% of the world's deep ocean with fresh nutrients and oxygen...
But warming global temperatures are unlocking large volumes of less-dense fresh water from the Antarctic ice shelves, slowing this circulation down.
"If the oceans had lungs, this would be one of them," Matthew England, a professor of ocean and climate dynamics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia who contributed to the research, said in a statement. Researchers in the U.K. and Australia collaborated in a study published in March in the journal Nature that predicted a 40% reduction in the strength of Antarctic bottom waters by 2050.
He also warned that the currents could eventually stop altogether. "We are talking about the possible long-term extinction of an iconic water mass," England said.
In a new study published Thursday (May 25) in the journal Nature Climate Change,
England and his colleagues say they have confirmed these predictions
with real life observations in the Australian Antarctic Basin, which
spans the polar waters between Australia and Antarctica.
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Five million years of Antarctic Circumpolar Current strength variability
27 March 2024
Abstract
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) represents the world’s largest ocean-current system and affects global ocean circulation, climate and Antarctic ice-sheet stability1,2,3. Today, ACC dynamics are controlled by atmospheric forcing, oceanic density gradients and eddy activity4. Whereas palaeoceanographic reconstructions exhibit regional heterogeneity in ACC position and strength over Pleistocene glacial–interglacial cycles5,6,7,8, the long-term evolution of the ACC is poorly known. Here we document changes in ACC strength from sediment cores in the Pacific Southern Ocean. We find no linear long-term trend in ACC flow since 5.3 million years ago (Ma), in contrast to global cooling9 and increasing global ice volume10. Instead, we observe a reversal on a million-year timescale, from increasing ACC strength during Pliocene global cooling to a subsequent decrease with further Early Pleistocene cooling. This shift in the ACC regime coincided with a Southern Ocean reconfiguration that altered the sensitivity of the ACC to atmospheric and oceanic forcings11,12,13. We find ACC strength changes to be closely linked to 400,000-year eccentricity cycles, probably originating from modulation of precessional changes in the South Pacific jet stream linked to tropical Pacific temperature variability14. A persistent link between weaker ACC flow, equatorward-shifted opal deposition and reduced atmospheric CO2 during glacial periods first emerged during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT). The strongest ACC flow occurred during warmer-than-present intervals of the Plio-Pleistocene, providing evidence of potentially increasing ACC flow with future climate warming.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07143-3
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Impacts of Strengthened Antarctic Circumpolar Current on the Seasonality of Arctic Climate
March 2025
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Strongest ocean current on Earth is speeding up and causing problems
03-31-2024
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the most powerful current on Earth, encircling Antarctica and influencing the global climate.
Over the last few decades, observations show that it has been speeding up. Experts were uncertain whether this was a result of human-caused warming or a natural pattern.
However, scientists have discovered that this oceanic powerhouse is getting even stronger. What does this mean for our planet’s future?
Ocean depths
An international team of researchers embarked on a daring expedition to remote, turbulent waters. The goal was to recover sediment cores containing millions of years’ worth of clues about the ACC’s behavior alongside Earth’s temperature changes.
Through meticulous analysis, the experts uncovered the secrets held within the layers of sediment.
Current, climate, and ice
The study reveals a strong link between the ACC’s speed and Earth’s overall temperature, much like a thermostat.
During colder periods, the current slowed down. But when the planet warmed up naturally in the past, the current responded by speeding up.
What’s truly alarming is that these past ACC speedups were directly connected to major losses of Antarctic ice. We’re observing a similar speedup of the ACC right now, driven by human-caused warming.
This suggests that Antarctica’s ice will likely continue to retreat – potentially fueling sea-level rise and even affecting the ocean’s ability to soak up carbon from our atmosphere.
Characteristics of the ACC
Vast scale: The ACC is the largest ocean current, stretching around Antarctica and connecting the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. It’s the only ocean current that encircles the globe completely, free from any continental barriers.
Volume and speed: It transports more water than any other current — approximately 135 million cubic meters per second. Its flow is influenced by wind patterns, the Earth’s rotation, and differences in water density.
Depth and width: The ACC extends from the surface to the ocean floor, reaching depths of up to 4,000 meters (about 13,123 feet) and spans widths of up to 2,000 kilometers (about 1,243 miles).
Functions of the ACC
Climate regulation: The ACC plays a crucial role in regulating the global climate. It helps distribute heat around the planet by moving warm water from the equator towards the poles and cold water towards the equator.
Carbon sequestration: The ACC is instrumental in the global carbon cycle. It absorbs significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, transporting it deep into the ocean where it can be stored for centuries.
Nutrient distribution: By stirring up water from different depths (upwelling), the ACC brings nutrients from the deep to the surface, supporting marine ecosystems around Antarctica and beyond.
Importance of the ACC
Biodiversity support: The nutrients brought to the surface by the ACC support phytoplankton blooms, which are the foundation of the Antarctic food web, sustaining a diverse array of marine life from krill to whales.
Impact on global ocean circulation: The ACC influences global ocean circulation patterns, including the formation of deep water masses in the North Atlantic that drive the global conveyor belt, a critical component of Earth’s climate system.
Climate change indicator: Changes in the speed or pattern of the ACC can indicate alterations in the global climate system. Its acceleration due to increased westerly winds is a concern, as it could have implications for sea-level rise and global temperature patterns.
The ocean’s influence on Antarctic current
How does the speeding up of the ACC affect things directly? Here’s how:
Melting Antarctica’s ice shelves
Winds over the Southern Ocean have grown about 40% stronger in the past few decades, driving the ACC and pulling warmer waters towards Antarctica’s floating ice shelves.
hese shelves act like giant plugs holding back huge glaciers. The warmer water erodes them from below, causing melting.
“If you leave an ice cube out in the air, it takes quite a while to melt. If you put it in contact with warm water, it goes rapidly” explains Winckler.
Uncertain carbon sponge
The oceans around Antarctica are a vital component of the Earth’s carbon cycle. They absorb a substantial amount of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that humans emit into the atmosphere, roughly 40%, acting as a “carbon sponge.”
This process is critical in moderating global warming, as it removes CO2 from the atmosphere, where it would otherwise trap heat, contributing to the greenhouse effect.
Why ocean currents are important
Ocean currents play a crucial role in shaping the Earth’s climate and supporting marine ecosystems. These massive, continuous streams of water flow through the world’s oceans, transporting heat, nutrients, and organisms across vast distances.
Types of ocean currents
Two primary types of ocean currents exist: surface currents and deep water currents.
Surface currents, driven by wind patterns and the Earth’s rotation (Coriolis effect), flow in the upper 400 meters of the ocean.
Future of Antarctic current
“These findings provide geological evidence in support of further increasing ACC flow with continued global warming,” noted the researchers.
As humans continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, it’s almost certain that the ACC will keep speeding up. This is likely to unleash more intense warming around Antarctica, further destabilizing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
This vast reservoir of ice, much of it below sea level, holds the potential to raise global sea levels dramatically.
It’s time to pay attention to Antarctic current
The ACC isn’t getting as much attention as rising temperatures or melting Arctic ice caps, but perhaps it should. This mighty current has a complex relationship with our planet’s climate system, and changes to it will have ripple effects worldwide.
Understanding these complex forces, along with reducing greenhouse gas emissions, is essential to prepare for a future where a sped-up ACC, rising seas, and extreme weather might reshape our world.
More about ocean currents
https://www.earth.com/news/antarctic-circumpolar-current-speed-increasing-rising-sea-levels/
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Antarctic Circumpolar Current
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current
Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is an ocean current that flows clockwise (as seen from the South Pole) from west to east around Antarctica. An alternative name for the ACC is the West Wind Drift. The ACC is the dominant circulation feature of the Southern Ocean and has a mean transport estimated at 100–150 Sverdrups (Sv, million m3/s),[1] or possibly even higher,[2] making it the largest ocean current. The current is circumpolar due to the lack of any landmass connecting with Antarctica and this keeps warm ocean waters away from Antarctica, enabling that continent to maintain its huge ice sheet.
Associated with the Circumpolar Current is the Antarctic Convergence, where the cold Antarctic waters meet the warmer waters of the subantarctic, creating a zone of upwelling nutrients. These nurture high levels of phytoplankton with associated copepods and krill, and resultant food chains supporting fish, whales, seals, penguins, albatrosses, and a wealth of other species.
The ACC has been known to sailors for centuries; it greatly speeds up any travel from west to east, but makes sailing extremely difficult from east to west, although this is mostly due to the prevailing westerly winds. Jack London's story "Make Westing" and the circumstances preceding the mutiny on the Bounty poignantly illustrate the difficulty it caused for mariners seeking to round Cape Horn westbound on the clipper ship route from New York to California.[3] The eastbound clipper route, which is the fastest sailing route around the world, follows the ACC around three continental capes – Cape Agulhas (Africa), South East Cape (Australia), and Cape Horn (South America).
The current creates the Ross and Weddell Gyres.
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Antarctic Circumpolar Wave
The Antarctic Circumpolar Wave (ACW) is a coupled ocean/atmosphere wave that circles the Southern Ocean in approximately eight years at 6–8 cm/s (2.4–3.1 in/s).[1] Since it is a wave-2 phenomenon (there are two ridges and two troughs in a latitude circle) at each fixed point in space a signal with a period of four years is seen.[2] The wave moves eastward with the prevailing currents.
History of the concept
Although the "wave" is seen in temperature, atmospheric pressure, sea ice and ocean height, the variations are hard to see in the raw data and need to be filtered to become apparent. Because the reliable record for the Southern Ocean is short (since the early 1980s) and signal processing is needed to reveal its existence, some climatologists doubt the existence of the wave. Others accept its existence but say that it varies in strength over decades.[3]
The wave was discovered simultaneously by White & Peterson 1996 and Jacobs & Mitchell 1996. Since then, ideas about the wave structure and maintenance mechanisms have changed and grown: by some accounts it is now to be considered as part of a global ENSO wave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Wave
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Falkland Current
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Current
The Falkland Current is a cold water current that flows northward along the Atlantic coast of Patagonia as far north as the mouth of the Río de la Plata. This current results from the movement of water from the West Wind Drift as it rounds Cape Horn. It takes its name from the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas). This cold current mixes with the tropical Brazil Current in the Argentine Sea (see Brazil–Falkland Confluence), giving it its temperate climate.[1]
The current is an equatorward flowing current that carries cold and relatively fresh subantarctic water. The Falkland Current is a branch of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. It transports between 60 and 90 Sverdrups of water with speeds ranging from a half a meter to a meter per second. Hydrographic data in this area is very scarce and thus various hydrographic variables have a great deal of error. The Falkland Current is not a surface current like the Brazil Current but it extends all the way to the sea-floor. Typical temperatures for the current are around 6 °C, with a salinity of 33.5–34.5 psu.
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Classification of mesoscale features in the Brazil-Falkland Current confluence zone
2000
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0079661100000112
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The role of the Falkland Current in the dispersal of the squid Loligo gahi along the Patagonian Shelf
2005
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272771405003963
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Ocean Currents
Ocean Currents are defined as the continuous movement of water from one part of the ocean to another. Many forces, such as the prevailing winds, variation in temperature, salinity differences, Coriolis effect, breaking waves, and cabbeling, generate this directed movement of ocean water. Moreover, a current’s direction and strength are influenced by the configuration of the shoreline, depth contours, and interaction with other currents. The ocean currents can flow for vast distances and create a Global Ocean Conveyor Belt, which distributes the massive amount of heat and moisture around the planet. This way, the ocean currents play a critical role in determining the climate of different regions.
Map showing the distribution of the major ocean currents of the world.
https://www.worldatlas.com/oceans/ocean-currents.html
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List of Major Ocean Currents in the World
https://dashamlav.com/ocean-currents-list/
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Ocean Currents and Sea Surface Temperature
2019
https://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-01/Ocean%20Currents%20and%20Sea%20Surface%20Temperature.pdf
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Sea Surface Temperature, Salinity and Density
October 9, 2009
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3652
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The Antarctic Circumpolar Current - 100 times stronger than all the rivers combined
January 8, 2025
The passage of Cape Horn represents the southernmost point of the race, the most intense in terms of current, with a strong presence of ice due to the proximity of Antarctica and powerful winds that complicate navigation.
The circumpolar current goes around Antarctica and carries the Vendée Globe skippers in their race around the South Pole. "It is the strongest of all ocean currents because no land obstacle stops it", emphasizes Clément Vic, researcher at Ifremer at the Physical and Space Oceanography Laboratory. It is most intense south of Cape Horn: the South American tip and the Antarctic Peninsula form a sort of bottleneck called the Drake Passage, with an acceleration effect on the current. The flow is estimated at 170 million cubic meters per second, a flow rate 100 times greater than all the rivers in the world combined.
In this 700 km wide geographical bottleneck, navigators have no escape from depressions that can reach 1000 km in diameter. Unlike the rest of their navigation in the southern hemisphere, where they can bypass storms to the north or south. In addition, this passage is particularly dangerous because of the icebergs or other pieces of ice that have broken off and are not necessarily detected by satellites.
Sensors, satellites and digital models to better understand ocean currents
The oceans are in motion. The wind generates the waves, the Moon and the Sun cause the tides, the rotation of the Earth generates whirlpools. And to add the vertical dimension, the cold and salty water plunges. A vast oceanic conveyor belt thus transports each drop of water around the world, from the surface to the bottom and from the bottom to the surface.
Clément Vic tells us more about the scientific questions he still has about this current mechanics: "We know relatively well how water sinks to the bottom, we know less well how water rises to the surface. The interactions between currents and the ocean floor generate turbulence and specific points of water upwelling. Our latest studies show that the rise of water drops depends on the topography; for example on reliefs like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, water rises at multiple points". Why is it important today to better understand this dynamic of ocean currents? Because they have a decisive impact on our climate. The best-known current, and yet not the strongest, is for example the Gulf Stream, whose extension, the North Atlantic Current, drains mildness and humidity towards Europe and which explains why we do not have a Canadian climate on our coasts.
However, climate change disrupts ocean currents. For example, the melting of ice increases and accelerates the flow of fresh water at the poles with less salty, lighter surface water. How will our conveyor belt react in the coming decades? Is there a risk of it seizing up? To answer this question, scientists are deploying measuring devices in all the world's oceans, for example with the Argo float network. They also use surface observations made using satellites equipped with sensors. Finally, they solve the equations that govern the movements of the oceans using computer calculations. A way to predict what may happen in future climates by 2050 or 2100.
Because the ocean is a significant heat reservoir compared to the atmosphere. Water has a capacity a thousand times greater than air to absorb energy. The ocean thus functions like a sponge that absorbs excess heat from the atmosphere as well as 25% of the CO2 emitted by human activities.
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Why Is It So Hard to Sail Around Cape Horn?
The Southern Ocean is home to several infamously dangerous sailing routes, but none of them are as notorious as the voyage around Cape Horn. This iconic headland, located at the southernmost tip of South America, is known for its treacherous waters and unpredictable weather conditions. In this article, we will explore why it is so hard to sail around Cape Horn.
Geographical Location
Cape Horn is situated in a region where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet. The strong winds and currents from both oceans collide here, creating a volatile environment that even experienced sailors find challenging to navigate.
Unpredictable Weather
The weather conditions around Cape Horn are extremely unpredictable and can change rapidly. One moment it can be sunny and calm, and in the next moment, there can be gale-force winds and towering waves. These weather conditions make it difficult for sailors to plan their route or prepare for what lies ahead.
Waves
The waves near Cape Horn are notorious for their size and power. The combination of strong winds, currents, and shallow waters create steep waves that can reach up to 30 meters in height. These waves are not only intimidating but also dangerous for smaller vessels.
Wind
The wind patterns around Cape Horn are equally unpredictable. The region experiences some of the strongest winds on earth with gusts that can exceed hurricane force. The sudden changes in wind direction and speed make it difficult for sailors to maintain control of their vessel.
Narrow Passage
Another reason why sailing around Cape Horn is so difficult is due to the narrow passage between the headland and Antarctica. The passage is only about 800 kilometers wide, which means that there is little room for error when navigating through it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, sailing around Cape Horn is a challenging and dangerous endeavor for even the most experienced sailors. The combination of unpredictable weather, powerful waves, strong winds, and narrow passages make it one of the toughest sailing routes in the world. Nevertheless, Cape Horn remains a popular destination for adventurous sailors who seek to test their skills and push their limits.
https://trickyfish.co/why-is-it-so-hard-to-sail-around-cape-horn/
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Cape Horn, the ultimate test
2021
Fear and curiosity, a dream or a nightmare. All sailors have a relationship with Cape Horn.
Cape Horn, even the name sounds scary. The cliff is located on Hornos, one of the rugged islands where South America reach down and into the Southern Ocean. The archipelago is called Land of fire, but the climate is by no means hot. The northernmost islands in Antarctica, the South Shetland Islands, are only 800 kilometers away.
Until the Panama Canal was completed in 1914, ships had to sail south of South America to get between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Here in the far south, winds blowing from west to east dominate, called "The roaring forties" and a little further south, "The furious fifties".
- The furious fifties are a belt of weather systems, new low pressures, that constantly passes by, says captain Marcus Seidl.
Apart from the southern tip of South America, there are no large areas of land that affect the wind here in the south, it blows continuously in a circle around the entire globe north of Antarctica, and is often very strong. The wind sets up strong currents and large waves, and you risk hitting larger and smaller icebergs. Scary.
- The area was most notorious with those who were to sail from east to west, towards the weather systems. They could spend several weeks getting around the little point called Cape Horn, getting from the Atlantic Ocean and into the Pacific Ocean, says Captain Marcus Seidl.
https://www.oneoceanexpedition.com/life-on-board/cape-horn-the-ultimate-test
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Drake Passage: The 'most dreaded bit of ocean on the globe' — where waves reach up to 80 feet
March 21, 2025
The Drake Passage is a "melting pot" of currents from the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern oceans, Heywood said. The waters are so turbulent that the layers which normally make up the seas mix together, meaning the passage draws a lot more carbon down into its depths than other parts of the ocean do.
The world's oceans lock away more than 30% of the carbon humans emit into the atmosphere every year, and the Drake Passage could be one of a handful of places where this activity is particularly pronounced, National Geographic reported.
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Timing and Climatic Consequences of the Opening of Drake Passage
21 Apr 2006
Abstract
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1120044
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Energetic overturning flows, dynamic interocean exchanges, and ocean warming observed in the South Atlantic
19 January 2023
Abstract
Since the inception of the international South Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation initiative in the 21st century, substantial advances have been made in observing and understanding the Southern Hemisphere component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Here we synthesize insights gained into overturning flows, interocean exchanges, and water mass distributions and pathways in the South Atlantic. The overturning circulation in the South Atlantic uniquely carries heat equatorward and exports freshwater poleward and consists of two strong overturning cells. Density and pressure gradients, winds, eddies, boundary currents, and interocean exchanges create an energetic circulation in the subtropical and tropical South Atlantic Ocean. The relative importance of these drivers varies with the observed latitude and time scale. AMOC, interocean exchanges, and climate changes drive ocean warming at all depths, upper ocean salinification, and freshening in the deep and abyssal ocean in the South Atlantic. Long-term sustained observations are critical to detect and understand these changes and their impacts.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00644-x
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Observed Storm Track Dynamics in Drake Passage
01 Mar 2019
Abstract
The
dynamics of an oceanic storm track—where energy and enstrophy transfer
between the mean flow and eddies—are investigated using observations
from an eddy-rich region of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current downstream
of the Shackleton Fracture Zone (SFZ) in Drake Passage. Four years of
measurements by an array of current- and pressure-recording inverted
echo sounders deployed between November 2007 and November 2011 are used
to diagnose eddy–mean flow interactions and provide insight into
physical mechanisms for these transfers. Averaged within the upper to
mid-water column (400–1000-m depth) and over the 4-yr-record mean field,
eddy potential energy 
is highest in the western part of the storm track and maximum eddy kinetic energy 
occurs farther away from the SFZ, shifting the proportion of eddy energies from 
to about 1 along the storm track. There are enhanced mean 3D wave activity fluxes 
immediately downstream of SFZ with strong horizontal flux vectors
emanating northeast from this region. Similar patterns across composites
of Polar Front and Subantarctic Front meander intrusions suggest the
dynamics are set more so by the presence of the SFZ than by the eddy’s
sign. A case study showing the evolution of a single eddy event, from 15
to 23 July 2010, highlights the storm-track dynamics in a series of
snapshots. Consistently, explaining the eddy energetics pattern requires
both horizontal and vertical components of W, implying
the importance of barotropic and baroclinic processes and instabilities
in controlling storm-track dynamics in Drake Passage.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/phoc/49/3/jpo-d-18-0150.1.xml
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In the turbulent Drake Passage, scientists find a rare window where carbon sinks quickly into the deep ocean
April 12, 2023
Looking out across the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, I can see whales and seabirds diving in and out of the water as they feed on sea life in the lower levels of the food web. At the base of this food web are tiny phytoplankton – algae that grow at the ocean surface, taking up carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, just as plants on land do.
Because of their small size, phytoplankton are at the mercy of the ocean’s swirling motions. They are also so abundant that the green swirls are often visible from space.
Typically, phytoplankton remain near the surface of the ocean. Some may slowly sink to depth because of gravity. But in the turbulent Drake Passage, a 520-mile-wide (850 km) bottleneck between Antarctica and South America, something unusual is happening, and it has an impact on how the ocean takes carbon dioxide – the main driver of global warming – out of the atmosphere.
The Drake Passage
The Drake Passage is notorious for its violent seas, with waves that can top 40 feet (12 meters) and powerful converging currents, some flowing as fast as 150 million cubic meters per second. Cold water from the Southern Ocean and warmer water from the north collide here, spinning off powerful and energetic eddies.
New scientific research I am involved in as an oceanographer now shows how the Drake Passage and a few other specific areas of the Southern Ocean play an outsize role in how the oceans lock up carbon from the atmosphere.
A topographic map of the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica.
That process is crucial for our understanding of the climate. The global ocean is a massive reservoir of carbon, holding over 50 times as much carbon as the atmosphere. However, it is only when water carrying carbon gets to the deep ocean that carbon can be stored for long periods – up to centuries or millennia.
Photosynthetic phytoplankton are at the heart of that exchange. And in the Drake Passage, my colleagues and I have found that undersea mountains are stirring things up.
The role of ocean layers
The ocean can be visualized as having layers. With constant surface waves and winds, the upper layer is always stirring around, mixing waters. It’s like mixing milk into your morning coffee. This stirring mixes in solar heat and gases, such as carbon dioxide, taken up from the atmosphere.
Water density generally increases as the waters get deeper and colder and saltier. That forms density layers that are typically flat. Since water prefers to keep its density constant, it mostly moves horizontally and doesn’t easily move between the surface and deep ocean.
Yet despite this physical barrier, water testing shows that carbon dioxide produced by human activities is making its way into the deep ocean. One way is through chemistry: Carbon dioxide dissolves in water, creating carbonic acid. Living creatures in the ocean are another.
A view into the Drake Passage
Oceanographers have long pointed to the north Atlantic Ocean and the Southern Ocean as places where surface waters are moved to depth, taking large volumes of carbon with them. However, recent work has shown that this process may actually be dominated by only a few areas – including the Drake Passage.
Despite its being one of the most famous stretches of the ocean, scientists have only recently been able to observe this window in action.
The main flow of the Drake Passage is created by the effect of strong westerly winds across the Southern Ocean. Scientists have found that the westerly winds create a slope in the water density, with dense waters shallower closer to Antarctica, where colder melt water caps the surface, but sloping deeper into the ocean farther north toward South America.
Unlike in most of the ocean, density layers in the Drake Passage slope downward, allowing phytoplankton to mix downward as well as sideways.
With advances in autonomous underwater robots and computer modeling, we have been able to show how the flow of the Southern Ocean interacts with an underwater mountain in the Drake Passage. This underwater interaction mixes up the ocean, enhancing that coffeelike stirring process.
The stirring along the sloped density levels provides a pathway for water from the upper layer of the ocean to move into the depths. And phytoplankton at the surface ocean are carried along with this stirring, moving to depth much faster than they would by gravitational sinking alone.
In a less energetic region, these phytoplankton would die and respire their carbon back to the atmosphere or slowly sink. However, at the Drake Passage, phytoplankton can be swept to depth before this happens, meaning the carbon they’ve taken up from the atmosphere is sequestered in the deep ocean. Carbon dissolved and stored in the deep ocean may also vent out in these locations.
Scientists have estimated that the deepest ocean waters directly interact with the atmosphere through only about 5% of the ocean’s surface area. This is one of those special places.
Investigating the Drake Passage and other oceanographic windows allows science to home in on better understanding climate change and the workings of our blue planet.
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Convention on the conservation of antarctic marine living resources
1980
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378777X80801454
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Thermal convection in ice sheets: New data, new tests
2012
https://www.scirp.org/html/1-8301678_20743.htm
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Central tropical Pacific convection drives extreme high temperatures and surface melt on the Larsen C Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula
2022
Abstract
Northern sections of the Larsen Ice Shelf, eastern Antarctic Peninsula (AP) have experienced dramatic break-up and collapse since the early 1990s due to strong summertime surface melt, linked to strengthened circumpolar westerly winds. Here we show that extreme summertime surface melt and record-high temperature events over the eastern AP and Larsen C Ice Shelf are triggered by deep convection in the central tropical Pacific (CPAC), which produces an elongated cyclonic anomaly across the South Pacific coupled with a strong high pressure anomaly over Drake Passage. Together these atmospheric circulation anomalies transport very warm and moist air to the southwest AP, often in the form of “atmospheric rivers”, producing strong foehn warming and surface melt on the eastern AP and Larsen C Ice Shelf. Therefore, variability in CPAC convection, in addition to the circumpolar westerlies, is a key driver of AP surface mass balance and the occurrence of extreme high temperatures.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9279480/
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Persistent warm-eddy transport to Antarctic ice shelves driven by enhanced summer westerlies
22 January 2024
Abstract
The offshore ocean heat supplied to the Antarctic continental shelves by warm eddies has the potential to greatly impact the melting rates of ice shelves and subsequent global sea level rise. While featured in modeling and some observational studies, the processes around how these warm eddies form and overcome the dynamic sub-surface barrier of the Antarctic Slope Front over the upper continental slope has not yet been clarified. Here we report on the detailed observations of persistent eddies carrying warm modified Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) onto the continental shelf of Prydz Bay, East Antarctica, using subsurface mooring and hydrographic section data from 2013-2015. We show the warm-eddy transport is most active when the summer westerlies strengthen, which promotes the upwelling of CDW and initiates eddy formation and intrusions. Our study highlights the important role of warm eddies in the melting of Antarctica’s ice shelves, both now and into the future.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45010-x
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Ocean eddy currents funnel extreme heat and cold to the life-filled depths
October 19. 2024
https://phys.org/news/2024-10-ocean-eddy-currents-funnel-extreme.html
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The role of double-diffusive convection in basal melting of Antarctic ice shelves
2020
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2007541118
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Bathymetry and geological setting of the South Sandwich Islands volcanic arc
18 March 2016
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/bathymetry-and-geological-setting-of-the-south-sandwich-islands-volcanic-arc/4FDAD855C6E08E1901C08DE52C52E15E
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An ocean like no other: the Southern Ocean’s ecological richness and significance for global climate
December 6, 2020
In 2018, a map named after an oceanographer went viral.
The so-called Spilhaus projection, in which Earth is viewed from above the South Pole, was designed to show the connected nature of the ocean basins.
It is a perspective that comes naturally to those who live in the ocean-dominated southern hemisphere.
The Southern Ocean, also called the Antarctic Ocean (or even the Austral ocean), is like no other and best described in superlatives.
Storing heat and carbon
Let’s first look at the Southern Ocean’s capacity to store excess heat and carbon. The world’s oceans take up more than 90% of the excess heat generated by the burning of fossil fuels and a third of the additional carbon dioxide.
The Southern Ocean, south of 30°S, is estimated to store about 75% of this global oceanic uptake of excess heat and about 35% of the global uptake of excess carbon from the atmosphere. It is the primary storage of heat and carbon for the planet.
The Southern Ocean connects all major ocean basins, except the Arctic. The link is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) – the largest ocean current on the planet. It carries more than 100 times the flow of all the rivers on Earth and transports enough water to fill Lake Ontario in just a few hours.
A combination of strong winds and a nearly uninterrupted passage around Antarctica give the ACC its strong flows and speed.
Mixing global currents
The Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Screaming Sixties are all popular names for the strong westerly winds that blow, nearly uninterrupted, across the Southern Ocean, creating equally impressive waves. This results in a massively energetic – and hard to measure – ocean surface.
But the heat and carbon exchanges across this complicated interface are globally important, and oceanographers have designed tools specifically for this challenging environment.
To really comprehend the Southern Ocean, one must think in three dimensions. Waters with different properties mix both horizontally and vertically in eddies.
Relatively warm subtropical water is mixed south, deep cool water from the North Atlantic rises back up toward the surface and colder polar water masses mix northward and sink back down.
This complex interplay is guided by the wind and by the shape of the seafloor.
To the north, there are only three major constrictions: the 850km-wide Drake Passage, and the submarine Kerguelan and Campbell Plateaus. To the south, the ACC butts up against Antarctica.
Here the ocean plays another crucial role in the global climate system by bringing relatively warm — and warming — Circumpolar Deep Water into contact with the ice fringing Antarctica.
Annual thaw and freeze of sea ice
The annual cycle of sea ice growing and melting around Antarctica is one of the defining rhythms of our planet and an important facet of the Southern Ocean. The two polar regions couldn’t be more different in this regard.
The Arctic is a small, deep ocean surrounded by land with only narrow exits. The Antarctic is a large landmass with a continental shelf surrounded by ocean. Each year, 15 million square kilometres of sea ice advance and retreat in these waters.
In contrast to the clear and dramatic changes in the north, the rhythm of Antarctic sea ice has followed less obvious patterns. In the face of a warming ocean, it was actually slowly expanding northward until around 2016, when it suddenly started to contract.
Read more: Why Antarctica's sea ice cover is so low (and no, it's not just about climate change)
Looking at the annual cycle of Antarctic sea ice, one might think it simply grows and melts in place as things get cold and warmer through the year. But in truth, much of the sea ice production happens in polynya – sea ice factories near the coast where cold and fast Antarctic winds both create and blow away new sea ice as fast as it appears.
This process brings us back to global ocean circulation. When the new ice grows, the salt from the freezing sea water gets squeezed out and mixes with the seawater below, creating colder and saltier seawater that sinks to the seafloor and drains northward.
Polynya are in effect a metro stop on a global transport system that sees water sinking at the poles, flowing north to be mixed upwards in a cycle lasting close to 1,000 years.
Not all ice shelves respond the same
Computer simulations have shown how the ice shelves at Antarctica’s fringe have waxed and waned over past millennia.
Because these floating extensions of the ice sheet interact directly with the ocean, they make the ice sheet sensitive to climate. Ocean warming and changes in the source of the water coming into contact with an ice shelf can cause it – and in turn the whole ice sheet – to change.
But not all ice shelves will respond to warming in the same way. Some ocean cavities are cold and slowly evolving. Others are actually described as hot – in polar terms – because of their interaction with Circumpolar Deep Water. The latter are changing rapidly right now.
We can observe many cryosphere processes from space, but to truly understand how far the ocean reaches beneath the ice we have to go hundreds of metres beneath the ice surface.
Making climate predictions requires an understanding of detailed processes that happen on short timescales, such as tidal cycles, in parts of the planet we are only beginning to explore.
Observing the Screaming Sixties
How do we sample something so big and so stormy? With robots.
Satellites have been observing the ocean surface since the 1980s. This technology can measure properties such as temperature and ocean surface height, and even be used to estimate biological productivity. But satellites can’t see beneath the surface.
When the game-changing Argo programme started in the 1990s, it revolutionised earth science by building a network of drifting ocean sentinels measuring temperature and salinity down to a depth of two kilometres.
The research vessel Kaharoa holds the record for the most deployments of Argo probes in the Southern Ocean, including its most recent storm-tossed, COVID-19-impacted voyage south of Australia and into the Indian Ocean.
The Argo program is only the start of a new era of ocean observation. Deep Argo probes dive to depths of 6km to detect how far down ocean warming is penetrating.
The past and future Southern Ocean
Earth hasn’t always looked as it does today. At times in the planet’s past, the Southern Ocean didn’t even exist. Continents and ocean basins were in different positions and the climate system operated very differently.
From the narrow view of human evolution, the Southern Ocean has been a stable component of a climate system and subject to relatively benign glacial oscillations. But glacial cycles play out over tens of thousands of years.
We are imposing a very rapid climate transient. The nearly three centuries since the start of the industrial revolution is shorter than the blink of an eye in geological context.
Future changes in the short (say by 2050) and long (by 2300) term are difficult to project. While the physics are relatively clear about what will happen, predicting when it will happen is more challenging.
Simulation tools that get the ocean, atmosphere and ice processes right are only starting to include ice shelf cavities and ocean eddies. The most recent synthesis of climate models shows progress in the simulated workings of the Southern Ocean. But sea ice remains a challenge to simulate well.
This is the frontier: a global research community working to connect data with rapidly improving computer models to better understand how this unique ocean operates...
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Decline of Antarctic Circumpolar Current due to polar ocean freshening (Debated)
3 March 2025
Abstract
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the world's strongest ocean current and plays a disproportionate role in the climate system due to its role as a conduit for major ocean basins. This current system is linked to the ocean's vertical overturning circulation, and is thus pivotal to the uptake of heat and CO2 in the ocean. The strength of the ACC has varied substantially across warm and cold climates in Earth's past, but the exact dynamical drivers of this change remain elusive. This is in part because ocean models have historically been unable to adequately resolve the small-scale processes that control current strength. Here, we assess a global ocean model simulation which resolves such processes to diagnose the impact of changing thermal, haline and wind conditions on the strength of the ACC. Our results show that, by 2050, the strength of the ACC declines by ∼20% for a high-emissions scenario. This decline is driven by meltwater from ice shelves around Antarctica, which is exported to lower latitudes via the Antarctic Intermediate Water. This process weakens the zonal density stratification historically supported by surface temperature gradients, resulting in a slowdown of sub-surface zonal currents. Such a decline in transport, if realised, would have major implications on the global ocean circulation.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/adb31c
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New Research Sparks Concerns That Ocean Circulation Will Collapse (Debated / Controversial)
April 18, 2023
Scientists have long feared that warming could cause a breakdown of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic. But new research finds the real risk lies in Antarctica’s waters, where melting could disrupt currents in the next few decades, with profound impacts on global climate.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-ocean-circulation-collapse-antarctica
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Shutdown of Southern Ocean convection controls long-term greenhouse gas-induced warming
27 September 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00825-x
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Scientists say the global ocean circulation may be more vulnerable to shutdown than we thought
January 5, 2017
https://www.arctictoday.com/scientists-say-the-global-ocean-circulation-may-be-more-vulnerable-to-shutdown-than-we-thought/
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Shelf–ocean exchange and hydrography west of the Antarctic Peninsula: a review
14 May 2018
Abstract
The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is a highly productive marine ecosystem where extended periods of change have been observed in the form of glacier retreat, reduction of sea-ice cover and shifts in marine populations, among others. The physical environment on the shelf is known to be strongly influenced by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing along the shelf slope and carrying warm, nutrient-rich water, by cold waters flooding into the northern Bransfield Strait from the Weddell Sea, by an extensive network of glaciers and ice shelves, and by strong seasonal to inter-annual variability in sea-ice formation and air–sea interactions, with significant modulation by climate modes like El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Southern Annular Mode. However, significant gaps have remained in understanding the exchange processes between the open ocean and the shelf, the pathways and fate of oceanic water intrusions, the shelf heat and salt budgets, and the long-term evolution of the shelf properties and circulation. Here, we review how recent advances in long-term monitoring programmes, process studies and newly developed numerical models have helped bridge these gaps and set future research challenges for the WAP system.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2017.0164
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Microbial diversity and community structure across environmental gradients in Bransfield Strait, Western Antarctic Peninsula.
16 Dec 2014
https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/4267279
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TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL BENTHIC VARIATION ALONG THE BRANSFIELD AND GERLACHE STRAITS, ANTARCTICA
2011
https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/E0/04/29/97/00001/miner_m.pdf
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Geochemical signatures of tephras from Quaternary Antarctic Peninsula volcanoes
2013
https://www.scielo.cl/pdf/andgeol/v40n1/art01.pdf
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Helium in the Branslieid Strait waters: indication for local injection from back-arc rifting
1987
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42964594.pdf
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Geophysical investigation in sediment cores and its relationship with the governing sedimentary processes at Bransfield Basin, Antarctica
2022
https://www.scielo.br/j/aabc/a/zDYWBVMpqBLg3888dwnWdLt/
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Late Holocene climate change recorded in proxy records from a Bransfield Basin sediment core, Antarctic Peninsula
11 Jun 2014
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/polar.v33.17236
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Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles and Their Role in Earth’s Climate
Feb 27, 2020
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/
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Last Glacial Period
The
Last Glacial Period (LGP), also known as the Last glacial cycle,
occurred from the end of the Last Interglacial to the beginning of the
Holocene, c. 115,000 – c. 11,700 years ago, and thus corresponds to most
of the timespan of the Late Pleistocene.
The LGP is part of a
larger sequence of glacial and interglacial periods known as the
Quaternary glaciation which started around 2,588,000 years ago and is
ongoing.[2] The glaciation and the current Quaternary Period both began
with the formation of the Arctic ice cap. The Antarctic ice sheet began
to form earlier, at about 34 Mya (million years ago), in the
mid-Cenozoic (Eocene–Oligocene extinction event), and the term Late
Cenozoic Ice Age is used to include this early phase with the current
glaciation.[3] The previous ice age within the Quaternary is the
Penultimate Glacial Period, which ended about 128,000 years ago, was
more severe than the Last Glacial Period in some areas such as Britain,
but less severe in others.
The last glacial period saw
alternating episodes of glacier advance and retreat with the Last
Glacial Maximum occurring between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. While the
general pattern of cooling and glacier advance around the globe was
similar, local differences make it difficult to compare the details from
continent to continent (see picture of ice core data below for
differences). The most recent cooling, the Younger Dryas, began around
12,800 years ago and ended around 11,700 years ago, also marking the end
of the LGP and the Pleistocene epoch. It was followed by the Holocene,
the current geological epoch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Period
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Earth’s tilt angle trigger for ending ice ages
March 13, 2020
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/earth-sciences/earths-tilt-angle-trigger-for-ending-ice-ages/
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Ice ages ended with a tilt of the planet
March 13th, 2020
https://www.futurity.org/ice-ages-end-earths-axis-2306002/
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Ice Ages Blamed on Tilted Earth
March 30, 2005
https://www.livescience.com/6937-ice-ages-blamed-tilted-earth.html
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Earth Tilted 31.5 Inches in Less Than 20 Years. Here’s What That Really Means for Us
Aug 23, 2023
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a44882114/earths-tilt-explained/
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Axial precession
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession
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Axial tilt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt
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African humid period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period
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Earth's Axis Tilted Dangerously 84 Million Years Ago, May Happen Again Says Study
Oct 21, 2021
Scientists have found that Earth had a dangerous tilt in its axis about 84 million years ago, which was reversed automatically
https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/science-and-future/earth-axis-tilt-84-million-years-ago-552180.html
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The Earth’s Axial Wobble: A Tiny Tilt With Big Impacts
April 30, 2025
https://discoverwildscience.com/the-earths-axial-wobble-a-tiny-tilt-with-big-impacts-1-301966/
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Earth's Tilt Has Shifted Over 30 Inches-What Does It Mean?
2024
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Record-low Antarctic sea ice can be explained and forecast months out by patterns in winds
December 6, 2024
https://www.washington.edu/news/2024/12/06/record-low-antarctic-sea-ice-can-be-explained-and-forecast-months-out-by-patterns-in-winds/
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Rapid declines in Antarctic sea ice whip up more storms
19/12/2024
https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/antarctic-sea-ice-decline-generates-more-storms/
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Detection of Surface Crevasses over Antarctic Ice Shelves Using SAR Imagery and Deep Learning Method
20 January 2022
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/14/3/487/htm
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Researchers spot rare Antarctic 'dragon-skin' ice
May 10, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-rare-antarctic-dragon-skin-ice.html
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Types of Sea Ice in Antarctica
Jun 9, 2020
One of the first things you might think of when you think of Antarctica is likely ice, and lots of it. They don’t call it the ‘great white continent’ for nothing, and there’s more sea ice there than any place on earth. But did you know there are many, many different kinds of sea ice?
Sea ice comes in a wide variety of shapes and forms, depending on its stage in development as well as a number of environmental and meteorological conditions. Let’s take a closer look at the types of ice you’ll discover in Antarctica.
Icebergs
Icebergs are large floating masses of freshwater from glaciers or ice shelves that have broken. You can recognize tabular icebergs as they are flat-topped and show banding where they calved.
Pancake Ice
Named for circular pancake-like slabs, this sea ice is created through wind and wave action. Pancake Ice will combine with icy slush to become wider and raft with others to become thicker. Eventually the pancakes freeze together into larger floes or solid ice.
Nilas Ice
This is an early stage in the development of new sea ice. Nilas ice is a thin elastic crust of ice, bending easily around waves and swells without breaking, and forming a pattern of interlocking ‘fingers’ up to 10 cm thick.
Young Ice
Young Ice is in the transition stage between nilas and first-year ice, measuring 10-30 cm in thickness.
First-Year Ice
Sea ice of not more than one winter’s growth and has developed from young ice. It measures 30 cm or greater.
Old Ice
Old Ice is sea ice that has survived at least one summer’s melt. It is generally smoother in appearance than first-year ice.
Bergy Bits
The most fun to say, ‘bergy bits’ are pieces of floating ice that are less than 5 meters high and 10 meters across.
Growlers
A growler is a piece of floating ice that is almost awash. Smaller than bergy bits, growlers can be dangerous as they are difficult to see and very hard.
Drift Ice
Drift Ice are pieces of floating sea ice that are 20m or more across.
Brash Ice
Brash Ice is the ‘wreckage’ of other sea ice, smaller pieces of sea ice that have broken off and are not more than 2m across.
Pack Ice
When drift and brash ice are driven together by wind and currents it creates Pack Ice.
Fast Ice
This is ice that quickly forms and remains attached to the shore, or to an ice front such as an ice wall, shoals, or iceberg.
Floe
An ice floe is any relatively flat piece of ice 20m or more across. Floes are subdivided by size:
- Small: 20-100m across
- Medium: 100-500m across
- Big: 500-2,000m across
- Vast: 2-10km across
- Giant: Greater than 10km across
Who knew there were so many different types of sea ice? Now that you are informed, you can show off this new knowledge to all your fellow passengers on your very own voyage to Antarctica.
https://polar-latitudes.com/science/sea-ice-in-antarctica/
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Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet
2020
https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica-2/antarctic-peninsula-2/
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Discovery of 'hidden world' under Antarctic ice has scientists 'jumping for joy'
June 10, 2022
The secret ecosystem was found more than 1,600 feet below the surface.
A never-before-seen ecosystem lurks in an underground river deep below the icy surface in Antarctica. Researchers recently brought this "hidden world" into the light, revealing a dark and jagged cavern filled with swarms of tiny, shrimplike creatures.
The scientists found the secret subterranean habitat tucked away beneath the Larsen Ice Shelf — a massive, floating sheet of ice attached to the eastern coast of the Antarctic peninsula that famously birthed the world's largest iceberg in 2021. Satellite photos showed an unusual groove in the ice shelf close to where it met with the land, and researchers identified the peculiar feature as a subsurface river, which they described in a statement. The team drilled down around 1,640 feet (500 meters) below the ice's surface using a powerful hot-water hose to reach the underground chamber.
When the researchers sent a camera down through the icy tunnel and into the cavern, hundreds of tiny, blurry flecks in the water obscured the video feed. Initially, the team thought their equipment was faulty. But after refocusing the camera, they realized that the lens was being swarmed by tiny crustaceans known as amphipods. This caught the team off guard, as they had not expected to find any type of life this far below the icy surface.
https://www.livescience.com/hidden-ecosystem-under-antarctic-ice
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Evolution of the Antarctic continental margins
December 1987
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264309923_Evolution_of_the_Antarctic_continental_margins
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Strong ice-ocean interaction beneath Shirase Glacier Tongue in East Antarctica
2020 Aug 24
Abstract
Mass loss from the Antarctic ice sheet, Earth’s largest freshwater
reservoir, results directly in global sea-level rise and Southern Ocean
freshening. Observational and modeling studies have demonstrated that
ice shelf basal melting, resulting from the inflow of warm water onto
the Antarctic continental shelf, plays a key role in the ice sheet’s
mass balance. In recent decades, warm ocean-cryosphere interaction in
the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas has received a great deal of
attention. However, except for Totten Ice Shelf, East Antarctic ice
shelves typically have cold ice cavities with low basal melt rates. Here
we present direct observational evidence of high basal melt rates
(7–16 m yr−1) beneath an East Antarctic ice shelf, Shirase
Glacier Tongue, driven by southward-flowing warm water guided by a deep
continuous trough extending to the continental slope. The strength of
the alongshore wind controls the thickness of the inflowing warm water
layer and the rate of basal melting.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7445286/
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Now tests show the ice ISN'T melting: Sea water under shelf in the East Antarctic is still freezing
12 January 2010
Sea water under an East Antarctic ice shelf showed no sign of higher temperatures, first tests showed today.
Despite
fears of a thaw linked to global warming that could bring higher world
ocean levels, tests conducted on the Fimbul Ice Shelf showed the sea
water is still around freezing point.
Thanks to sensors, lowered
through three holes drilled in the shelf, scientists have discovered the
water is not at higher temperatures widely blamed for the break-up of
10 shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, the most northerly part of the
frozen continent.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242398/Now-tests-ice-ISNT-melting-Sea-water-shelf-East-Antarctic-freezing.html
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Effects of Waves on Tabular Ice-Shelf Calving
Mar 3, 2013
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/american-meteorological-society/effects-of-waves-on-tabular-ice-shelf-calving-tJxGMwZToB
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East Antarctic Landfast Sea Ice Distribution and Variability, 2000–08
2012
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/american-meteorological-society/east-antarctic-landfast-sea-ice-distribution-and-variability-2000-08-tQqWJEQefu
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Change and variability in East Antarctic Sea ice seasonality, 1979/80-2009/10
2013
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23705008/
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Antarctic sticks out huge annual ice 'tongue'
24 June 2008
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14192-antarctic-sticks-out-huge-annual-ice-tongue/
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Extensive retreat and re-advance of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Holocene
1 June 2018
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Extensive-retreat-and-re-advance-of-the-West-Ice-Kingslake-Scherer/f2308908d6deae6f69987c254ccc79522ff6718f
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The suppression of Antarctic bottom water formation by melting ice shelves in Prydz Bay
2016
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27552365/
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Scientists Find Low Levels of Heavy Metals in Saithe
24 February 2014
https://thefishsite.com/articles/scientists-find-low-levels-of-heavy-metals-in-saithe
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Eoarchean
The Eoarchean ( /ˌiːoʊ.ɑːrˈkiːən/; also spelled Eoarchaean) is the first era of the Archean Eon of the geologic record. It spans 400 million years, from the end of the Hadean Eon 4 billion years ago (4000 Mya) to the start of the Paleoarchean Era 3600 Mya. The beginnings of life on Earth have been dated to this era and evidence of cyanobacteria date to 3500 Mya, comparatively shortly after the Eoarchean. At that time, the atmosphere was without oxygen and the pressure values ranged from 10 to 100 bar (around 10 to 100 times the atmospheric pressure today).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eoarchean
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Propagation of barotropic Kelvin waves around Antarctica
05 May 2022
Abstract
Barotropic (i.e., depth-uniform) coastal oceanic Kelvin waves can provide rapid teleconnections from climate and weather events in one location to remote regions of the globe. Studies suggest that barotropic Kelvin waves observed around Antarctica may provide a mechanism for rapidly propagating circulation anomalies around the continent, with implications for continental shelf temperatures along the West Antarctic Peninsula and thus Antarctic ice mass loss rates. However, how the propagation of Kelvin waves around Antarctica is influenced by features such as coastal geometry and variations in bathymetry remains poorly understood. Here we study the propagation of barotropic Antarctic Kelvin waves using a range of idealized model simulations. Using a single-layer linear shallow water model with 1∘ horizontal resolution, we gradually add complexity of continental configuration, realistic bathymetry, variable planetary rotation, and forcing scenarios, to isolate sources and sinks of wave energy and the mechanisms responsible. We find that approximately 75% of sub-inertial barotropic Kelvin wave energy is scattered away from Antarctica as other waves in one circumnavigation of the continent, due mostly to interactions with bathymetry. Super-inertial barotropic Kelvin waves lose nearly 95% of their energy in one circumpolar loop, due to interactions with both coastal geometry and bathymetry. These results help to explain why only sustained signals of low-frequency resonant barotropic Kelvin waves have been observed around Antarctica, and contribute to our understanding of the role of rapid, oceanic teleconnections in climate.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10236-022-01506-y
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Kelvin Waves around Antarctica
01 Nov 2014
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/phoc/44/11/jpo-d-14-0051.1.xml
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How Kelvin waves convert East Antarctic winds to West Antarctic ice melt
July 17, 2017
Higher rates of ice melt on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula – not far from where a large chunk of the Larsen C ice sheet broke off to create one of largest icebergs ever recorded – may be driven by strengthening winds 6,000 kilometres away on the eastern side of the polar continent, suggests new research.
It’s all to do, according to the paper published in Nature Climate Change, with the closer proximity of the peninsula to the warmer water of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and with Kelvin waves – the giant planetary waves driven by gravity and the inertial motion of the Earth’s rotation (known as the Coriolis force).
Kelvin waves follow along coastlines in a general east-to-west direction, though they will travel north and south when the coast does. When these waves, travelling around the continent at almost 700 km/h, reach the steep underwater topography of the West Antarctic Peninsula, they push warmer water up underneath the ice sheets along the peninsula’s shoreline.
“It is this combination of available warm water offshore, and a transport of this warm water onto the shelf, that has seen rapid ice shelf melt along the West Antarctic sector over the past several decades,” explains lead researcher Paul Spence, of the University of New South Wales. “We always knew warm water was finding its way into this area but the precise mechanism has remained unclear. That remote winds on the opposite side of Antarctica can cause such a substantial subsurface warming is a worrying aspect of the circulation at the Antarctic margin...”
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Scientists observe rapid ozone fluctuations over the Antarctic polar vortex edge area
May 12, 2021
The polar vortex is a large area of upper-atmosphere cyclonic air circulation surrounding both poles. It is bounded by the polar jet stream and its associated cold air is usually confined to the polar regions. Within the Antarctic circle, and southern polar vortex, ozone quantities are the lowest, globally. A research published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, led by Dr. Luo Yuhan, corresponding author and Associate Professor at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), suggests that the polar vortex plays a key role in Antarctic stratospheric ozone depletion.
"The atmosphere over Antarctica is controlled by a strong polar vortex in winter, making it difficult to exchange with the mid-latitude atmosphere." said Dr. Luo. "The extremely low air temperatures (<195 K) inside the polar vortex, lead to the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs)."
Dr. Luo further explained that PSCs are primarily composed of nitrate trihydrate and water ice, along with smaller concentrations of other volatile compounds. These aerosols provide surfaces for heterogeneous reactions that convert halogen reservoirs to active halogens which cause severe ozone depletion.
The team used Zenith Scattered Light Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (ZSL-DOAS) techniques to measure ozone depletion near the edge of the polar vortex at the Fildes Peninsula on King George Island (62.22S, 58.96W). ZSL-DOAS can accurately quantify the column density of ozone. The ozone columns were compared with the stratospheric ozone profiles from NASA's MERRA2 ozone database and PV profiles from the ECMWF dataset, which helped better understand the causes of ozone depletion.
"PV is used to characterize the polar vortex and determine the edge of polar vortex by Nash's criterion." said Qian Yuanyan, a Ph.D. candidate working with Dr. Luo, and the first author of this paper. Nash's criterion suggests that the vortex typically lies at or south of 65° equivalent latitude, based on PV values.
Results show that PV is positively correlated with total ozone columns, and both variables trend up and down at the same pace.
"The observations conducted in this study contribute to a base for further analysis to improve the prediction of the inter-annual variations of stratospheric ozone." said Dr. Luo. "This will provide a better understanding of ozone recovery and stratosphere-troposphere exchange over the polar vortex edge area."
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-scientists-rapid-ozone-fluctuations-antarctic.html
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NEW JET STREAM FOUND IN PACIFIC; Located Near Antarctica, It Sweeps Over New Zealand Toward South America
Dec. 17, 1957
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Global Ban on Ozone-Eating Chemicals Credited in Change to Southern Jet Stream
March 25, 2020
International efforts to curb ozone-depleting chemicals have paused and potentially reversed shifting jet stream winds that affect storm patterns, ocean temperatures and Antarctic sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere, scientists found in a study released Wednesday.
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The southern jet stream is moving back to normal thanks to global efforts
2020
Have you ever heard of the southern jet stream? It’s a powerful wind that shapes weather patterns and ocean currents in the southern hemisphere, particularly in the summer. Up until about 2000, it had been shifting from its usual course and moving southwards towards the Antarctic at a rate of one degree of latitude each decade, affecting storm tracks and rainfall over South America, East Africa, and Australia.
Affected by holes in the ozone layer
Previous research has shown this was primarily driven by the depletion of the ozone layer by manmade chemical compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons, found in fridges, aerosols and other industrial processes. These chemicals, which were used in vast quantities until they started to be phased out under the United Nations 1987 Montreal protocol, thinned the ozone layer, causing a widening “hole” high above the south pole that affected wind patterns.
Back on track
But according to a paper, the Montreal protocol made a huge impact. Not only has it allowed the ozone repair itself, but its also helping to return the southern jet stream to a normal state after decades of human-caused disruption. The new paper, published in the journal Nature, shows that the Montreal protocol has paused the southward movement of the jet stream since the turn of the century and may even be starting to reverse it as the ozone hole begins to close.
Last September, satellite images revealed the ozone hole annual peak had shrunk to 16.4m sq km, the smallest extent since 1982. It’s a success story in international cooperation and should motivate us further as we fight to spare the planet from the climate crisis.
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Ozone depletion trumps greenhouse gas increase in jet-stream shift
January 31, 2013
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Depletion of Antarctic ozone is a more important factor than increasing greenhouse gases in shifting the Southern Hemisphere jet stream in a southward direction, according to researchers at Penn State.
"Previous research suggests that this southward shift in the jet stream has contributed to changes in ocean circulation patterns and precipitation patterns in the Southern Hemisphere, both of which can have important impacts on people's livelihoods," said Sukyoung Lee, professor of meteorology.
According to Lee, based on modeling studies, both ozone depletion and greenhouse gas increase are thought to have contributed to the southward shift of the Southern Hemisphere jet stream, with the former having a greater impact. But until now, no one has been able to determine the extent to which each of these two forcings has contributed to the shift using observational data.
"Understanding the differences between these two forcings is important in predicting what will happen as the ozone hole recovers," she said. "The jet stream is expected to shift back toward the north as ozone is replenished, yet the greenhouse-gas effect could negate this."
Lee and her colleague, Steven Feldstein, professor of meteorology, developed a new method to distinguish between the effects of the two forcings. The method uses a cluster analysis to investigate the effects of ozone and greenhouse gas on several different observed wind patterns.
"When most people look at ozone and greenhouse gases, they focus on one wind pattern, but my previous research suggests that, by looking at several different but similar patterns, you can learn more about what is really happening," said Feldstein.
In their study, the researchers analyzed four wind patterns. The first wind pattern corresponded to an equatorward shift of the midlatitude westerlies toward the equator. The second pattern also described an equatorward shift, but included a strong tropical component. The third pattern corresponded to a poleward shift of the westerlies toward the South Pole with a weakening in the maximum strength of the jet. The fourth pattern corresponded to a smaller poleward jet shift with a strong tropical component.
In addition to their novel inclusion of more than one wind pattern in their analysis, the scientists investigated the four wind patterns at very short time scales.
"Climate models are usually run for many years; they don't look at the day-to-day weather," said Feldstein. "But we learned that the four wind patterns fluctuate over about 10 days, so they change on a time scale that is similar to daily weather. This realization means that by taking into account fluctuations associated with the daily weather, it will be easier to test theories about the mechanism by which ozone and greenhouse gases influence the jet stream."
The researchers used an algorithm to examine the relationship between daily weather patterns and the four wind patterns. They found that the first wind pattern -- which corresponded to an equatorward shift of the midlatitude westerlies -- was associated with greenhouse gases. They also found that the third pattern -- which corresponded to a poleward shift of the westerlies -- was associated with ozone. The other two wind patterns were unrelated to either of the forcings. The researchers found that a long-term decline in the frequency of the first pattern and a long-term increase in the frequency of the third pattern can explain the changes in the Southern Hemisphere jet stream.
"Ozone had the bigger impact on the change in the position of the jet stream," said Lee. "The opposite is likely true for the Northern Hemisphere; we think that ozone has a limited influence on the Northern Hemisphere. Understanding which of these forcings is most important in certain locations may help policy makers as they begin to plan for the future."
In addition to finding that ozone is more important than greenhouse gases in influencing the jet-stream shift, the scientists also found evidence for a mechanism by which greenhouse gases influence the jet-stream shift. They learned that greenhouse gases may not directly influence the jet-stream shift, but rather may indirectly influence the shift by changing tropical convection or the vertical transfer of heat in large-scale cloud systems, which in turn, influences the jet shift. The researchers currently are further examining this and other possible mechanisms for how greenhouse gases and ozone influence the jet stream as well as Antarctic sea ice.
The results will appear in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Science.
"Not only are the results of this paper important for better understanding climate change, but this paper is also important because it uses a new approach to try to better understand climate change; it uses observational data on a short time scale to try to look at cause and effect, which is something that is rarely done in climate research," said Feldstein. "Also, our results are consistent with climate models, so this paper provides support that climate models are performing well at simulating the atmospheric response to ozone and greenhouse gases."
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The polar vortex above the Arctic has been spinning backwards for weeks. Here's why.
March 28, 2024
Atmospheric scientists were surprised earlier this month to notice that the Arctic's polar vortex reversed its trajectory as it began spinning in the opposite direction. What's more: It has yet to stop.
The change occurred around March 4 and is among the six strongest such events since 1979, Amy Butler, a climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told Spaceweather.com.
The rotating mass of cold air that circles in the Arctic stratosphere is infamous for triggering extreme cold and storms in various regions, but fortunately that has not happened in this case, according to Butler, the author of NOAA's new polar vortex blog. Instead, what Butler calls "Sudden Stratospheric Warming events" led to an increase of polar ozone from lower latitudes surrounding the Arctic, causing the swirling reversal.
"Atmospheric planetary waves have been breaking in the polar stratosphere, increasing its temperature," Butler told SpaceWeather.com. "Also, warming air helps prevent chemical ozone loss."
The so-called "ozone spike" is the biggest in the month of March since record-keeping began in 1979, the outlet reported.
What is a polar vortex?
The stratospheric polar vortex is a large-scale region of circulating winds that helps to confine cold air to the polar regions, according to NASA.
But when it weakens or is disturbed, that cold air can leak into lower latitudes and cause major weather events.
Residing high up in the stratosphere about 30 miles above Earth's surface, the vortex is most prominent during the winter. The winds spin at speeds of around 155 mph, according to the U.K. Met Office, nearly matching the minimum wind speed for a Category 5 hurricane.
Disruptions to the polar vortex can cause severe weather in the U.S., such as in 2021 when Louisville, Kentucky saw "an abrupt end to the mostly tranquil weather the region had experienced for much of 2020," according to NOAA.
What caused the polar vortex reversal?
According to NOAA, the vortex has been noticeably active this winter.
The prevailing west-to-east "screaming-fast winds" circling the North Pole have completely reversed twice this year, the agency said in a March 20 blog post.
The culprit for the disruption lies on a sudden atmospheric warming caused by planetary waves that jostle the stratosphere from below and can reverse a vortex's flow, according to NOAA.
The disruptions can also have an effect on weather here in the U.S., such as the cold snap that the central region of the country experienced in January, NOAA said.
So how much longer should it last?
Butler told SpaceWeather.com that the winds are starting to slow down, meaning the ozone spike will subside and westerly winds will resume around the end of March.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/03/28/polar-vortex-spinning-backwards/73129855007/
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The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
For much of this winter season, the polar vortex winds at 60°N have been racing around the stratospheric polar region. During February alone, these west-to-east winds were two times stronger than normal for that time of year. However, the latest forecasts suggest that the polar vortex is about to switch gears with a major vortex disruption to happen this weekend. Read on to find out why the polar vortex could be bottoming out early this season.
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Here’s What to Know About the Polar Vortex Collapse
Mar 6, 2025
https://time.com/7265299/what-to-know-polar-vortex-collapse/
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The pollution polar vortex
Feb 2025
https://www.arcticwwf.org/the-circle/stories/the-pollution-polar-vortex/
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'Major disruption' has caused Arctic polar vortex to slide off North Pole, scientists say
April 4, 2025
A major disruption to the Arctic polar vortex has bumped the ring of wind that circles the North Pole off its perch and towards Europe, a new animation shows.
The migration could trigger colder-than-average temperatures in parts of the continent and across the eastern U.S. over the coming week, climate scientists say.
The polar vortex started wandering off course March 9, when its high winds suddenly switched from blowing west to east to blowing in the opposite direction. This switch normally happens each year, but it tends to occur in mid-April — meaning this year's reversal struck unusually early, according to a blog post published April 3 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
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Coldest January since 2011 brewing for US to lead to multiple winter storms
Dec 29, 2024
Dramatically colder conditions are ahead as an Arctic blast moves into
the U.S. starting next week. The bitterly cold pattern could be the
coldest January in more than a decade and may be strewn with winter
storms for the Midwest, South and East.
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Coldest Antarctic June Ever Recorded
2014
Antarctica continues to defy the global warming script, with a report from Meteo France, that June this year was the coldest Antarctic June ever recorded, at the French Antarctic Dumont d’Urville Station.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/12/coldest-antarctic-june-ever-recorded/
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Antarctica is suffering a near-record breaking winter — 10C colder than usual
June 21, 2021
https://www.climatedepot.com/2021/06/21/antarctica-is-suffering-a-near-record-breaking-winter-10c-colder-than-usual/
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Antarctica's last six months were the coldest on record
Oct 10, 2021
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Coldest Antarctic June Ever Recorded
2014
Antarctica continues to defy the global warming script, with a report from Meteo France, that June this year was the coldest Antarctic June ever recorded, at the French Antarctic Dumont d’Urville Station.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/12/coldest-antarctic-june-ever-recorded/
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Antarctica is suffering a near-record breaking winter — 10C colder than usual
June 21, 2021
https://www.climatedepot.com/2021/06/21/antarctica-is-suffering-a-near-record-breaking-winter-10c-colder-than-usual/
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Antarctica's last six months were the coldest on record
Oct 10, 2021
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Antarctica hits record temperatures, say experts
March 20, 2022
PARIS (March 20): Eastern Antarctica has recorded exceptionally high temperatures this week, more than 30 degrees Celsius above normal, say experts.
The Concordia research base at Dome C of the Antarctic, which is at an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,800 feet), on Friday registered a record -11.5 degrees Celsius (11.3 Fahrenheit), Etienne Kapikian, a meteorologist from France-Meteo tweeted.
Normally, temperatures fall with the end of the southern summer, but the Dumont d’Urville station on Antarctica registered record temperatures for March with 4.9C (40.82F), at a time of year when normally temperatures are already sub-zero.
Gaetan Heymes of France Meteo described the unseasonably mild weather as a “historic event”.
And geoscientist Jonathan Wille wrote on Twitter: “And there it is, Concordia broke its all time record temperature by 1.5°C. – AFP
https://www.theborneopost.com/2022/03/20/antarctica-hits-record-temperatures-say-experts/
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Antarctica hits record temperatures, say experts
March 20, 2022
PARIS (March 20): Eastern Antarctica has recorded exceptionally high temperatures this week, more than 30 degrees Celsius above normal, say experts.
The Concordia research base at Dome C of the Antarctic, which is at an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,800 feet), on Friday registered a record -11.5 degrees Celsius (11.3 Fahrenheit), Etienne Kapikian, a meteorologist from France-Meteo tweeted.
Normally, temperatures fall with the end of the southern summer, but the Dumont d’Urville station on Antarctica registered record temperatures for March with 4.9C (40.82F), at a time of year when normally temperatures are already sub-zero.
Gaetan Heymes of France Meteo described the unseasonably mild weather as a “historic event”.
And geoscientist Jonathan Wille wrote on Twitter: “And there it is, Concordia broke its all time record temperature by 1.5°C. – AFP
https://www.theborneopost.com/2022/03/20/antarctica-hits-record-temperatures-say-experts/
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UN: Antarctic high temp records will take months to verify
February 16, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-antarctic-high-temp-months.html
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Desorption kinetics of heavy metals in the gleyic layer of permafrost-affected soils in Arctic region assessed by geochemical fractionation and DGT/DIFS
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0341816221003970
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Iron in sea ice: Review and new insights
October 27 2016
https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/doi/10.12952/journal.elementa.000130/112863/Iron-in-sea-ice-Review-and-new-insightsIron-in-sea
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Investigate the feedback mechanisms of Arctic clouds and radiation on sea ice changes
2021
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/STM/2021-05/26_Dong_CERES_STM_20210512_350_Huang.pdf
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Interannual Variability of Primary Production in the Laptev Sea
04 June 2020
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0001437020010075
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Radiocarbon of quaternary along shore and bottom deposits of the Lena and the Laptev Sea sediments
1996
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0304420395000968
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Debris from Melting Shelves Changing the Biology and Chemistry of the Arctic Ocean
February 12, 2018
https://www.fondriest.com/news/debris-melting-shelves-changing-biology-chemistry-arctic-ocean.htm
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Radium Isotopes Across the Arctic Ocean Show Time Scales of Water Mass Ventilation and Increasing Shelf Inputs
1 July 2018
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Radium-Isotopes-Across-the-Arctic-Ocean-Show-Time-Loeff-Kipp/98003261eec17d21902b1b1a241d11a3586e20a7
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Increased fluxes of shelf-derived materials to the central Arctic Ocean
3 Jan 2018
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aao1302
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The cause of Jupiter’s glowing “northern lights” is finally revealed
July 9, 2021
https://www.inverse.com/science/juno-jupiter-aurora-discovery
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Arctic warming interrupts the Transpolar Drift and affects long-range transport of sea ice and ice-rafted matter
02 April 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41456-y/
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Jupiter’s intense auroras heat up its atmosphere
October 8, 2021
Charged particles slamming into the air above the poles create heat that spreads far and wide
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/jupiters-intense-auroras-heat-atmosphere
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Mystery of Jupiter’s northern lights solved after 40 years, scientists say
July 9, 2021
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/09/world/jupiter-northern-lights-mystery-scn/index.html
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Discovery
and characterization of submarine groundwater discharge in the Siberian
Arctic seas: A case study in the Buor-Khaya Gulf, Laptev Sea
October 2017
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Salinity-activities-of-radium-isotopes-224-Ra-226-Ra-228-Ra-dpm-100-L-1-in-the_tbl1_320236429
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Every 27 minutes, there’s an X-ray aurora on Jupiter. Here’s why.
July 14, 2021
https://bigthink.com/hard-science/jupiter-aurora/
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Hubble Captures Vivid Auroras in Jupiter’s Atmosphere
Jun 30, 2016
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-captures-vivid-auroras-in-jupiter-s-atmosphere
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Huge New Storm Creates Hexagon at Jupiter's South Pole
December 14, 2019
A new, smaller cyclone can be seen at the lower right of this infrared image of Jupiter's south pole taken on Nov. 4, 2019, during the 23rd science pass of the planet by NASA's Juno spacecraft.
https://www.livescience.com/giant-storm-discovered-jupiter.html
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Jupiter's Pentagon Turns Hexagon
Dec. 12, 2019
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia23559-jupiters-pentagon-turns-hexagon
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Jupiter’s polar polygons: Clusters of cyclones around the poles
2018 March 7
https://britastro.org/section_news_item/jupiters-polar-polygons-clusters-of-cyclones-around-the-poles
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NASA Just Watched a Mass of Cyclones on Jupiter Evolve Into a Mesmerising Hexagon
13 December 2019
https://www.sciencealert.com/june-watched-a-pentagon-of-storms-on-jupiter-evolve-into-a-hexagon
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Stunning Jupiter images ‘unlike anything’ NASA has ever seen before
Sep 5, 2016
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/707398/Jupiter-images-NASA-juno-infrared-auroras
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Refining the contribution of riverine particulate release to the global marine Nd budget
21 April 2022
https://progearthplanetsci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40645-022-00479-2
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Sources, Transport and Sinks of Radionuclides in Marine Environments
21 December 2017
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71788-3_13
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The Significance of the Hexagon
https://www.humanmanaged.com/articles/the-significance-of-the-hexagon
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Saturn's hexagon recreated in the laboratory
May 04, 2010
Saturn's north polar hexagon (animation)
This movie of Saturn's north pole was taken by Cassini's VIMS
spectrometer at a mid-infrared wavelength of 5 microns. It was winter at
Saturn's north pole; all illumination is thermal radiation (heat)
welling up from Saturn's depths.
https://www.planetary.org/articles/2471
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Explaining the formation of a hexagon storm on Saturn
October 6, 2020
A new 3D model could explain the formation of a hexagon storm on Saturn
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201006165740.htm
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What is up with that hexagon on Saturn? We might have finally found out
June 20, 2020
Saturn's hexagonal storm in motion.
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/what-is-up-with-that-hexagon-on-saturn
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Weird hexagon on Saturn is way bigger than scientists thought
Sept. 5, 2018
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/weird-hexagon-saturn-way-bigger-scientists-thought-ncna906541
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Bizarre Giant Hexagon on Saturn May Finally Be Explained
September 22, 2015
https://www.space.com/30608-mysterious-saturn-hexagon-explained.html
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What is the hexagon at Saturn’s north pole, and what causes it?
January 28, 2013
https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2013/01/saturnian-shape
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Bizarre Giant Hexagon on Saturn May Finally Be Explained
September 23, 2015
https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-giant-hexagon-saturn-may-finally-explained-112829193.html
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Saturn's Famous Hexagon May Tower Above the Clouds
Sep 5, 2018
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/saturns-famous-hexagon-may-tower-above-the-clouds
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Saturn's Northern Hexagon
July 5, 2020
https://science.nasa.gov/saturns-northern-hexagon
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Saturn's Hexagon in Motion
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/science/saturn/hexagon-in-motion/
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Saturn's Streaming Hexagon Storm
December 12, 2012
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/15927/saturns-streaming-hexagon-storm/
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Saturn's hexagon
A partial view of Saturn's north pole, 2016
2013 and 2017: hexagon color changes
False-color image from the Cassini probe of the central vortex deep inside the hexagon formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_hexagon
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Saturn’s high-altitude winds generate an extraordinary aurorae, study finds
08 February 2022
https://le.ac.uk/news/2022/february/saturn-aurorae
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Saturn’s Newfound Aurora Comes From Speedy Winds High In The Atmosphere
Mar 2, 2022
An infrared image of Saturn with an aurora visible at its south pole, taken by the Cassini
https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethhowell1/2022/03/02/saturns-newfound-aurora-comes-from-speedy-winds-high-in-the-atmosphere/?sh=411e8dcf5e80
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Space Scientists Discover a Never-Before-Seen Mechanism Fueling Huge Planetary Aurorae on Saturn
February 9, 2022
https://scitechdaily.com/space-scientists-discover-a-never-before-seen-mechanism-fueling-huge-planetary-aurorae-on-saturn/
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A New Type of Aurora Found on Saturn Resolves a Planetary Mystery
2022
The discovery of the first wind-driven aurora sheds light on a strange phenomenon playing out below Saturn’s stormy atmosphere.
https://www.wired.com/story/auroras-on-saturn/
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Scientists discover the hidden force behind Saturn’s Aurora Borealis
Feb 09, 2022
https://interestingengineering.com/saturn-aurora-borealis
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Saturn's Auroras
February 16, 2005
These images of Saturn's polar aurora were taken by NASA's Hubble Space
Telescope on Jan. 24, 26, and 28. Each of the three images of Saturn
combines ultraviolet images of the south polar region (to show the
auroral emissions) with visible wavelength images of the planet and
rings. The Hubble images were obtained during a joint campaign with
NASA's Cassini spacecraft to measure the solar wind approaching Saturn
and the Saturn kilometric radio emissions. The strong brightening of
the aurora on January 26 corresponded with the recent arrival of a large
disturbance in the solar wind. These results are presented in three
papers, which appear in the Feb. 17 issue of the journal Nature.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/12369/saturns-auroras/
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Planety Mystery Behind Saturn’s Bright Aurora Borealis Finally Resolved
Feb 25, 2022
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/36322/20220225/saturn-s-aurora-borealis-finally-resolves-a-planetary-mystery.htm
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Swirling winds of Saturn trigger never-before-seen auroras
February 25, 2022
https://www.space.com/saturn-winds-trigger-new-auroras
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Saturn’s Aurora Borealis: Should The Planet's High-Altitude Winds Be Blamed For This Stunning Mechanism?
Feb 11, 2022
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/36057/20220211/saturn-s-aurora-borealis-should-the-planets-high-altitude-winds-be-blamed-for-this-stunning-mechanism.htm
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See Saturn's Stunning Auroras Glow Over Time in These Hubble Photos
August 31, 2018
https://www.space.com/41695-saturn-auroras-amazing-hubble-photos-video.html
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Cassini: Saturn's Perplexing Hexagon
The globe of Saturn, seen here in natural color, is reminiscent of a holiday ornament in this wide-angle view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The characteristic hexagonal shape of Saturn's northern jet stream appears somewhat yellow here. At the pole lies a Saturnian version of a high-speed hurricane, eye and all. Images taken using red, green and blue filters were combined to create this natural-color view, taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 22, 2013, at a distance of approximately 611,000 miles (984,000 kilometers) from Saturn.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/13037/a-vexing-hexagon/
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Source apportionment of methane escaping the subsea permafrost system in the outer Eurasian Arctic Shelf
2021
https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2019672118
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Jupiter’s Auroras Present a Powerful Mystery
Sep 6, 2017
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/jupiter-s-aurora-presents-a-powerful-mystery
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Jupiter's powerful auroras form during a 'tug of war' between the planet and nearby moon volcanoes
Feb 5, 2022
A composite of two observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show Jupiter's aurora.
https://www.businessinsider.com/space-lava-from-moon-volcanoes-creates-jupiters-powerful-aurora-lights-2022-2?op=1
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Jupiter's moons light up aurora borealis
Sep 17, 2009
One of the most beautiful sights in the sky (at least, so I've heard, since I've never ^%$#&*# seen one) is an aurora. The Earth has a magnetic field that traps charged particles from the Sun, and due to complicated processes that are still being investigated these particles can slam into our air, causing it to glow (exactly) like a neon sign. But we're not the only planet with a magnetic field. And some moons have them, too. Check this image out:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/jupiters-moons-light-up-aurora-borealis
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Saturn's hexagon could be an enormous tower
2023
https://astronomy.com/news/2018/09/saturns-hexagon-could-be-an-enormous-tower
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Weird hexagonal dune field seen on Mars
February 22, 2019
Unusual dune field on a crater floor in Terra Cimmeria,
part of the heavily cratered southern highland region of the planet
Mars. The interesting patterns of the dunes themselves are contained
within a boundary that is roughly hexagon-shaped.
https://earthsky.org/space/odyssey-weird-hexagonal-dune-field-mars/
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Unnatural Hexagon Structure Spotted on Mars
July 11, 2019
https://www.soulask.com/unnatural-hexagon-structure-spotted-on-mars/
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Weird Hexagonal Dune Field... Seen on Mars
Februry 22, 2019
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/marte/esp_marte_113.htm
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A Hex on Neptune
May 15, 2014
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/a-hex-on-neptune
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Hubble Spots Auroras on Uranus
Apr 10, 2017
ESA/Hubble & NASA,
This is a composite image of Uranus by Voyager 2 and two different observations made by Hubble — one for the ring and one for the auroras.
Ever since Voyager 2 beamed home spectacular images of the planets in the 1980s, planet-lovers have been hooked on auroras on other planets. Auroras are caused by streams of charged particles like electrons that come from various origins such as solar winds, the planetary ionosphere, and moon volcanism. They become caught in powerful magnetic fields and are channeled into the upper atmosphere, where their interactions with gas particles, such as oxygen or nitrogen, set off spectacular bursts of light.
The auroras on Jupiter and Saturn are well-studied, but not much is known about the auroras of the giant ice planet Uranus. In 2011, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope became the first Earth-based telescope to snap an image of the auroras on Uranus. In 2012 and 2014 a team led by an astronomer from Paris Observatory took a second look at the auroras using the ultraviolet capabilities of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) installed on Hubble.
They tracked the interplanetary shocks caused by two powerful bursts of solar wind traveling from the sun to Uranus, then used Hubble to capture their effect on Uranus’ auroras — and found themselves observing the most intense auroras ever seen on the planet. By watching the auroras over time, they collected the first direct evidence that these powerful shimmering regions rotate with the planet. They also re-discovered Uranus’ long-lost magnetic poles, which were lost shortly after their discovery by Voyager 2 in 1986 due to uncertainties in measurements and the featureless planet surface.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2017/hubble-spots-auroras-on-uranus
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Scientists create most detailed map of Uranus' mysterious auroras to date
October 19, 2021
https://www.space.com/uranus-observation-infrared-aurora-map
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Rare Photo: Auroras on Uranus Spotted by Hubble Telescope
April 13, 2012
Astronomers have caught the first views of auroras on the planet Uranus from a telescope near Earth, revealing tantalizing views of the tilted giant planet's hard-to-catch light shows.
The Uranus aurora photos were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, marking the first time the icy blue planet's light show has been seen by an observatory near Earth. Until now, the only views of auroras on Uranus were from the NASA Voyager probe that zipped by the planet in 1986.
Snapping the new photos was no easy feat: Hubble recorded auroras on the day side of Uranus only twice, both times in 2011, while the planet was 2.5 billion miles (4 billion kilometers) from Earth. The observation time had to be carefully timed with a passing solar storm to maximize Hubble's chance of seeing auroras on the planet, researchers said. The two images were combined into a single photo for public release.
https://www.space.com/15270-auroras-uranus-hubble-telescope-photos.html
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Auroras on Uranus: Scientists Create Latest Map on Planet’s Mysterious Light
Oct 19, 2021
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/34047/20211019/auroras-on-uranus-scientists-create-latest-map-on-planet-s-mysterious-light.htm
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Hubble Spots Aurorae on the Planet Uranus
Apr 18, 2012
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/uranus-aurora.html
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NASA snaps unprecedented image of auroras on gas giant Uranus
April 13, 2017
https://www.zmescience.com/space/aurora-on-neptune/
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Neptune Aurora
https://www.windows2universe.org/?page=/neptune/magnetosphere/N_aurora.html
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AURORAL DISPLAYS FOUND ON NEPTUNE AND TRITON
August 29, 1989
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/08/29/auroral-displays-found-on-neptune-and-triton/b609fbc8-e99f-4e84-b301-1419ec7be243/
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What are Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis and do they match?
October 5, 2020
https://factsberry.com/what-are-aurora-borealis-and-aurora-australis/
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The Science Behind the Aurora Borealis
September 6, 2018
The aurora borealis (the Northern Lights) is much more than pretty lights–it’s a perfect blend of solar wind and magnetic fields. Let”s check out the science behind the aurora borealis.
Magnetic Field and Rubber Bands
The Earth has a magnetic field surrounding it because of the iron-nickel core at the center of our planet. Understanding this magnet field is essential to understanding the science behind the aurora borealis. The magnetic field exiting from the core is responsible for the magnetic north and south poles we use when we navigate with a compass. It also creates a magnetic force field around the Earth, which extends into space.
As charged particles (electrons are negative, protons are positive) in the solar wind encounter the Earth’s magnetic field, they travel along the field lines. On the sunward side, the field is compressed by the solar wind to be closer to the Earth; however, on the night side of the planet, the field stretches away from the planet like a tail. Eventually, the magnetic loops stretch so much that they break like an overstretched rubber band. A piece heads off into space away from Earth, while the other part snaps back toward Earth. The piece snapping back toward Earth accelerates the particles it captured into Earth’s upper atmosphere.
When these particles hit molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, they trigger light displays depending on the altitude and energy of the collision. Most of the molecules in Earth’s atmosphere are either nitrogen or oxygen, so they are hit most frequently. Colors produced may be pink, red, yellow, green, blue, or violet. Occasionally, orange or white are produced. Typically, nitrogen will produce red, violet, or blue. Oxygen usually produces green or yellow. Reds generally are emitted above 240 km, greens at 100–240 km, purple and violet above 100 km, and blues at 80–100km.
Massive Electric Currents and the aurora borealis
The movement of charged particles in Earth’s magnetic field produces powerful electric currents. In 1859, an aurora and the associated electrical storm were so powerful that people read newspapers at night by its light. Telegraph operations were disrupted as the current produced by the charged particles overwhelmed the normal currents used in the lines to transmit the signals. One pair of telegraph operators in Boston and Portland [2] turned off their power and used the current created by the electrical storm to keep their transmissions going.
https://magazine.scienceconnected.org/2018/09/the-science-behind-aurora-borealis/
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Antarctic research unlocks mysteries of the upper atmosphere
27 July 2020
A spectacular display of noctilucent clouds at Macquarie Island earlier this year.
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Northern lights: Will beautiful aurora DISAPPEAR when Earth's poles shift?
2019
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1130240/northern-lights-will-aurora-disappear-earth-magnetic-north-poles-shift-space-news
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Mineral often found on Mars discovered deep in Antarctic ice
January 29, 2021
Jarosite is very rarely found on Earth—it is generally seen in mining
waste that has been exposed to air and rain. The researchers with this
new effort were not looking for it in their ice cores—they were focused
on minerals in deep ice cores that might help to better understand ice
age cycles. But when they came across the yellow-brown mineral, their interest was piqued. X-ray absorption testing and electron microscopy showed it be jarosite.
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-mineral-mars-deep-antarctic-ice.html#google_vignette
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Scientists discover stardust in Antarctic snow
August 20, 2019
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-scientists-star-antarctic.html
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Where are IceCube’s neutrinos coming from?
March 14, 2022
Scientists define the most likely sources of cosmic neutrinos to hit detectors at the South Pole
IceCube
is the largest neutrino observatory in the world and consists of over
five thousand optical detectors draped through a cubic kilometer of ice
at the geographic South Pole. IceCube was built specifically to study
cosmic neutrinos that come from outside our own solar system.
Thanks
to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, scientists have identified several
types of cosmic structures that produce neutrinos. A new study estimates
for the first time how likely a neutrino is to come from each source
type, helping physicists understand more about these ghostly particles
and how they are created in the universe.
Neutrinos are tiny,
nearly massless elementary particles that travel through the universe at
almost the speed of light. They were first made during the Big Bang and
are produced today by fusion reactions inside stars (including our own
Sun), by supernovae explosions when massive stars die, and by the
violent transformations of matter and energy that happen around black
holes...
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4713/
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A huge meteorite gouged a Greenland crater 58 million years ago, study finds
March 10, 2022
https://www.arctictoday.com/a-huge-meteorite-gouged-a-greenland-crater-58-million-years-ago-study-finds/
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Water ice detected in a debris disk around young nearby star
May 26, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-ice-debris-disk-young-nearby.html
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Alexander Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Island
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Mount Alexander (Antarctica)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Alexander_(Antarctica)
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Paenibacillus wynnii sp. nov., a novel species harbouring the nifH gene, isolated from Alexander Island, Antarctica
2005 Sep
Abstract
Soil taken from 12 different locations at Mars Oasis on Alexander Island, Antarctica, yielded unidentified isolates of endospore-forming bacteria. Soil from four of the locations contained Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic, motile rods that were able to grow at 4 degrees C and which formed ellipsoidal spores that lay paracentrally or subterminally in swollen or slightly swollen sporangia. All of the strains harboured the nitrogenase gene nifH. Phenotypic tests, amplified rDNA restriction analysis (ARDRA), fatty acid analysis and SDS-PAGE analysis suggested that the isolates represented a novel taxon of Paenibacillus. 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison supported the proposal of a novel species, Paenibacillus wynnii sp. nov. (type strain, LMG 22176(T)=CIP 108306(T)).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16166715/
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The Albian fern flora of Alexander Island, Antarctica
2015
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019566711500021X
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Cretaceous (Late Albian) coniferales of Alexander Island, Antarctica. 2. Leaves, reproductive structures and roots
2001
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034666701000537
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Lithostratigraphy of Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous strata of eastern Alexander Island, Antarctica
1988
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0195667188900201
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Early Cretaceous Gleicheniaceae and Matoniaceae (Gleicheniales) from Alexander Island, Antarctica
2006
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034666705001533
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Cretaceous (Late Albian) coniferales of Alexander Island, Antarctica. 1: Wood taxonomy: a quantitative approach
2000
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034666700000129
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The deglacial history of NW Alexander Island, Antarctica, from surface exposure dating
2011
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0033589411001517
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Tectonic implications of fore-arc magmatism and generation of high-magnesian andesites: Alexander Island, Antarctica
1998
Abstract
Alexander Island, situated off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, contains a suite of Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary subduction-related magmatic rocks. The rocks occupy a fore-arc position 100–200 km trenchward of the main arc (Antarctic Peninsula) and they become younger northward along the length of the island. Major and trace element geochemistry for 222 samples shows the suite to be a medium to high-K calc-alkaline series, ranging in composition from picro-basalt to rhyolite. Andesite samples show a large range in MgO and Mg#, with nine samples representing high-magnesian andesites.Sr and Nd isotopic data indicate that the andesites range isotopically to more depleted mantle compositions than the associated basalts. The dacite/rhyolites can be related compositionally to the andesites by assimilation of typical Pacific rim accretionary material. To produce high-magnesian andesite lavas, it is necessary to introduce a suitable source of heat into the fore-arc, thus enabling partial melting of depleted sub fore-arc hydrous peridotite. A causative link with ridge subduction prior to magmatism is proposed, with successive ridge–trench collisions producing a temporal migration of the magmatism and high geothermal gradients in an anomalously hot fore-arc region.
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The deglacial history of NW Alexander Island, Antarctica, from surface exposure dating
Abstract
Recent changes along the margins of the Antarctic Peninsula, such as the collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, have highlighted the effects of climatic warming on the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet (APIS). However, such changes must be viewed in a long-term (millennial-scale) context if we are to understand their significance for future stability of the Antarctic ice sheets. To address this, we present nine new cosmogenic 10Be exposure ages from sites on NW Alexander Island and Rothschild Island (adjacent to the Wilkins Ice Shelf) that provide constraints on the timing of thinning of the Alexander Island ice cap since the last glacial maximum. All but one of the 10Be ages are in the range 10.2–21.7 ka, showing a general trend of progressive ice-sheet thinning since at least 22 ka until 10 ka. The data also provide a minimum estimate (490 m) for ice-cap thickness on NW Alexander Island at the last glacial maximum. Cosmogenic 3He ages from a rare occurrence of mantle xenoliths on Rothschild Island yield variable ages up to 46 ka, probably reflecting exhumation by periglacial processes.
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Paenibacillus wynnii sp. nov., a novel species harbouring the nifH gene, isolated from Alexander Island, Antarctica
2005 Sep
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16166715/
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Lithostratigraphy of Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous strata of eastern Alexander Island, Antarctica
1988
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0195667188900201
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Rothera Research Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothera_Research_Station
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Early Cretaceous Gleicheniaceae and Matoniaceae (Gleicheniales) from Alexander Island, Antarctica
March 2006
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222581219_Early_Cretaceous_Gleicheniaceae_and_Matoniaceae_Gleicheniales_from_Alexander_Island_Antarctica
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The deglacial history of NW Alexander Island, Antarctica, from surface exposure dating
20 January 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/quaternary-research/article/abs/deglacial-history-of-nw-alexander-island-antarctica-from-surface-exposure-dating/CF830FAE75567B802459BEAF2D5DBF17
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The age and stratigraphy of fore-arc magmatism on Alexander Island, Antarctica
01 July 1997
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/geological-magazine/article/abs/age-and-stratigraphy-of-forearc-magmatism-on-alexander-island-antarctica/0EC9E1A32024AEE1DBEED865AA4AEFE3
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Microplastics in marine sediments near Rothera Research Station, Antarctica
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X18303977
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Antarctic sea ice reaches new record maximum
October 8, 2014
Sea ice surrounding Antarctica reached a new record high extent this year, covering more of the southern oceans than it has since scientists began a long-term satellite record to map sea ice extent in the late 1970s.
Sea ice surrounding Antarctica reached a new record high extent this year, covering more of the southern oceans than it has since scientists began a long-term satellite record to map sea ice extent in the late 1970s. The upward trend in the Antarctic, however, is only about a third of the magnitude of the rapid loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.
The new Antarctic sea ice record reflects the diversity and complexity of Earth’s environments, said NASA researchers. Claire Parkinson, a senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, has referred to changes in sea ice coverage as a microcosm of global climate change. Just as the temperatures in some regions of the planet are colder than average, even in our warming world, Antarctic sea ice has been increasing and bucking the overall trend of ice loss.
“The planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming. Sea ice as a whole is decreasing as expected, but just like with global warming, not every location with sea ice will have a downward trend in ice extent,” Parkinson said.
Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square kilometers) of ice a year; the Antarctic has gained an average of 7,300 square miles (18,900 sq km). On Sept. 19 this year, for the first time ever since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 7.72 million square miles (20 million square kilometers), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The ice extent stayed above this benchmark extent for several days. The average maximum extent between 1981 and 2010 was 7.23 million square miles (18.72 million square kilometers).
The single-day maximum extent this year was reached on Sept. 20, according to NSIDC data, when the sea ice covered 7.78 million square miles (20.14 million square kilometers). This year's five-day average maximum was reached on Sept. 22, when sea ice covered 7.76 million square miles (20.11 million square kilometers), according to NSIDC.
This year, Antarctic sea ice reached a record maximum extent while the Arctic reached a minimum extent in the ten lowest since satellite records began. Why are these trends going in opposite directions?Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / Joy Ng
A warming climate changes weather patterns, said Walt Meier, a research scientist at Goddard. Sometimes those weather patterns will bring cooler air to some areas. And in the Antarctic, where sea ice circles the continent and covers such a large area, it doesn’t take that much additional ice extent to set a new record.
“Part of it is just the geography and geometry. With no northern barrier around the whole perimeter of the ice, the ice can easily expand if conditions are favorable,” he said.
Researchers are investigating a number of other possible explanations as well. One clue, Parkinson said, could be found around the Antarctic Peninsula – a finger of land stretching up toward South America. There, the temperatures are warming, and in the Bellingshausen Sea just to the west of the peninsula the sea ice is shrinking. Beyond the Bellingshausen Sea and past the Amundsen Sea, lies the Ross Sea – where much of the sea ice growth is occurring.
That suggests that a low-pressure system centered in the Amundsen Sea could be intensifying or becoming more frequent in the area, she said – changing the wind patterns and circulating warm air over the peninsula, while sweeping cold air from the Antarctic continent over the Ross Sea. This, and other wind and lower atmospheric pattern changes, could be influenced by the ozone hole higher up in the atmosphere – a possibility that has received scientific attention in the past several years, Parkinson said.
“The winds really play a big role,” Meier said. They whip around the continent, constantly pushing the thin ice. And if they change direction or get stronger in a more northward direction, he said, they push the ice further and grow the extent. When researchers measure ice extent, they look for areas of ocean where at least 15 percent is covered by sea ice.
While scientists have observed some stronger-than-normal pressure systems – which increase winds – over the last month or so, that element alone is probably not the reason for this year’s record extent, Meier said. To better understand this year and the overall increase in Antarctic sea ice, scientists are looking at other possibilities as well.
Melting ice on the edges of the Antarctic continent could be leading to more fresh, just-above-freezing water, which makes refreezing into sea ice easier, Parkinson said. Or changes in water circulation patterns, bringing colder waters up to the surface around the landmass, could help grow more ice.
Snowfall could be a factor as well, Meier said. Snow landing on thin ice can actually push the thin ice below the water, which then allows cold ocean water to seep up through the ice and flood the snow – leading to a slushy mixture that freezes in the cold atmosphere and adds to the thickness of the ice. This new, thicker ice would be more resilient to melting.
“There hasn’t been one explanation yet that I’d say has become a consensus, where people say, ‘We’ve nailed it, this is why it’s happening,’” Parkinson said. “Our models are improving, but they’re far from perfect. One by one, scientists are figuring out that particular variables are more important than we thought years ago, and one by one those variables are getting incorporated into the models.”
For Antarctica, key variables include the atmospheric and oceanic conditions, as well as the effects of an icy land surface, changing atmospheric chemistry, the ozone hole, months of darkness and more.
“Its really not surprising to people in the climate field that not every location on the face of Earth is acting as expected – it would be amazing if everything did,” Parkinson said. “The Antarctic sea ice is one of those areas where things have not gone entirely as expected. So it’s natural for scientists to ask, ‘OK, this isn’t what we expected, now how can we explain it?’”
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2169/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum/
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Atmospheric Precursors to the Antarctic Sea Ice Record Low in February 2022
2022
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The Antarctic water puzzle—how flooding contributes to ice melt
May 12, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-antarctic-puzzle-contributes-ice.html
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'Very worried': Scientists fret as Antarctic sea ice dwindles
March 2, 2024
Sea ice levels in Antarctica have registered historic lows for three consecutive years, portending grave consequences for life on Earth as we know it.
But looking out over the southernmost continent, scientist Miguel Angel de Pablo laments that humanity seems to be oblivious to the warnings.
"We (scientists) are very worried... because we don't see how we can solve it ourselves," the Spanish planetary geologist told AFP on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Antarctic archipelago.
"The more alerts we send out... to make society aware of what is happening, it seems we are not listened to, that we are (perceived as) alarmist" despite the evidence, he said.
The US National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported Wednesday that minimum Antarctic sea ice extent came in at under two million square kilometers (772,000 square miles) for a third consecutive February—the height of the southern summer thaw season.
Minimum sea ice cover for all three years were the lowest since records began 46 years ago.
Melting sea ice has no immediate impact on ocean levels, as it forms by freezing salt water already in the ocean.
But the white ice reflects more of the sun's rays than darker ocean water, and its loss accentuates global warming while exposing the on-land freshwater ice sheet, which could cause a catastrophic sea level rise if it melts.
"Even though we are far from any inhabited part of the planet, in reality what happens in Antarctica affects everything" in the rest of the world, said De Pablo...
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-scientists-fret-antarctic-sea-ice.html
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June Antarctic sea ice lowest on record, 2nd lowest in Arctic
Jul 5, 2019
https://www.kxan.com/weather/june-antarctic-sea-ice-lowest-on-record-2nd-lowest-in-arctic/
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Despite record low ice, nations again fail to agree Antarctic reserves
October 27, 2023
A multinational group on Antarctic conservation failed to break a years-long deadlock and agree new marine reserves in the region, despite record low ice, environmental groups said Friday.
The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources ended a fortnight of meetings in Australia once again unable to reach a deal on three new marine protected areas (MPAs).
The proposed sanctuaries around Antarctica would safeguard nearly four million square kilometers (1.5 million square miles) of ocean from human activities, in the largest act of ocean protection in history.
"It's frustrating that discussions for MPAs have been ongoing for more than a decade and utterly disappointing that CCAMLR has been unable to make significant progress again, particularly following a year of unprecedented and concerning change for Antarctica," said WWF's Antarctic conservation manager Emily Grilly.
The areas were first proposed in 2010, before being scaled down in 2017, in an attempt to win more support.
But their creation has persistently been blocked by China and Russia, including most recently at the commission's June meeting in Chile.
NGOs including WWF had expressed hope that the commission might now act given record low levels of sea-ice in the region and evidence of "mass deaths of vulnerable species".
Greenpeace said the gridlock was all the more notable given successful negotiations to reach the UN ocean treaty earlier this year.
"Another year, another failed Antarctic Ocean Commission meeting. The Commission can always agree to new fishing licenses, but can't agree on a concrete pathway forwards on protection," said Jehki Harkonen, Greenpeace International's ocean policy advisor.
CCAMLR did not immediately publish a statement on the outcome of its meeting.
Rapidly changing region
The proposed protected areas would have limited human activity, particularly fishing, and environmentalists say they would be key to helping species recover in the rapidly changing region.
"We can't stop all the effects of climate change in the short term, but we can take the pressure off in other ways," Grilly said.
But there has historically been little appetite for the project from Beijing and Moscow, who have expressed concerns about compliance issues and fishing rights.
The CCAMLR, which regulates fisheries, is comprised of 26 member countries plus the EU. They include the United States, Russia, China, the UK, France, India, Japan, host Chile, Brazil and South Africa.
This year, sea ice around Antarctica hit its lowest winter levels since records began 45 years ago, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
The measurement was preliminary, as continued winter conditions could cause additional ice formation, but it correlates with a trend of declining ice seen since August 2016.
There is debate among scientists over the cause of the shift, with some reluctant to establish a formal link with global warming.
Climate models have struggled in the past to predict changes in the Antarctic ice pack.
The effect on wildlife in the region is already clear, however, with scientists in August reporting a "catastrophic breeding failure" of emperor penguins as sea ice gave way beneath fledgling chicks.
Thousands of baby penguins are believed to have died, with all but one of five sites monitored by scientists experiencing 100 percent loss.
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-ice-nations-antarctic-reserves.html
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Record low Antarctic sea ice is another alarming sign the ocean's role as climate regulator is changing, says researcher
May 5, 2023
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-antarctic-sea-ice-alarming-ocean.html
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Past and recent tritium levels in Arctic and Antarctic polar caps
May 2006
Abstract
___________________________
Tritium Records to Trace Stratospheric Moisture Inputs in Antarctica
10 March 2018
Abstract
Better assessing the dynamic of stratosphere-troposphere exchange is a key point to improve our understanding of the climate dynamic in the East Antarctica Plateau, a region where stratospheric inputs are expected to be important. Although tritium (3H or T), a nuclide naturally produced mainly in the stratosphere and rapidly entering the water cycle as HTO, seems a first-rate tracer to study these processes, tritium data are very sparse in this region. We present the first high-resolution measurements of tritium concentration over the last 50 years in three snow pits drilled at the Vostok station. Natural variability of the tritium records reveals two prominent frequencies, one at about 10 years (to be related to the solar Schwabe cycles) and the other one at a shorter periodicity: despite dating uncertainty at this short scale, a good correlation is observed between 3H and Na+ and an anticorrelation between 3H and δ18O measured on an individual pit. The outputs from the LMDZ Atmospheric General Circulation Model including stable water isotopes and tritium show the same 3H-δ18O anticorrelation and allow further investigation on the associated mechanism. At the interannual scale, the modeled 3H variability matches well with the Southern Annular Mode index. At the seasonal scale, we show that modeled stratospheric tritium inputs in the troposphere are favored in winter cold and dry conditions.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2018JD028304
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Natural tritium deposition over Antarctica and estimation of the mean global production rate
___________________________
Characterization of groundwater recharge through tritium measurements
2022
https://adgeo.copernicus.org/articles/57/21/2022/adgeo-57-21-2022.pdf
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Bomb-produced tritium in the Antarctic Ocean
November 1973
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1973E%26PSL..20..381M/abstract
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Accumulation
studies on Amundsenisen, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, by means of
tritium, dielectric profiling and stable-isotope measurements: first
results from the 1995^96 and 1996^97 field seasons
1999
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/2304/1/Oer9999a.pdf
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Copters Hunt Antarctic Uranium
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Using high resolution tritium profiles to quantify the effects of melt on two Spitsbergen ice cores
2011
https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/231396
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Rare warming over Antarctica reveals power of stratospheric models
07 October 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02985-8/
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Dispersal of Tritium in Southern Ocean Waters
https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/download/65902/49816
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Enrichment of Tritium by Thermal Diffusion and Measurement of Dated Antarctic Snow Samples
1965
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17741922/
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Assessment of internal radiation exposure to Antarctic biota due to selected natural radionuclides in terrestrial and marine environment
2021 Aug 10
Abstract
The present article introduces data on natural radioactivity (40K, 230,232Th, 234,238U) in the Antarctic marine and terrestrial environment. Various biota samples were analysed due to internal exposure to 40K, 230,232Th, 234,238U. Activity concentration of 40K was the highest in both marine and terrestrial samples. Mean values of 40K activity concentration are 1340 Bq/kg and 370 Bq/kg for the marine and terrestrial samples respectively. 234U/238U ratios analysis revealed that sea waters and sea spray are the main source of the uranium in the terrestrial samples. Average 230,232Th, 234,238U activity concentrations in the Antarctic biota do not exceed 6 Bq/kg. Weighted internal dose rates are relatively low; they range from approximately 0.1 to 0.6 μGy/h. Statistically significant differences in radionuclide accumulation were discovered between the mosses and lichens. It may point to various mechanisms of the nutrient absorption from the environment by these organisms.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34388521/
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Investigations on baseline levels for natural radioactivity in soils, rocks, and lakes of Larsemann Hills in East Antarctica
18 November 2021
Abstract
A comprehensive measurement of concentrations of the natural radionuclides 238U, 232Th and 40K, and 226Ra in the soil and rocks along with natural uranium and tritium activity levels in lake water were carried out during the Indian expedition to Antarctica. The samples were collected from the Larsemann Hills region in Antarctica (latitude 69°20′ S to 69°25′S, longitude 76°6′ E to 76°23′E). The data on the natural radioactivity for this region is limited. The study was carried out to establish baseline levels of radioactivity in different terrestrial matrices of this region such as soil, rocks, and lake water. A radiation survey mapping for terrestrial radioactivity was conducted in the region before collection of soil and rock samples. The soil and rock samples were analyzed for natural radioactivity concentrations using high-resolution gamma spectroscopy system. The major contributor to elevated gamma radiation background is attributed to the higher concentration of 232Th and 40K radionuclides in both soil and rocks. Terrestrial components of gamma dose rate due to natural radioactivity have been estimated from the measured radioactivity concentrations and dose conversion coefficients. Several “hotspots” and high background areas in the region have been identified having significantly higher concentration of 232Th and 40K. Rocks in Larsemann Hills region showed high reserve of thorium mineralization in monazites and 40K in K-feldspar. The concentrations of 232Th in soil are found to be in the range of 106–603 Bq/kg, whereas in rock it is in the range of 8–4514 Bq/kg. Natural radioactivity U (nat) and 3H contents in the lake water samples in Larsemann Hills region were estimated as 0.4 and 1.3 Bq/L and are well within the prescribed limit of radioactivity in drinking water as recommended by World Health Organization.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10661-021-09446-8
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Organic bromine compounds produced in sea ice in Antarctic winter
11 December 2018
Abstract
During polar springtime, active bromine drives ozone, a greenhouse gas, to near-zero levels. Bromine production and emission in the polar regions have so far been assumed to require sunlight. Here, we report measurements of bromocarbons in sea ice, snow, and air during the Antarctic winter that reveal an unexpected new source of organic bromine to the atmosphere during periods of no sunlight. The results show that Antarctic winter sea ice provides 10 times more bromocarbons to the atmosphere than Southern Ocean waters, and substantially more than summer sea ice. The inclusion of these measurements in a global climate model indicates that the emitted bromocarbons will disperse throughout the troposphere in the southern hemisphere and through photochemical degradation to bromine atoms, contribute ~ 10% to the tropospheric reactive bromine budget. Combined together, our results suggest that winter sea ice could potentially be an important source of atmospheric bromine with implications for atmospheric chemistry and climate at a hemispheric scale.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07062-8
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Holocene subsurface temperature variability in the eastern Antarctic continental margin
28 March 2012
We reconstructed subsurface (∼45–200 m water depth) temperature
variability in the eastern Antarctic continental margin during the late
Holocene, using an archaeal lipid-based temperature proxy (TEX86L).
Our results reveal that subsurface temperature changes were probably
positively coupled to the variability of warmer, nutrient-rich Modified
Circumpolar Deep Water (MCDW, deep water of the Antarctic circumpolar
current) intrusion onto the continental shelf. The TEX86Lrecord,
in combination with previously published climatic records, indicates
that this coupling was probably related to the thermohaline circulation,
seasonal variability in sea ice extent, sea temperature, and wind
associated with high frequency climate dynamics at low-latitudes such as
internal El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This in turn suggests a
linkage between centennial ENSO-like variability at low-latitudes and
intrusion variability of MCDW into the eastern Antarctic continental
shelf, which might have further impact on ice sheet evolution.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2012GL051157
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The co-existence of cold activity and thermal stability in an Antarctic GH42 β-galactosidase relies on its hexameric quaternary arrangement
04 May 2020
Abstract
To survive in cold environments, psychrophilic organisms produce enzymes
endowed with high specific activity at low temperature. The structure
of these enzymes is usually flexible and mostly thermolabile. In this
work, we investigate the structural basis of cold adaptation of a GH42
β-galactosidase from the psychrophilic Marinomonas ef1. This
enzyme couples cold activity with astonishing robustness for a
psychrophilic protein, for it retains 23% of its highest activity at
5 °C and it is stable for several days at 37 °C and even 50 °C.
Phylogenetic analyses indicate a close relationship with thermophilic
β-galactosidases, suggesting that the present-day enzyme evolved from a
thermostable scaffold modeled by environmental selective pressure. The
crystallographic structure reveals the overall similarity with GH42
enzymes, along with a hexameric arrangement (dimer of trimers) not found
in psychrophilic, mesophilic, and thermophilic homologues. In the
quaternary structure, protomers form a large central cavity, whose
accessibility to the substrate is promoted by the dynamic behavior of
surface loops, even at low temperature. A peculiar cooperative behavior
of the enzyme is likely related to the increase of the internal cavity
permeability triggered by heating. Overall, our results highlight a
novel strategy of enzyme cold adaptation, based on the oligomerization
state of the enzyme, which effectively challenges the paradigm of cold
activity coupled with intrinsic thermolability.
https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/febs.15354
____________________________
Contribution of ammonia oxidation to chemoautotrophy in Antarctic coastal waters.
2016
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8kw9m35p
____________________________
Evaluation of lipid biomarkers as proxies for sea ice and ocean temperatures along the Antarctic continental margin
29 Oct 2021
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/17/2305/2021/
____________________________
Antarctica: Mining, Minerals and Fuel Resources
Nov 19 2012
https://www.azomining.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=239
____________________________
Impact of silica mining on environment
2015
https://academicjournals.org/journal/JGRP/article-full-text-pdf/915EC0C53587
____________________________
Chemical contamination in the Antarctic
3-3-2025
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/water/antarctic/chemical-contamination-in-the-antarctic
____________________________
Antarctica's hidden pollution: Growing marine contamination
5 September 2023
Dirty Antarctic coastal sediments
The investigation centred around Casey Station on the east coast and ran from 1997-2015. The team deployed divers or remotely operated grabs to collect marine sediments from shallow waters around the bays and islands every summer season which were tested for a range of potential pollutants.
Metals were analyzed by ICPMS and ICPOES and hydrocarbons by GC-FID. Screening was also carried out for two groups of well-known persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Polychlorobiphenyls, which are a range of toxic industrial chemicals now banned under international treaty, were analyzed by GC-ECD. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers, industrial chemicals used as fire retardants in products, were analyzed by GC/MS/MS. The data were interpreted using principal components analysis to find the key contributing factors.
The disturbing overall discovery was high concentrations of metals, hydrocarbons and POPs across the test area, with strong variations within locations and across sampling sites. In some cases, the pollutants were several orders of magnitude greater than those in control sites, especially for locations that were near former waste disposal sites and wastewater outfalls.
Toxic pollutants in the water
Lead, zinc, copper, iron, tin, cadmium, barium, manganese, silver, antimony, arsenic, and chromium were all detected. The levels of some increased from 2006/7 to 2004/15 in some of the control sites as well as the testing sites, indicating that contamination was continuing.
The main hydrocarbons found were C16-C34. Among the PBDEs, which are used as fire retardants in products, PBDE-209, PBDE-47, and PBD-99 were the most common. Raised PCB levels were detected at three of the sites at levels greater than control sites but there was no evidence of an increase leading up to 2015. These are toxic compounds which will affect marine life.
To give an indication of the scale of the pollution, the researchers compared pollutant levels with data from the World Harbours Project which is studying the health of major urbanized waterways. Some of the Antarctic test areas were as polluted as the heavily contaminated Sydney Harbour and Rio de Janeiro.
The Antarctic marine pollution was caused by a combination of poor waste management in the past, when waste was often dumped near the research stations, and modern influences such as rudimentary wastewater treatment facilities and accidental spillages. Warming ice due to climate change will add to the burden by releasing trapped pollutants in the future.
Casey Station can be regarded as a typical Antarctic research station, so others sited near the coast will probably have similar environmental impacts. The study "provides evidence to support greater continent-wide monitoring efforts, and to raise the awareness of the potential impacts of research stations on the Antarctic environment, and inform environmental management practices," the team concluded. Their next step will be to explore the ecological effects of this contamination, which remain unclear.
____________________________
Scientists call for chemical pollution monitoring in Antarctica to support global chemical policy
May 15 2023
http://phys.org/news/2023-05-scientists-chemical-pollution-antarctica-global.pdf
____________________________
Heavy metal pollution in Antarctica and its potential impacts on algae
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873965218300926
____________________________
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FUNGI ASSOCIATED WITH ANTARCTIC ENVIRONMENTS
2016
https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/9835/KudalkarP0516.pdf?sequence=1
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Microbes Thrive on Pulverized Rock Under a Half-Mile of Antarctic Ice
July 23, 2021
An image from another drilling project at Lake Mercer in Antarctica called SALSA. Shown here is the UV collar, borehole and hot water drill.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/microbes-thrive-pulverized-rock-under-half-mile-antarctic-ice-1-180978275/
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Benthic Bacterial Diversity in Submerged Sinkhole Ecosystems
2009 Oct 30
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2798655/
____________________________
Ancient Microbes May Help Us Find Extraterrestrial Life Forms
June 27, 2022
Using light-capturing proteins in living microbes, scientists have reconstructed what life was like for some of Earth’s earliest organisms. These efforts could help us recognize signs of life on other planets, whose atmospheres may more closely resemble our pre-oxygen planet.
The earliest living things, including bacteria and single-celled organisms called archaea, inhabited a primarily oceanic planet without an ozone layer to protect them from the sun’s radiation. These microbes evolved rhodopsins — proteins with the ability to turn sunlight into energy, using them to power cellular processes...
http://astrobiology.com/2022/06/ancient-microbes-may-help-us-find-extraterrestrial-life-forms.html
____________________________
Surface ammonia-oxidizer abundance during the late summer in the West Antarctic Coastal System
2022
https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/186351
____________________________
Cryptic Life in the Antarctic Dry Valleys
2010
https://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2010/01/cr.html
____________________________
They may be tiny microbes but they are having a huge impact in Antarctica
29 Feb 2020
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-01/bacteria-set-to-clean-up-antarctica/12013706
____________________________
Antarctic microbes reveal climate impact on marine ecosystems
March 11, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-antarctic-microbes-reveal-climate-impact.html
____________________________
Molecular physiology of Antarctic diatom natural assemblages and bloom event reveal insights into strategies contributing to their ecological success
27 February 2024
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/msystems.01306-23
____________________________
Dynamics of an intense diatom bloom in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula, February 2016
18 March 2020
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lno.11437
____________________________
Diatoms and environmental change in large brackish-water ecosystems
September 2010
____________________________
The diversity, distribution and ecology of diatoms from Antarctic inland waters
November 1996
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00051986
____________________________
A new species of Nagumoea (Bacillariophyta) from Antarctica, and a further consideration of the systematic position of the genus
2018-05-11
https://www.biotaxa.org/Phytotaxa/article/view/phytotaxa.349.2.5
____________________________
Diatoms define a novel freshwater biogeography of the Antarctic
19 January 2021
https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecog.05374
____________________________
Antarctic diatom growth in a light- and iron-limited environment
https://isdr.org/antarctic-diatom-growth-in-a-light-and-iron-limited-environment/
____________________________
The effects of oil pollution on Antarctic benthic diatom communities over 5 years
2014
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X14007887
____________________________
Exploring Diversity, Taxonomy and Phylogeny of Diatoms (Bacillariophyta) from Marine Habitats. Novel Taxa with Internal Costae
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1434461019301087
____________________________
Occurrence and antibacterial resistance of culturable antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the Fildes Peninsula, Antarctica
2021
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33243441/
____________________________
Science
News Roundup: Bacteria with antibiotic-resistant genes discovered in
Antarctica, scientists say; Breakthrough infections may be less
contagious; vaccine protection wanes faster in cancer patients and more
27-05-2022
https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/science-environment/2052267-science-news-roundup-bacteria-with-antibiotic-resistant-genes-discovered-in-antarctica-scientists-say-breakthrough-infecti
____________________________
Antimicrobial resistance in Antarctica: is it still a pristine environment?
2022
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9072757/
____________________________
Metagenomic insights into the antibiotic resistome in freshwater and seawater from an Antarctic ice-free area
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749122009526#aep-article-footnote-id8
____________________________
Bacterial communities versus anthropogenic disturbances in the Antarctic coastal marine environment
13 June 2019
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42398-019-00064-2
____________________________
Effects of heavy metals on bacterial growth parameters in degradation of phenol by an Antarctic bacterial consortium
18 December 2023
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42770-023-01215-8
____________________________
Bacterial diversity of the rock-water interface in an East Antarctic freshwater ecosystem, Lake Tawani(P)
01 February 2013
https://aquaticbiosystems.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2046-9063-9-4
____________________________
Microorganisms (Bacteria and Archaea) in the marine cavity beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica
19 March 2019
https://ipt.biodiversity.aq/resource?r=microbes_sub_ice_seawater_antarctica&v=1.1
____________________________
Unexpected host dependency of Antarctic Nanohaloarchaeota
2019
https://eprints.utas.edu.au/32407/
____________________________
Host species determines symbiotic community composition in Antarctic sponges (Porifera: Demospongiae)
2020
https://digital.csic.es/handle/10261/213988
____________________________
Charting the diversity of uncultured viruses of Archaea and Bacteria
29 December 2019
https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-019-0723-8
____________________________
Non-native microbial introductions: what risk to Antarctic ecosystems?
13 Mar 2018
https://environments.aq/publications/non-native-microbial-introductions-what-risk-to-antarctic-ecosystems/
____________________________
NASA Space Lasers Discover New Lakes Under Antarctic Ice
July 9, 2021
https://scitechdaily.com/nasa-space-lasers-discover-new-lakes-under-antarctic-ice/
____________________________
Antarctic ice shelf crack grows 11 miles and will create one of the largest icebergs ever
June 2, 2017
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/06/02/antarctic-ice-shelf-crack-grows-11-miles-and-will-create-one-of/22122906/
____________________________
There's a giant crack in an Antarctic ice shelf. Should we be worried?
February 24, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-giant-antarctic-ice-shelf.html
___________________________
Antarctica's hidden Lake Vostok found to teem with life
July 7, 2013
https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/antarcticas-hidden-lake-vostok-found-teem-life-6C10561955
____________________________
Short-term effect of elevated temperature on the abundance and diversity of bacterial and archaeal amoA genes in antarctic soils
2013
https://koreauniv.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/short-term-effect-of-elevated-temperature-on-the-abundance-and-di
____________________________
Crenarchaeota
http://tolweb.org/Crenarchaeota
____________________________
Complete genome sequence of the Antarctic Halorubrum lacusprofundi type strain ACAM 34
10 September 2016
https://environmentalmicrobiome.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0194-2
____________________________
Developing a genetic manipulation system for the Antarctic archaeon, Halorubrum lacusprofundi: investigating acetamidase gene function
06 October 201
https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/54864/1/2016%20Liao%20Sci%20Rep%20Genetic%20manipulation%20of%20Halorubrum%20lacusprofundi.pdf
___________________________
A microbial ecosystem beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet
2014
https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/handle/1/8712
____________________________
Riddles in the cold: Antarctic endemism and microbial succession impact methane cycling in the Southern Ocean
22 July 2020
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.1134
___________________________
Abundance and distribution of planktonic Archaea and Bacteria in the waters west of the Antarctic Peninsula. Limnol. Oceanogr (2003)
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.531.2933
___________________________
Archaeal Membrane Lipid-Based Paleothermometry for Applications in Polar Oceans
July 8, 2020
https://tos.org/oceanography/article/archaeal-membrane-lipid-based-paleothermometry-for-applications-in-polar-oceans
___________________________
Lifting the veil on arid-to-hyperarid Antarctic soil microbiomes: a tale of two oases
16 March 2020
Abstract
Background
Resident soil microbiota play key roles in sustaining the core ecosystem processes of terrestrial Antarctica, often involving unique taxa with novel functional traits. However, the full scope of biodiversity and the niche-neutral processes underlying these communities remain unclear. In this study, we combine multivariate analyses, co-occurrence networks and fitted species abundance distributions on an extensive set of bacterial, micro-eukaryote and archaeal amplicon sequencing data to unravel soil microbiome patterns of nine sites across two east Antarctic regions, the Vestfold Hills and Windmill Islands. To our knowledge, this is the first microbial biodiversity report on the hyperarid Vestfold Hills soil environment.
https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-020-00809-w
___________________________
The first look at how archaea package their DNA reveals they’re a lot like us
August 10, 2017
Peek into microbes hints that packing scheme for genetic material goes way back
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-look-how-archaea-package-their-dna-reveals-theyre-lot-us
___________________________
Life Discovered In Antarctic Lake That Hasn't Seen Sunlight For Millions Of Years
Aug 21, 2014
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/antarctic-lake-microbes-beneath-ice-video_n_5697428
___________________________
Bacteria rule: Life found deep beneath Antarctic ice!
2014
https://whyfiles.org/2014/bacteria-rule-life-found-deep-beneath-antarctic-ice/index.html
___________________________
Diversity of free-living prokaryotes from a deep-sea site at the Antarctic Polar Front
01 July 2001
https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/36/2-3/193/543045?login=false
___________________________
Identification of Microbial Dark Matter in Antarctic Environments.
19 Dec 2018
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/30619224
___________________________
The cold case of Deep Lake
2016
Conditions in an isolated lake in eastern Antarctica are so hostile that almost nothing can survive there. For a small group of extremophile microbes, there’s nowhere else they’d rather be...
http://www.lateralmag.com/articles/issue-7/the-cold-case-of-deep-lake
___________________________
Microbial Community Composition of the Antarctic Ecosystems: Review of the Bacteria, Fungi, and Archaea Identified through an NGS-Based Metagenomics Approach
18 June 2022
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/12/6/916
___________________________
Microbiology Resource of the Month: Rock-Inhabiting Microbes
Oct. 8, 2021
A cryptoendolithic lichen-dominated community colonizing sandstone collected at Linnaeus Terrace by L. Selbmann during the XXXI (Dec. 2015–Jan. 2016) Italian Antarctic Campaign.
https://asm.org/Articles/2021/October/Microbiology-Resource-of-the-Month-Rock-Inhabiting
___________________________
Palm trees 'grew on Antarctica'
1 August 2012
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19077439
___________________________
Life Found 800 Meters Down in Antarctic Subglacial Lake
August 20, 2014
Samples from Lake Whillans, hidden under ice, contain thousands of microbes and hint at vast ecosystems yet to be discovered
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/life-found-800-meters-down-in-antarctic-subglacial-lake/
___________________________
Life can persist in cold, dark world: Life under Antarctic ice explored
August 20, 2014
Summary:
The first breakthrough article to come out of a massive U.S. expedition to one of Earth's final frontiers shows that there's life and an active ecosystem one-half mile below the surface of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, specifically in a lake that hasn't seen sunlight or felt a breath of wind for millions of years. The life is in the form of microorganisms that live beneath the enormous Antarctic ice sheet and convert ammonium and methane into the energy required for growth.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140820140019.htm
___________________________
Diversity, abundance and activity of methanogenic archaea beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets
December 2009
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFM.B23C0379S/abstract
___________________________
Sub-zero heroes: extremophiles call salty Antarctic lakes home
September 30, 2013
https://theconversation.com/sub-zero-heroes-extremophiles-call-salty-antarctic-lakes-home-18734
___________________________
Cold stress response in Archaea
December 2000
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s007920070001
___________________________
Antarctic salt-loving microbes provide insights into evolution of viruses
August 21, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-08-antarctic-salt-loving-microbes-insights-evolution.html
___________________________
Bacteria and Archaea in different soil types on King George Island (South Shetland Islands, Antarctica)
2019
https://www.gbif.org/dataset/84d7d83b-94d2-4d44-a541-2c9e51e0f972
___________________________
Diverse Microbial Ecosystem Discovered in Antarctic Subglacial Lake Whillans
Aug 21, 2014
http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-microbial-ecosystem-antarctic-subglacial-lake-whillans-02110.html
___________________________
High abundance of Archaea in Antarctic marine picoplankton
1994
https://www.academia.edu/9732231/High_abundance_of_Archaea_in_Antarctic_marine_picoplankton
___________________________
High archaeal diversity in Antarctic circumpolar deep waters
___________________________
Macronutrient biogeochemistry in Antarctic land-fast sea ice: Insights from a circumpolar data compilation
2023
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304420323001202
___________________________
Biotechnological applications of archaeal enzymes from extreme environments
2018
https://biolres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40659-018-0186-3
___________________________
Bacteria and Archaea in different soil types on King George Island (South Shetland Islands, Antarctica)
2019
https://ipt.biodiversity.aq/resource.do?r=bacteria_and_archaea_in_different_king_george_island_soils&request_locale=en
___________________________
Life Confirmed Under Antarctic Ice; Is Space Next?
2014
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2014/08/20/life-confirmed-under-antarctic-ice-is-space-next/?sh=5223034750a2
___________________________
Newly-Discovered Mechanism Explains How Tardigrades Survive Extreme Dehydration
Sep 8, 2022
https://www.sci.news/biology/tardigrade-dehydration-11179.html
___________________________
Ammonia-Oxidising Archaea – Physiology, Ecology and Evolution
2010
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780123810458000011
___________________________
Cold Adaptation in the Antarctic Archaeon Methanococcoides burtonii Involves Membrane Lipid Unsaturation
2004
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC532414/
___________________________
Characterization of Bacterial, Archaeal and Eukaryote Symbionts from Antarctic Sponges Reveals a High Diversity at a Three-Domain Level and a Particular Signature for This Ecosystem
2015
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282345355_Characterization_of_Bacterial_Archaeal_and_Eukaryote_Symbionts_from_Antarctic_Sponges_Reveals_a_High_Diversity_at_a_Three-Domain_Level_and_a_Particular_Signature_for_This_Ecosystem
___________________________
Metabolic potential of uncultured bacteria and archaea associated with petroleum seepage in deep-sea sediments
18 April 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09747-0/
___________________________
Antarctic archaea–virus interactions: metaproteome-led analysis of invasion, evasion and adaptation
2015 Jun 30
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4542027/
___________________________
SEASONAL PRODUCTION AND BACTERIAL UTILIZATION OF DOC IN THE ROSS SEA, ANTARCTICA
2003
http://pal.lternet.edu/docs/bibliography/Public/260lterc.pdf
___________________________
Antarctic DNA moving forward: genomic plasticity and biotechnological potential
01 June 2012
Abstract
Antarctica is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, where only cold-adapted organisms survive. It has been frequently cited as a pristine place, but it has a highly diverse microbial community that is continually seeded by nonindigenous microorganisms. In addition to the intromission of ‘alien’ microorganisms, global warming strongly affects microbial Antarctic communities, changing the genes (qualitatively and quantitatively) potentially available for horizontal gene transfer. Several mobile genetic elements have been described in Antarctic bacteria (including plasmids, transposons, integrons, and genomic islands), and the data support that they are actively involved in bacterial evolution in the Antarctic environment. In addition, this environment is a genomic source for the identification of novel molecules, and many investigators have used culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches to identify cold-adapted proteins. Some of them are described in this review. We also describe studies for the design of new recombinant technologies for the production of ‘difficult’ proteins.
https://academic.oup.com/femsle/article-abstract/331/1/1/493763?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
___________________________
Horizontal Gene Transfer Elements: Plasmids in Antarctic Microorganisms
12 January 2019
Abstract
Plasmids play an important role in the evolution of microbial communities. These mobile genetic elements can improve host survival and may also be involved in horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events between individuals. Diverse culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches have been used to characterize these mobile elements. Culture-dependent methods are usually associated with classical microbiological techniques. In the second approach, development of specific protocols for analysis of metagenomes involves many challenges, including assembly of sequences and availability of a reliable database, which are crucial. In addition, alternative strategies have been developed for the characterization of plasmid DNA in a sample, generically referred to as plasmidome.
The Antarctic continent has environments with diverse characteristics, including some with very low temperatures, humidity levels, and nutrients. The presence of microorganisms and genetic elements capable of being transferred horizontally has been confirmed in these environments, and it is generally accepted that some of these elements, such as plasmids, actively participate in adaptation mechanisms of host microorganisms.
Information related to structure and function of HGT elements in Antarctic bacteria is very limited compared to what is known about HGT in bacteria from temperate/tropical environments. Some studies are done with biotechnological objectives. The search for mobile elements, such as plasmids, may be related to improve the expression of heterologous genes in host organisms growing at very low temperatures. More recently, however, additional studies have been done to detect plasmids in isolates, associated or not with specific phenotypes such as drug resistance. Although various Antarctic metagenomes are available in public databases, corresponding studies of plasmidomes are needed. The difficulties usually associated with the study of metagenomes are increased in these cases by the limited number of sequences in functionally characterized databases.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-02786-5_5
___________________________
Metagenomic characterization of antibiotic resistance genes in Antarctic soils
2019
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0147651319303719
___________________________
Bacterial plasmids in antarctic natural microbial assemblages
1984
https://www.academia.edu/56136742/Bacterial_plasmids_in_antarctic_natural_microbial_assemblages
___________________________
Plasmids of Psychrotolerant Polaromonas spp. Isolated From Arctic and Antarctic Glaciers - Diversity and Role in Adaptation to Polar Environments
2018
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29967598/
___________________________
Arctic plasmidome analysis reveals distinct relationships among associated antimicrobial resistance genes and virulence genes along anthropogenic gradients
2024
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38687495/
___________________________
Insight Into the Diversity and Possible Role of Plasmids in the Adaptation of Psychrotolerant and Metalotolerant Arthrobacter spp. to Extreme Antarctic Environments
17 December 2018
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2018.03144/full
___________________________
Plasmids of Psychrotolerant Polaromonas spp. Isolated From Arctic and Antarctic Glaciers – Diversity and Role in Adaptation to Polar Environments
2018
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6015842/
___________________________
Structure and functions of a multireplicon genome of Antarctic Psychrobacter sp. ANT_H3: characterization of the genetic modules suitable for the construction of the plasmid-vectors for cold-active bacteria
05 May 2023
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13353-023-00759-7
___________________________
Archaeal diversity revealed in Antarctic sea ice
25 May 2011
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/archaeal-diversity-revealed-in-antarctic-sea-ice/34CA61A0964952B64E5547072E2166E1
___________________________
Defining a pan-genome for Antarctic archaea
September 6, 2018
https://phys.org/news/2018-09-pan-genome-antarctic-archaea.html
___________________________
Archaic chaos: intrinsically disordered proteins in Archaea
28 May 2010
https://bmcsystbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-0509-4-S1-S1
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Keeping an Eye on Antarctic Ice Sheet Stability
March 16, 2019
https://tos.org/oceanography/article/keeping-an-eye-on-antarctic-ice-sheet-stability
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Prokaryotic Diversity and Metabolically Active Communities in Brines from Two Perennially Ice-Covered Antarctic Lakes
2021
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2020.2238
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Accomplishments & Reports: Antarctic Archaeoplankton
https://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/santacls/viik.html
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Antarctic Marine Microbes Need Their Multivitamins
December 2017
https://darwinproject.mit.edu/antarctic-marine-microbes-need-their-multivitamins/
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Secret Silent Source of Climate Change Revealed
Nov 13, 2019
The hotter it gets, the faster bacteria breathe and the more carbon dioxide and methane they emit — and bacteria comprise half the globe’s biomass
https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/2019-11-13/ty-article/.premium/secret-silent-source-of-climate-change-revealed/0000017f-ef4f-d497-a1ff-efcfa1b80000
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Cave Diving Gone Wrong | The First Iceberg Cave Dive
Jun 20, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t7_3Zczr1I
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Source of mysterious global tsunami found near Antarctica
2022
A rare, multi-part earthquake that disturbed waters in three oceans is helping scientists understand how different types of quakes can trigger tsunamis.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/source-of-mysterious-global-tsunami-found-near-antarctica
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Japan Tsunami Broke Huge Icebergs Off Antarctica
August 08, 2011
The massive March 11 Japan earthquake and its ensuing tsunami were so
powerful that they broke off huge icebergs thousands of miles away in
Antarctica, according to a new study.
https://www.livescience.com/15447-japan-tsunami-broke-icebergs-antarctica.html
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Holocene Indian Ocean sea level, Antarctic melting history and past Tsunami deposits inferred using sea level reconstructions from the Sri Lankan, Southeastern Indian and Maldivian coasts
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379118304426
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Ancient tsunami may have struck Falkland Islands
16 March 2020
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50855389
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Tsunami and infragravity waves impacting Antarctic ice shelves
16 June 2017
Abstract
The responses of the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) to the 16 September 2015 8.3 (Mw)
Chilean earthquake tsunami (>75 s period) and to oceanic
infragravity (IG) waves (50–300 s period) were recorded by a broadband
seismic array deployed on the RIS from November 2014 to November 2016.
Here we show that tsunami and IG-generated signals within the RIS
propagate at gravity wave speeds (∼70 m/s) as water-ice coupled
flexural-gravity waves. IG band signals show measureable attenuation
away from the shelf front. The response of the RIS to Chilean tsunami
arrivals is compared with modeled tsunami forcing to assess ice shelf
flexural-gravity wave excitation by very long period (VLP; >300 s)
gravity waves. Displacements across the RIS are affected by gravity wave
incident direction, bathymetry under and north of the shelf, and water
layer and ice shelf thicknesses. Horizontal displacements are typically
about 10 times larger than vertical displacements, producing dynamical
extensional motions that may facilitate expansion of existing fractures.
VLP excitation is continuously observed throughout the year, with
horizontal displacements highest during the austral winter with
amplitudes exceeding 20 cm. Because VLP flexural-gravity waves exhibit
no discernable attenuation, this energy must propagate to the grounding
zone. Both IG and VLP band flexural-gravity waves excite mechanical
perturbations of the RIS that likely promote tabular iceberg calving,
consequently affecting ice shelf evolution. Understanding these
ocean-excited mechanical interactions is important to determine their
effect on ice shelf stability to reduce uncertainty in the magnitude and
rate of global sea level rise.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017JC012913
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Asteroid hitting the Earth and causing a devastating Tsunami
Jan 3, 2005
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/asteroid-hitting-the-earth-and-causing-a-devastating-tsunami.58505/
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Hidden Life Found Far Beneath World’s Largest Ice Shelf
June 13, 2022
Hundreds of shrimp-like creatures were found living 1640 feet beneath Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hidden-life-found-far-beneath-worlds-largest-ice-Shelf-180980245/
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'We didn't expect to find such a beautiful, thriving ecosystem': Hidden world of life discovered beneath Antarctic iceberg
April 2025
___________________________
Unknown ecosystem found beneath Antarctica's ice
June 13th 2022
https://en.mercopress.com/2022/06/13/unknown-ecosystem-found-beneath-antarctica-s-ice
___________________________
Russia's tsunami bomb: Nuclear missile designed to hit the ocean floor
Apr 08, 2021
https://www.wionews.com/world/russias-tsunami-bomb-nuclear-missile-designed-to-hit-the-ocean-floor-376170
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If Thwaites Glacier collapses, it would change global coastlines forever
July 1, 2019
https://interactive.pri.org/2019/05/antarctica/thwaites-glacier-collapse.html
___________________________
Tsunami caused Manhattan-sized iceberg in Antarctica
August 9, 2011
https://www.dawn.com/news/650660
___________________________
Tsunami excitation of the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica
30 April 2017
https://core.ac.uk/display/237709741
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Teleseismic earthquake wavefields observed on the ross ice shelf
13 October 2020
https://core.ac.uk/display/396596662?source=1&algorithmId=15&similarToDoc=237709741&similarToDocKey=CORE&recSetID=c2874ce3-07e9-476c-8252-d19535857315&position=3&recommendation_type=same_repo&otherRecs=237709504,237709726,396596662,10127197,354410691
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Response of the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, to ocean gravity-wave forcing
31 October 2012
https://core.ac.uk/display/10127197?source=1&algorithmId=15&similarToDoc=237709741&similarToDocKey=CORE&recSetID=c2874ce3-07e9-476c-8252-d19535857315&position=4&recommendation_type=same_repo&otherRecs=237709504,237709726,396596662,10127197,354410691
___________________________
Ross ice shelf icequakes associated with ocean gravity wave activity
31 July 2019
https://core.ac.uk/display/237709504?source=1&algorithmId=15&similarToDoc=237709741&similarToDocKey=CORE&recSetID=c2874ce3-07e9-476c-8252-d19535857315&position=1&recommendation_type=same_repo&otherRecs=237709504,237709726,396596662,10127197,354410691
___________________________
Tidally induced seismicity at the grounded margins of the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica
31 December 2019
https://core.ac.uk/display/354410691?source=1&algorithmId=15&similarToDoc=237709741&similarToDocKey=CORE&recSetID=c2874ce3-07e9-476c-8252-d19535857315&position=5&recommendation_type=same_repo&otherRecs=237709504,237709726,396596662,10127197,354410691
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Ocean-excited plate waves in the Ross and Pine Island Glacier ice shelves
11 September 2018
https://core.ac.uk/display/237709726?source=1&algorithmId=15&similarToDoc=237709741&similarToDocKey=CORE&recSetID=c2874ce3-07e9-476c-8252-d19535857315&position=2&recommendation_type=same_repo&otherRecs=237709504,237709726,396596662,10127197,354410691
___________________________
Tohoku Tsunami Created Icebergs In Antarctica
08.08.11
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/tsunami-bergs.html
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Desert Dust Increases Harmful Marine Bacteria
June 9, 2016
The moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra
satellite acquired this natural-color image of dust sweeping off the
coast of Western Sahara and Morocco on Aug. 7, 2015.
https://magazine.scienceconnected.org/2016/06/desert-dust-harmful-marine-bacteria/
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Microplastics Found in Antarctic Snows for the First Time
June 8, 2022
https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/microplastics-found-in-antarctic-snows-for-the-first-time/
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Antarctic sea-ice bacteria could be contaminating seafood with a dangerous form of mercury
08/04/2016
https://inhabitat.com/antarctic-sea-ice-bacteria-could-be-contaminating-seafood-with-a-dangerous-form-of-mercury/
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Bacteria living on ocean plastic pollution could produce ANTIBIOTICS capable of protecting humans against drug-resistant superbugs, scientists claim
13 June 2022
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10911109/Bacteria-living-ocean-plastic-pollution-produce-antibiotics-fight-against-superbugs.html
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Antarctic microbe produces potential cancer-fighting drug
April 18, 2022
Researchers map the genetic machinery behind a natural anti-cancer compound from Antarctica for the first time
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4719/
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Bacteria with antibiotic resistant genes discovered in Antarctica, scientists say
May 26, 2022
Bacteria in Antarctica have been discovered with genes that give them natural antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance and have the potential to spread out of the polar regions, according to scientists in Chile.
Andres Marcoleta, a researcher from the University of Chile who headed the study in the Science of the Total Environment journal in March, said that these "superpowers" which evolved to resist extreme conditions are contained in mobile DNA fragments that can easily be transferred to other bacteria.
"We know that the soils of the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the polar areas most impacted by melting ice, host a great diversity of bacteria," Marcoleta said. "And that some of them constitute a potential source of ancestral genes that confer resistance to antibiotics."
Scientists from the University of Chile collected several samples from the Antarctic Peninsula from 2017 to 2019.
https://au.investing.com/news/world-news/bacteria-with-antibiotic-resistant-genes-discovered-in-antarctica-scientists-say-2576294
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Potential New Antarctica Bacteria Actually Contamination
March 11, 2013
https://www.livescience.com/27808-antarctica-bacteria-actually-contamination.html
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We caught bacteria from the most pristine air on earth to help solve a climate modeling mystery
June 19, 2020
The Southern Ocean is a vast band of open water that encircles the entire planet between Antarctica and the Southern Hemisphere landmasses. It is the cloudiest place on Earth, and the amount of sunlight that reflects off or passes through those clouds plays a surprisingly important role in global climate. It affects weather patterns, ocean currents, Antarctic sea ice cover, sea surface temperature and even rainfall in the tropics.
But due to how remote the Southern Ocean is, there have been very few actual studies of the clouds there. Because of this lack of data, computer models that simulate present and future climates overpredict how much sunlight reaches the ocean surface compared to what satellites actually observe. The main reason for this inaccuracy is due to how the models simulate clouds, but nobody knew exactly why the clouds were off. For the models to run correctly, researchers needed to understand how the clouds were being formed.
To discover what is actually happening in clouds over the Southern Ocean, a small army of atmospheric scientists, including us, went to find out how and when clouds form in this remote part of the world. What we found was surprising – unlike the Northern Hemisphere oceans, the air we sampled over the Southern Ocean contained almost no particles from land. This means the clouds might be different from those above other oceans, and we can use this knowledge to help improve the climate models...
https://theconversation.com/we-caught-bacteria-from-the-most-pristine-air-on-earth-to-help-solve-a-climate-modeling-mystery-140041
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Bacteria-algae relationships in Antarctic sea ice
03 June 2004
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/bacteriaalgae-relationships-in-antarctic-sea-ice/B25903B9586880417A2E449433AF50B4
___________________________
Ancient Microbes Found in Antarctic Lake
2012
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/30nov_lakevida
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Chilling Threat As Spanish Antarctic Research Uncovers Globe Destroying Super Bacteria
May 26, 2022
Strains of “superpower” bacteria that could cause the world’s next deadly pandemic has been discovered by scientists in Antarctica.
Spanish researchers found that the bacteria have a built-in resistance to antibiotics that could make current treatments useless.
The researchers made the shocking discovery during research into how climate change could affect the spread of bacteria that had been frozen in ice for thousands of years.
And they warned that climate change means they will have the potential to spread beyond polar regions, with potentially catastrophic consequences...
https://spainnews.madridmetropolitan.com/2022/05/26/chilling-threat-as-spanish-antarctic-research-uncovers-globe-destroying-super-bacteria/
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In Antarctic lake, extreme conditions lead to extreme genetics
10/1/2013
In a frigid, salty lake, microbes swap genes at an unprecedented rate.
Deep Lake: Where the magic happens
https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/10/in-antarctic-lake-extreme-conditions-lead-to-extreme-genetics/
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Cyanobacteria in microbial mats of Antarctic lakes (East Antarctica) A microscopical approach
Apr 1, 2008
https://www.schweizerbart.de/papers/algol_stud/detail/126/52774/Cyanobacteria_in_microbial_mats_of_Antarctic_lakes?af=crossref
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The phylogeny of bacteria from a modern Antarctic refuge
13 May 2004
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/phylogeny-of-bacteria-from-a-modern-antarctic-refuge/CABE9DDD84470AAC82E3CA07806BBA3F
___________________________
Bacteria Survive Below Antarctica's 'Blood Falls'
April 17, 2009
https://www.npr.org/2009/04/17/103210921/bacteria-survive-below-antarcticas-blood-falls
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Bacterial community segmentation facilitates the prediction of ecosystem function along the coast of the western Antarctic Peninsula
2017 Jan 20
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5437343/
___________________________
Genomic and Metabolomic Analysis of Antarctic Bacteria Revealed Culture and Elicitation Conditions for the Production of Antimicrobial Compounds
2020
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32349314/
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Sublithic bacteria associated with Antarctic quartz stones
2000
https://www.academia.edu/13822469/Sublithic_bacteria_associated_with_Antarctic_quartz_stones
___________________________
Bacteria thrive on methane deep beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet
2017
For the first time, scientists have direct observations of methane-eating bacteria in a subglacial lake in Antarctica. The study also provides evidence of increased methane production below the ice sheet.
https://sciencenordic.com/animals-and-plants-climate-denmark/bacteria-thrive-on-methane-deep-beneath-the-antarctic-ice-sheet/1448111
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Do humans spread zoonotic enteric bacteria in Antarctica?
2018 Oct 23
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30445320/
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Proteorhodopsin-Bearing Bacteria in Antarctic Sea Ice
2010
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935036/
___________________________
Exotic-looking microbes turn up in ancient Antartic ice
1998
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/ast12mar98_1/
___________________________
Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria and Pyritic Sediments in Antarctica
1961
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.134.3473.190
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Bacteria Frozen in the Antarctic For 10,000 Years Grow in a Lab
1974
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/30/archives/bacteria-frozen-in-the-antarctic-for-10000-years-grow-in-a-lab.html
___________________________
Colder Than Ice: Researchers Discover How Microbes Survive in Subfreezing Conditions
October 10, 2013
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/colder-than-ice-researchers-discover-how-microbes-survive-in-subfreezing-conditions/
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Discovery of metal-breathing bacteria can change electronics
July 29, 2020
https://bigthink.com/hard-science/discovery-of-metal-breathing-bacteria-can-change-electronics/
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‘Superpower’ bacteria discovered in Antarctica
5/26/2022
https://theworldnews.net/au-news/superpower-bacteria-discovered-in-antarctica
___________________________
Genes make Antarctica bacteria immune to antibiotics
May 26th 2022
https://en.mercopress.com/2022/05/26/genes-make-antarctica-bacteria-immune-to-antibiotics
___________________________
Bacteria with antibiotic resistant genes discovered in Antarctica, scientists say
May 25, 2022
https://news.yahoo.com/bacteria-antibiotic-resistant-genes-discovered-185046892.html
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Antarctic bacteria live on air and use hydrogen as fuel
16 November 2021
Scientists have found that hundreds of bacterial species in the frozen soils in East Antarctica use hydrogen to make water.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/antarctic-bacteria-live-on-air-and-use-hydrogen-as-fuel/
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Warsaw scientist finds natural ‘coral-saving’ UV filter in Antarctic bacteria
December 20, 2021
https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/warsaw-scientist-finds-natural-coral-saving-uv-filter-in-antarctic-bacteria-26856
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Potential for resistance to freezing by non-virulent bacteria isolated from Antarctica
2022
https://www.scielo.br/j/aabc/a/zJ3bdnV5gqPwHZhT6x45stq/
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Hyperresistant bacteria discovered in Antarctica could pose risk to global health, researcher tells Norway Today
1. June 2022
https://norwaytoday.info/news/hyperresistant-bacteria-discovered-in-antarctica-could-pose-risk-to-global-health-researcher-tells-norway-today/
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Bacteria from cold environs could help clean clothes
Feb. 7, 2018
"The cold regions of our planet are actually becoming more reachable for exploration and for scientific research," researcher Amedea Perfumo said.
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/02/07/Bacteria-from-cold-environs-could-help-clean-clothes/2361518025448/
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Ancient Antarctic Bacteria Brought Back to Life
August 10, 2007
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12680700
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Antarctic penguins in danger from human diseases, researchers say
December 17, 2018
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/17/health/antarctic-penguins-bacteria-scli-intl/index.html
___________________________
First record of the endophytic bacteria of Deschampsia antarctica Ė. Desv. from two distant localities of the maritime Antarctic
2021
https://journals.muni.cz/CPR/article/view/15422
___________________________
Antimicrobial activity and resistance to heavy metals and antibiotics of heterotrophic bacteria isolated from sediment and soil samples collected from two Antarctic islands
22 May 201
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21553769.2015.1044130
___________________________
Differential effects of soil trophic networks on microbial decomposition activity in mountain ecosystems
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0038071722002280
___________________________
Soil erosion and organic carbon export by wet snow avalanches
14 Apr 2014
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/8/651/2014/
___________________________
Long-lasting modification of soil fungal diversity associated with the introduction of rabbits to a remote sub-Antarctic archipelago
01 September 2015
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0408
___________________________
Mapping soil pH in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica
10 August 2018
https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/publications/soil-horizons/soil-horizons-articles/mapping-soil-ph-in-antarctica/
___________________________
Ornithogenic Factor of Soil Formation in Antarctica: A Review
29 April 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S1064229321040025
___________________________
Global vulnerability of soil ecosystems to erosion
2020 Mar 10
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7316572/
___________________________
Soil Erosion Caused by Snow Avalanches: a Case Study in the Aosta Valley (NW Italy)
2018
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1657/1938-4246-42.4.412
___________________________
Studying Erosion and Weathering in One of the Most Extreme Places on Earth
February 5, 2019
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/02/05/erosion-weathering-antarctica/
___________________________
Antarctic nematodes and climate change
27 April 2013
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22177221
___________________________
Long-lasting modification of soil fungal diversity associated with the introduction of rabbits to a remote sub-Antarctic archipelago
2015
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4614422/
___________________________
Biological Soil Crusts as Ecosystem Engineers in Antarctic Ecosystem
22 March 2022
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.755014/full
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Aerobic endospore-forming bacteria isolated from Antarctic soils as producers of bioactive compounds of industrial interest
August 2014
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271656592_Aerobic_endospore-forming_bacteria_isolated_from_Antarctic_soils_as_producers_of_bioactive_compounds_of_industrial_interest
___________________________
Depth profiles of volatile iodine and bromine-containing halocarbons in coastal Antarctic waters
31 December 2006
https://core.ac.uk/display/11760448
___________________________
Methyl iodine over oceans from the Arctic Ocean to the maritime Antarctic
2016 May 17
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868973/
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Isoprene hotspots at the Western Coast of Antarctic Peninsula
https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1826/13837/Isoprene_hotspots_at_the_Western_Coast_of_Antarctic-2018%20(1).pdf;sequence=4
___________________________
Analysis of Siple Dome Ice Core: Carbonyl Sulfide (COS), Methyl Chloride
(CH3Cl), and Methyl Bromide (CH3Br), Version 1 (NSIDC-0279)
https://nsidc.org/data/NSIDC-0279/versions/1
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Levels and pattern of volatile organic nitrates and halocarbons in the air at Neumayer Station (70 degrees S), Antarctic.
01 Sep 2002
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/12222794
___________________________
Antarctic Ice Cores: Methyl Chloride and Methyl Bromide, Version 1 (NSIDC-0313)
https://nsidc.org/data/NSIDC-0313/versions/1
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Nitrous oxide flux and response to increased iron availability in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current
2001
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Nitrous-oxide-flux-and-response-to-increased-iron-Law-Ling/472e3eda0f26b759a48b02117fd8afab34bc6c13
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Antarctica's Bizarre Green Icebergs Are More Than a Quirk of the Southern Ocean
March 09, 2019
Just in time for Saint Patrick's Day, scientists think they might know why some Antarctic icebergs are green.
The reason could be iron oxide dust ground down by glaciers on the Antarctic mainland. If the theory holds, it means that the green 'bergs are more than just a quirk of the Southern Ocean. In fact, they might be crucial to the movement of ocean nutrients.
"It's like taking a package to the post office," study leader Stephen Warren, a glaciologist at the University of Washington, said in a statement. "The iceberg can deliver this iron out into the ocean far away, and then melt and deliver it to the phytoplankton that can use it as a nutrient." [Antarctica: The Ice-Covered Bottom of the World (Photos)]
A green iceberg in the Weddell Sea, photographed in February 1992.
Warren has been on the case of the green icebergs for more than 30 years. He first took samples from one of these green hunks of ice in 1988, near the Amery Ice Shelf of East Antarctica.
"When we climbed up on that iceberg, the most amazing thing was actually not the color but rather the clarity," Warren said. "This ice had no bubbles. It was obvious that it was not ordinary glacier ice."
Most glacial ice occurs in shades of white to brilliant blue. The more blue the ice, the older it is, typically: Compression from accumulating layers of snow pushes air bubbles out of the ice, reducing the scattering of white light. The compressed ice absorbs most of the light spectrum except for blue, creating the otherworldly turquoise seen in the hearts of icebergs and glaciers.
An iceberg near Davis Station, Antarctica, incorporates glacial ice (white) and marine ice (blue). Researchers stand on snow-covered sea ice in this 1996 photo.
The green ice was similarly bubble-free, and yet it looked green instead of blue. Warren and his team soon found that the green ice came not from glaciers, but from marine ice. That's the ice from the undersides of floating ice shelves.
https://www.livescience.com/64960-why-antarctica-icebergs-are-green.html
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Does iron oxide turn blue icebergs green?
March 7th, 2019
https://www.futurity.org/green-icebergs-antarctica-iron-oxides-2001562-2/
Scientists have come up with a new idea to explain a decades-long mystery: why some Antarctic icebergs are emerald green rather than the normal blue.
Pure ice is blue because ice absorbs more red light than blue light. Most icebergs appear white or blue when floating in seawater, but since the early 1900s, explorers and sailors have reported seeing peculiar green icebergs around certain parts of Antarctica.
These green icebergs have puzzled scientists for decades, but now glaciologists suspect iron oxides in rock dust from Antarctica’s mainland may explain the green in some icebergs. They formulated the new theory after Australian researchers discovered large amounts of iron in East Antarctica’s Amery Ice Shelf.
Food source
Iron is a key nutrient for phytoplankton, microscopic plants that form the base of the marine food web. But iron is scarce in many areas of the ocean.
If experiments prove the new theory right, it would mean green icebergs ferry precious iron from Antarctica’s mainland to the open sea when they break off, providing this key nutrient to the organisms that support nearly all marine life.
“It’s like taking a package to the post office. The iceberg can deliver this iron out into the ocean far away, and then melt and deliver it to the phytoplankton that can use it as a nutrient,” says lead author Stephen Warren, a glaciologist and professor emeritus in the University of Washington’s atmospheric sciences department. “We always thought green icebergs were just an exotic curiosity, but now we think they may actually be important.”
Warren started studying the phenomenon on an Australian expedition in 1988, when he took a core sample from a green iceberg near the Amery Ice Shelf on the coast of East Antarctica.
Interestingly, the green ice he saw was a deep emerald hue, much darker and clearer than that of normal icebergs—a signal to scientists that green ice might differ from regular iceberg ice.
“When we climbed up on that iceberg, the most amazing thing was actually not the color, but rather the clarity,” Warren says. “This ice had no bubbles. It was obvious that it was not ordinary glacier ice.”
Yellow + blue = green
Icebergs break off of glaciers and ice shelves that jut out into the sea. Typical glacier ice forms when layers of snow build up and solidify over time, so it naturally has air pockets that reflect light.
But in Antarctica, some icebergs have a layer of marine ice: ocean water frozen to the underside of an overhanging ice shelf. Marine ice is clearer and darker than glacier ice because it doesn’t have any air pockets to reflect light.
When Warren and colleagues analyzed that iceberg and other green icebergs Australian expeditions sampled in the 1980s, they found the green parts were made of marine ice and not glacier ice. They suspected an impurity in the ocean water underneath the Amery Ice Shelf was turning some marine ice green.
Their first thought was that dissolved organic carbon, microscopic particles of long-dead marine plants and animals, was getting trapped in the ice as the water froze to the underside of the ice shelf. Dissolved organic carbon is yellow, so adding it to pure blue ice could turn the ice green, according to Warren.
But when he and his colleagues sampled icebergs on a subsequent expedition in 1996, they found green marine ice had the same amount of organic material as blue marine ice, so something else had to be responsible for the green color.
Glacial flour
The problem nagged at Warren until a few years ago, when an oceanographer at the University of Tasmania tested an ice core from the Amery Ice Shelf for its iron content and found marine ice near the bottom of the core had nearly 500 times more iron than the glacial ice above.
Iron oxides found in soil, rocks, and common rust tend to have warm, earthy hues—yellows, oranges, reds, and browns. So Warren began to suspect iron oxides in the marine ice could turn blue ice green. But where was the iron coming from?
As glaciers flow over bedrock, they grind rocks to a fine powder known as glacial flour. When the ice meets the sea, this glacial flour flows into the ocean. If the rock dust becomes trapped under an ice shelf, the particles could incorporate in marine ice as it forms.
Warren now suspects iron oxides in glacial flour from rocks on Antarctica’s mainland are responsible for creating the stunning emerald icebergs. He and the Australian iron researchers now propose to sample icebergs of different colors for their iron content and light-reflecting properties.
If their theory proves correct, green icebergs could have more importance than scientists thought.
The paper appears in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. Additional coauthors are from the University of Washington, Bowdoin College, and the Australian Antarctic Division. Australian Antarctic Division and the US National Science Foundation supported the work.
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Antarctica: The Ice-Covered Bottom of the World (Photos)
November 9, 2018
https://www.livescience.com/64039-photos-antarctica.html
Antarctica is a place of extremes. It's the southernmost continent and hosts the coldest temperature ever directly recorded on Earth's surface — a bone-chilling minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 89.2 degrees Celsius) logged at Russia's Vostok research station. It's also home to the windiest spot on the planet — Mawson station, where max winds have been clocked whipping at 154 mph (248.4 km/h), according to CoolAntarctica. Here's a look at the awe-inspiring ice cake at the bottom of our planet…
Cloud streets
Long, parallel bands of cumulus clouds (called cloud streets) stretch over the Amundsen Sea off West Antarctica in this image captured from space on Sept. 12, 2018. The puffy sky streaks likely formed as cool air blowing from Antarctica and the sea ice hit warmer open waters, picking up heat and rising into the atmosphere. There, these so-called thermals would have bumped into a layer of warm air, a lid of sorts, causing "the rising thermals to roll over and loop back on themselves," according to NASA. On the upper side of these "cylinders of rotating air," NASA said, clouds form.
On the move
Don't be fooled, Antarctica is not a still, ever-silent place. It's constantly on the move, with glaciers inching toward the sea, ice blocks breaking off their land-leashed parent shelves and the resulting icebergs splintering into their own smaller chunks of floating ice. Some icebergs look like carefully cut rectangles, like the ones shown here in this aerial view captured in 1997. They're called tabular icebergs.
Clean break
On Oct. 16, 2018, during a research flight above the Antarctic Peninsula, Jeremy Harbeck, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, snapped a photo showing "an unusually angular iceberg floating amid sea ice just off the Larsen C ice shelf," according to NASA. And it's relatively big, about 3,000 feet (900 meters) wide and 5,000 feet (1,500 m) long. The trapezoidal slab could be the result of an enormous iceberg called A-68A slamming into an immovable ice rise, resulting in the splintering of such neatly cut squares and rectangles, according to NASA.
Volcanic beauty
Resting quietly in the Indian Ocean, Amsterdam Island is a small bit of land about 21 square miles (55 square kilometers) in size and considered part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. It was formed by a now-extinct volcano that reaches an altitude of nearly 3,000 feet (911 meters); the island formed between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Artists's palette
Some aerial shots of the Antarctic look more impressionist art than real-life phenomena. Here, the sunset paints ice floes around Antarctica in pastel shades of pink and orange.
Bergy bits
Icebergs rise from the sea surface in this aerial view of Antarctica, captured in 1997. The term iceberg refers to ice chunks that are bigger than 16 feet (5 meters) across, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. As for wee icebergs, smaller than the official threshold, scientists apparently call those bergy bits and growlers, NSIDC said.
Bunger Hills
Antarctic landscapes aren't all white and frosty blue. Take Bunger Hills, seen in this aerial view captured in January 2008. This snow- and ice-free terrain was discovered in February 1947 by a pilot who was part of the U.S. Navy's Operation Highjump. At the time, the 390-square-mile (1,000 square kilometers) spot was considered an "oasis," according to a paper by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) published in 1988. Admiral Richard E. Byrd, who led Operation Highjump, described it as "a land of blue and green lakes and brown hills in an otherwise limitless expanse of ice," according to the USGS paper.
Glacial texture
The southernmost continent is bathed in sunlight during the Southern Hemisphere summer (while its northern cousin is shrouded in darkness). Here, in an image captured by a NASA satellite on Dec. 13, 2010, along the Princess Ragnhild Coast in East Antarctica, icebergs pop out due to the low-angle sunlight. The rougher-textured icebergs likely split from the coast, bobbing in the open ocean before ending up here, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. Scars from all that jostling roughed up the ice surfaces. The icebergs with smoother surfaces were birthed locally, not having been ravaged by the seas.
Beautiful places
Marambio Base is a permanent Argentinian research station on the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out from the continent toward South America and is considered by many visitors to be "one of the most beautiful places on Earth," according to CoolAntarctica, a site run by Paul Ward, who has a zoology degree and has worked in Antarctica.
Blood Falls
Even reds sometimes show up on this mostly white continent. Here, blood-red meltwater spills from Taylor Glacier Taylor Glacier in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, located along the southern coast of Antarctica. Blood Falls, as the waterfall-like stream is called, has a not-so-macabre source: Researchers reported April 24, 2017, in the Journal of Glaciology that a stream of brine beneatt the ice feeds the falls. That briny water is chockful of iron, which oxidizes and turns red when exposed to the air. As such, the outflow looks "bloody" as it flows into Lake Bonney, Live Science previously reported. The image was captured on Nov. 11, 2016.
Collapse
In addition to its reputation for gorgeous and awe-inspiring scapes, Antarctica is also a poster child for global warming. For instance, since 1995, the Larsen Ice Shelf, on the northeast coast of the Antarctic Peninsula along the Weddell Sea, has lost 75 percent of its mass, Live Science previously reported. And over about a month in 2002, part of the Larsen ice shelf, called Larsen B, collapsed, something that amazed scientists who had never seen so much ice (3,250 square kilometers, or 1,250 square miles) splinter off that quickly, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. Here, the gorgeous Larsen B Ice Shelf is shown on Feb. 21, 2000, about two years before its fateful collapse.
Scoured ice
Antarctica is nearly completely blanketed in thick ice. Here, in this NASA image snapped on Sept. 26, 2001, you can get an idea of the various types of ice found on the continent. For instance, ice of continental glacier is up to 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) thick at the interior (shown at the bottom of the image). The thick glaciers are fastened in place by coastal mountain ranges, blue patches of bare ice are the result of strong "katabatic" winds that scour the snow from its surfaces, according to NASA. The much smoother ice shelf can be seen above the coastline, where the ice floats on the sea surface. "Beyond that is the chaotic surface of the sea ice, which has been solidifying all winter long," NASA said.
Volcanoes!
The Operational Land Imager on the Landsat-8 satellite captured this image showing a 560-mile (900 kilometers) stretch along Antarctica's Pacific coast, where 18 major volcanoes — yes, volcanoes, in Antarctica! — pop up from the ice sheet. Mount Sidley, Antarctica's tallest volcano, stands tall: It reaches 13,800 feet (4,200 meters) above sea level and 7,200 feet (2,200 m) above the ice surface. Rear Adm. Richard Byrd discovered Mount Sidley in 1934, later naming it after Mabelle Sidley, the daughter of a member of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition, according to NASA.
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Falls eerie red outflow in Antarctica caused by iron-oxide stained saltwater
Welcome to our website for all ___ Falls eerie red outflow in Antarctica caused by iron-oxide stained saltwater. Since you are already here then chances are that you are looking for the Daily Themed Crossword Solutions. Look no further because you will find whatever you are looking for in here. Our staff has managed to solve all the game packs and we are daily updating the site with each days answers and solutions. If we haven’t posted today’s date yet make sure to bookmark our page and come back later because we are in different timezone and that is the reason why but don’t worry we never skip a day because we are very addicted with Daily Themed Crossword.
https://dailythemedcrosswordanswers.com/___-falls-eerie-red-outflow-in-antarctica-caused-by-iron-oxide-stained-saltwater/
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The Eerie Mystery of 'Blood Falls' in Antarctica Is Finally Solved
04 July 2023
In a pale world of ice and snow, the last color you expect to see on the horizon is red.
In 1911, during a British expedition to Antarctica, researchers were shocked to notice a glacier 'bleeding' from its tongue onto an ice-covered lake.
The crimson drool is known as Blood Falls, and it's taken experts more than a century to figure out what is actually causing the eerie coloring.
When a team of US scientists took samples from Taylor Glacier's rusty tongue in November 2006 and mid and late November 2018, and analyzed the contents using powerful electron microscopes, they caught the true culprit 'red-handed'.
While plenty of studies have been conducted on the chemistry and microbes living in the discharge leaking from Antarctica's Blood Falls, a full breakdown of its mineralogical make-up had yet to be undertaken. Using an array of analytical equipment, the researchers uncovered a few surprises that helped better explain the iconic red hue.
"As soon as I looked at the microscope images, I noticed that there were these little nanospheres and they were iron-rich," explains materials scientist Ken Livi from Johns Hopkins University.
The minuscule particles come from ancient microbes and are a hundredth of the size of human red blood cells. They are highly abundant in the meltwaters of Taylor Glacier, which was named after the British scientist Thomas Griffith Taylor who first noticed the Blood Falls on the 1910 to 1913 expedition.
Along with iron, the nanospheres also contain silicon, calcium, aluminum, and sodium, and this unique composition is part of what turns the briny, subglacial water red as it slips off the glacier's tongue and meets a world of oxygen, sunlight, and warmth for the first time in a long time.
"In order to be a mineral, atoms must be arranged in a very specific, crystalline, structure," explains Livi.
The Blood Falls at Taylor Glacier.
The Taylor Glacier in Antarctica hosts an ancient microbial community hundreds of meters under its ice, which has evolved in isolation for millennia, or possibly even millions of years.
As such, it's a useful 'playground' for astrobiologists, hoping to discover hidden life forms on other planets, too.
But the new findings suggest that if robots like the Mars Rover don't have the right equipment on board, they might not be able to detect all the lifeforms present beneath a planet's icy bodies.
The spectroscopic equipment used to identify the nanospheres in the current study, for instance, could not be taken to Antarctica. Instead, samples had to be sent to labs overseas.
A schematic of Blood Falls and its subglacial microbial communities.
The findings support a previous hypothesis, which suggests the reason scientists haven't yet detected life on Mars is because current technology can't always spot the signatures of life, even when a rover rolls right over them.
If a Mars rover landed in Antarctica right now, for instance, it wouldn't be able to detect the microbial nanospheres that turn Taylor Glacier's terminus into a fan of red.
"Our work has revealed that the analysis conducted by rover vehicles is incomplete in determining the true nature of environmental materials on planet surfaces," says Livi.
"This is especially true for colder planets like Mars, where the materials formed may be nanosized and non-crystalline. Consequently, our methods for identifying these materials are inadequate."
Unfortunately, attaching an electron microscope to a Mars rover is currently not feasible. These devices are simply too bulky and power hungry, which means that samples will need to be returned from Mars to Earth if we really want to study them for nanoscopic evidence of life.
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-eerie-mystery-of-blood-falls-in-antarctica-is-finally-solved
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Iceberg Dust Turns Gigantic Ocean Pastures Green
January 19, 2016
https://russgeorge.net/2016/01/19/iceberg-dust-turns-ocean-pastures-green/
Ice sheets in the Antarctic and Arctic patiently collect wind blown dust over the course of millenia then provides that dust to sustain ocean pastures over months to years once it breaks free and melts as nourishing drifting icebergs.
Giant Antarctic icebergs are now shown to be playing an important role in how much carbon the Oceans absorbs.
To
help save this blue planet, become the iceberg or if you prefer, become
a piece of winter pack ice, a frozen life-sustaining plankton popsicle.
Giant
icebergs from Antarctica and their iceberg dust account for a vast
amount of carbon dioxide captured and stored in the Southern Ocean, far
more than was previously believed say a paper published this week in the
scientific journal Nature Geoscience.
The research from the
University of Sheffield’s Department of Geography studied the slow
melting of giant icebergs, which contains an accumulation of aeolian,
windblown, dust that contains iron and other nutrients vital to ocean
pasture health and productivity. As the icebergs, both large and small,
drift and melt in the seas around the frozen continent they leave broad
green swaths of healthy vigorously growing ocean pasture phytoplankton.
These
vital ocean pastures often stretch for 1000 kilometers in length and
200 km across in the Southern Ocean. The iceberg-dust fed ocean pastures
from single icebergs cover areas of 200,000 sq. km. or more. These
verdant ocean pastures, in turn, sustain the rich ocean ecosystem
feeding tiny krill, fish, great whales, and of course penguins.
Even in the world’s least dusty region wind blown dust sustains ocean pastures
The
bounty of iceberg dust that sustains these vast and vital ocean
pastures has accumulated while the ice from Antarctica has slowly over
the course of centuries accumulated a tiny amount of dust every year.
Antarctica, while a continent of snow that becomes ice is actually one
of the dryest deserts in Earth, has annual snowfall over most of the
continent equal to just a few centimeters per year. As for dustfall it
is the farthest place on Earth from sources of windblown dust so it’s
dustfall is the least of anywhere.
While the rate of accumulation
is very slow ice and dust accumulate as time passes slowly but
endlessly. The age of the ice in giant icebergs is counted in millennia.
Some parts of the Antarctic coastal ice is more than 2 million years
old!
The researchers point out that of course these rich iceberg
dust fed plankton blooms are responsible, via their photosynthesis, for
absorbing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that
sustains the Southern Ocean ocean pasture ecosystem, feeds all of ocean
life, and locks the ‘leftovers’ for millennia into the frigid ocean
abyss.
Penguins hitch rides with Iceberg ocean pasture shepherds creating lush green ocean pastures full of krill and fish.
Giant iceberg shepherds slowly release millennia of stored dust to nourish and sustain ocean pastures
Iron-rich dust freed from the ice in the Ross Sea produces tremendous plankton blooms
Krill under Iceberg
Adelie penguins leaping into the ocean from an iceberg.
Minke Whales Frederique Olivier, Australian Antarctic Division
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Scientists solve the mystery of green icebergs that are only seen in Antarctica
Mar 06, 2019
Emerald-green icebergs. They’ve been documented in Antarctica for over a century, both in literature and images. But only in a new study do scientists say they understand where the colour comes from.
Unlike the white or blue hues that ice sheets and icebergs are traditionally known for, there is a kind of ice formation below large ice sheets that gives them an unexpected green hue. This happens as seawater freezes to the bottom of these ice shelves, forming what’s known as marine ice.
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Listen To Your Mother … Nature… She Knows and Loves Her Mineral Dust
June 26, 2017
https://russgeorge.net/2017/06/26/listen-to-your-mother-nature-she-knows-best/
Iron in mineral dust particles vital to ocean life says new paper in Journal Science.
Iron in seawater dramatically promotes the growth of phytoplankton, the grass of vast ocean pastures.
Their growth repurposes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into new ocean life. Iron in mineral dust empowers the ocean pastures to soak up CO2.
For a long time now ocean science dogmatists have tried to force Mother Nature into behaving like a simplistic freshman chemistry test tube experiment. They acknowledged that iron is remarkably able to stimulate ocean photosynthesis but they would only allow that dissolved iron, not the less soluble mineral dust forms, could be involved. Bzzzzt!!!
A new paper in the Journal Science Advances (23 June 2017) shows that despite particulate iron’s low solubility in seawater the abundance of such particulate iron in the ocean is key to all of ocean life. Further, the quantity of iron rather than its chemical signature is responsible for the rate of phytoplankton growth.
It seems Mother Nature (and the late great John Martin) figured this out billions of years ago and only now have some puny humans acquiesced to her prowess for managing life on and in this blue planet.
An interdisciplinary team of scientists led by Elizabeth M. Shoenfelt and Benjamin Bostick of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has discovered that particulate iron does potently stimulate phytoplankton growth, and that the chemical form that particulate iron takes is critical to ocean photosynthesis—not just the quantity of iron available.
The team found that the iron in the ultra-fine particle sizes that comes from glaciers is better at promoting phytoplankton growth and photosynthesis than larger particulate iron containing dust from other sources. This means that glaciers may play a larger role in the carbon cycle than had been thought.
“It’s not that soluble iron doesn’t matter, but particulates, which are the biggest components of the iron in the ocean, can do quite a bit,” said Bostick.
The findings, published in the June 23 edition of the journal Science Advances, show that in lab culture, a well-studied coastal diatom grows equally well with particulate iron versus soluble iron. More so it grows up to 2.5 times faster, and with greater photosynthetic efficiency, when fed a form of particulate iron produced by the grinding of glaciers against rock. The authors estimate that the carbon uptake rates of the diatoms consuming glacier-produced ultra-fine iron containing mineral dust would be five times higher than those consuming non-glacier iron when enhanced growth and photosynthesis rates are combined.
Earlier research, especially that of ocean iron pioneer John Martin, had shown that during glacial periods, ocean concentrations of iron from mineral dust tend to rise. Glaciers grind up iron-rich bedrock that lies beneath the ice when they extend and recede through seasonal cycles. The resulting iron dust is carried on the wind out to sea. But no one had connected the chemical forms of iron found in glacier-produced dust versus other forms to phytoplankton photosynthesis.
“Basically glaciers make fertilizer for the ocean,” said Bostick. “We show that it’s not just how much dust the glaciers make, but the fact that the glaciers grind up certain kinds of rocks that makes a big difference.”
The research team took the so-called glaciogenic dust they used in lab culture from South America’s Patagonia region. But they said that the mineralogy of glaciogenic dust is similar around the world. The water they used came from the Southern Ocean.
The team’s results set up a number of avenues for future research. These include studying the geological record to identify changes in the chemical forms of iron available in the ocean over time, and matching those to glacial fluctuations, said Bostick. He said further study could use genetics to study how diatoms use iron rich mineral dust.
“We’d like to know mechanistically how it’s happening,” said Bostick. “This allows you to understand how the system can be manipulated, so we can know how the environment would respond.”
Call To Action – Imitating Mother Nature – Become The Iceberg
The crisis in the world’s ocean is wrought by our high and rising CO2 and that CO2 effect but it is potentially able to being the principal mechanism that influences global warming and climate change. It is clear that the oceans being harmed first and foremost by our CO2 are where we should also be acting first and foremost to mitigate our deadly impact.
The amount of dust circulating in the world’s air is today greatly diminished by the global greening effect of CO2 in supporting more growth of plants on land, read more “ground cover.” More grass growing means less dust blowing! Here’s a link to a report on a recent scientific paper confirming the cataclysmic decline in global dust.
The most immediate and practical means to help the oceans is to replenish the dust we are denying them and our dust, just like the iceberg dust will nourish and sustain ocean pasture plankton. That phyto-plankton will repurpose our menacing CO2 into new ocean life. This is no sailors dream it is a proven safe, sustainable, low cost, and immediately deployable methodology as seen in my 2012 demonstration in the North Pacific. There my small 50,000 sq. km. dust fed ocean pasture, by iceberg comparison, restored and revived a dying ocean pasture.
Extensive scientific data collected at and under the sea and via satellite over months of monitoring the ocean pasture before, during, and after, its bloom cycle confirmed It Just Worked! But the best evidence by far was when the very next year in Alaska where fishers were expected to have a good year and catch 50 million Pink Salmon instead they caught 226 million Pinks, that swam into their nets from their lovingly restored ocean pasture, the largest catch in all of history!
In the Southern Ocean if a single of my ocean dusting ships is deployed each summer to act in tandem with the glaciers and giant icebergs billions of tonnes of our CO2 would be repurposed into new ocean life. The cost would be a few million dollars per year but the effect would be, as the icebergs have shown us, marvellous and effective. Compared to the cost in new climate taxes approved by 195 nations at the recent Paris Climate Summit collecting many TRILLIONS of dollars each year of climate/carbon taxes to accomplish less at some time in the distant future I think this is a far better idea! Join me.
We simply have to choose do we want our CO2 to menace the ocean with ocean acidification and ocean death or do we choose ocean life. Worried if verdant ocean pastures and their plankton blooms will harm instead of help ocean life… ask a penguin!
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Ocean Carbon Climate System Is Most Powerful And Important
February 11, 2017
The idea that the world’s climate changes the oceans is simply ‘bass ackwards’, it is the oceans that control the world’s climate.
The oceans are this blue planet’s most important “carbon sink”, helping manage both natural CO2 and those emissions from human activities.
A new study, published in Nature, reveals that loss of natural ocean cooling is changing the way they manage the world’s CO2.
It’s an obvious matter of scale, the earth and atmosphere manage 2,000 billion tonnes of carbon while the oceans manage 60,000 billion tonnes.
Strengthening ocean warming and thermal stratification, aka loss of plankton cooling, has reduced the amount of the vast reserve of CO2, the ocean carbon, contained in the deep ocean that was until recently reliably recirculated at the surface with the atmosphere. This has shifted the oceans climate control and is allowing the surface ocean to retain more CO2 from the air.
That might sound like good news to the CO2/climate change community but it comes as desperately bad news for the oceans that make up 72% of our Blue Planet. The shift comes with parallel destruction of the ocean pasture ecology that converts deadly CO2 into ocean life. That added CO2 is becoming deadly acid instead of ocean life.
It is the phyto-plankton of the world’s ocean pastures that are most important of all in keeping the oceans and the Earth in the ‘Goldilock’s Zone’. Follow Goldies link to read more about how life as we know it is able to survive and thrive here.
The authors of this Journal Nature paper dutifully use the profitable vernacular of ‘climate change’ in their ‘politically correct science’ commentary that punctuates the paper, a regrettable mistake on their part. But the science underpinning the paper is good stuff.
The popular terran-centric science posits that the oceans have absorbed about a third of the CO2 that humans have emitted into the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The terrans maintain that their world, the world of land, absorbs another third. That leaves the final third of humanities CO2 as the source of the atmospheric climate crisis.
The vast cold Southern Ocean is a big part of the oceans for carbon storage – accounting for as much as 40% of the global ocean CO2 uptake. That’s simple physical chemistry as cold water can hold more CO2 than warmer waters. In the 1990s, strengthening winds circulating around Antarctica affected ocean currents, created more mixing at the surface, and brought more of the carbon-rich water up from the deep abyss to the surface. This meant the surface ocean, in-spite of it being cold, was less able to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere as it was filled by the deep CO2.
In the 2000’s, the winds continued to be strong, yet the amount of free unfixed atmospheric CO2 found in the Southern Ocean appears to have increased. This, combined with increasing presence of atmospheric CO2 in surface waters of other oceans, makes it clear there is are other potent factors affecting the ocean carbon capture and sequestration efficiency.
The new study which focuses exclusively on the measure of new atmospheric CO2 vs. old CO2 in the oceans reveals changes in the circulation and exchange between the deep CO2 saturated ocean waters that make up 90% of the oceans and the top 1,000m of the world’s oceans. The researchers who are really mathematicians with an elegant computer model don’t go near the powerful biological carbon cycle of the oceans. It is the biology of life in the ocean pasture ecosystems that repurposes CO2 via photosynthesis into biological carbon that is the principle means to move carbon from the surface into the abyss. But it is useful never-the-less to study the one side of the ocean carbon equation.
Ordinarily the mixing of deep ocean waters is limited by the fact that they are very cold and thus more dense. There is a natural division of the oceans into two parts, the cold dense deep waters and a warm layer that floats on that cold deep sea. The two oceans are divided by a remarkably distinct boundary layer, a wall preventing or at least greatly slowing the ‘immigration’ of the dangerous dark carbon carrying cold water into the warm lighted zone above.
Using years of observed data, the researchers fabricated a computer model to simulate their view of circulation patterns in the upper ocean. They ran their model to analyse the exchange of fresh CO2 at the surface and ancient CO2 at the surface to study how the ocean and atmosphere have been interacting over recent decades.
They found that in the 1990s, the ocean circulation patterns were “more vigorous” and coincided with a big dip in CO2 uptake. From around 2000, the circulation patterns then weakened, ocean conversion of CO2 via photosynthesis and sinking also weakened, the combined forcing is seen as a rebound in the amount of fresh atmosphere derived CO2 found in the models surface waters.
In an accompanying “News & Views” article, Dr Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, writes:
“[The paper] is the first to robustly quantify the role of circulation change in the recent decadal shift in CO2 uptake, providing the missing piece of this puzzle.”
As the strengthening stratification and weak circulation patterns continue, this will continue to promote the uptake of dangerous anthropogenic CO2 sink for some time is the conclusion one comes to in reading the paper.
But the absence of the most important biological processes of ocean ecology where photosynthetic conversion of anthropogenic CO2 from its harmful ocean acidifying form into safe, even beneficial new ocean life is missing from the computer model.
Giant icebergs from Antarctica and their iceberg dust account for a vast amount of carbon dioxide captured and stored in the Southern Ocean, far more than was previously believed say a paper published recently in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.
The research from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Geography studied the slow melting of giant icebergs, which contains an accumulation of aeolian, wind-blown, dust that contains iron and other nutrients vital to ocean pasture health and productivity. As the icebergs, both large and small, drift and melt in the seas around the frozen continent they leave broad green swaths of healthy vigorously growing ocean pasture phyto-plankton.
The researchers point out that of course these rich iceberg dust fed plankton blooms are responsible, via their photosynthesis, for absorbing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting that CO2 into phyto-plankton biomass that sustains the Southern Ocean ocean pasture ecosystem, feeds all of ocean life, and locks the ‘left overs’ for millennia into the frigid ocean abyss.
This science blog prefers the ocean-centric view of our Blue Planet’s carbon cycle as shown in this graphic
https://russgeorge.net/2017/02/11/ocean-carbon-climate-system-is-most-powerful-and-important/
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The Southern Ocean's Carbon Sink Stronger than Ever
May 4, 2016
The waters around Antarctica seem to have reversed a troubling trend
Bucking predictions, observations now show that the Southern Ocean is pulling more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than ever recorded, which could have implications for predicting the rate of climate change.
Previous research had indicated that the Southern Ocean was pulling less carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere every year and might be growing saturated with the gas. However, according to two separate papers published in the journals Geophysical Research Letters and Science late last year, the ocean surrounding Antarctica reversed a decade-long downward trend in 2002 and has been steadily absorbing more carbon dioxide every year.
“The ocean uptake of carbon dioxide in this region is growing over time,” said David Munro, a research associate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder and lead author of the GRL paper.
Munro’s research uses nearly a million readings taken by instruments onboard the Antarctic research vessel Laurence M. Gould as it crisscrossed the Drake Passage between the southern tip of Chile and the Antarctic Peninsula from 2002 to 2015.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) manages the Antarctic Program, which operates the research vessel. In addition, Munro’s research is supported by the NSF.
“There are about 20 crossings [per year] across the Drake Passage which makes it the most densely -sampled region in the Southern Ocean since 2002,” Munro said. Though the Gould’s data only covers a relatively small section of the under-sampled Southern Ocean, it’s the most complete, continuous record of its carbon-dioxide levels.
The paper in Science incorporated the data from the Gould, as well as other observations from different sources across the ocean to create a more expansive picture of the region.
“We both actually came to the same conclusion with different methods,” said Peter Landschützer, a post-doc at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and lead author of the Science paper. “We’re using interpolation methods so we can make a statement about the Southern Ocean as a whole.”
Areas that absorb excess carbon dioxide, known as carbon sinks, help mitigate the greenhouse gas’s effect on climate change. The more carbon dioxide that gets pulled out of the atmosphere, the less there is to drive up the planet’s temperature.
“The Southern Ocean is a really important regulator for the atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration, and it helps to absorb a lot of the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide [resulting from] the burning of fossil fuels,” said Nicole Lovenduski, an assistant professor at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a co-author on the GRL paper.
Of all the carbon dioxide released into the air in any given year, only about half stays in the atmosphere; the rest is absorbed by the plants and soil covering the Earth’s surface and its oceans. The Southern Ocean absorbs about 40 percent of the carbon dioxide taken in by the oceans, even though it only makes up about 25 percent of the planet’s marine surface area.
The region absorbs so much carbon dioxide in part because of its frigid temperatures. Gases, including carbon dioxide, are more soluble in cold water than in warm water. In addition, gusty winds in the region churn the water more than elsewhere.
“Strong winds are blowing over the Southern Ocean and that is upwelling water that hasn’t seen the atmosphere for hundreds and hundreds of years,” Lovenduski said. “That extra CO2 that we put into the atmosphere, it wasn’t there when that water sank hundreds of years ago. It has to re-equilibrate with the overlying atmosphere.”
The Science paper confirmed past research that showed that the Southern Ocean was absorbing less carbon dioxide every year for much of the 1990s. However, additional observations showed that starting around 2002 this trend reversed and has since more than surpassed previously recorded levels, though the reasons for this rebound are still not entirely clear.
“The carbon sink in the Southern Ocean is more variable than we originally thought,” Lovenduski said. “The idea that a sink could be growing then the sink could be shrinking, then the sink could be growing again over the different decades was quite surprising.”
Though less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might slow climate change somewhat, more in the oceans would likely have a negative impact on ocean life.
“The uptake of carbon dioxide by the ocean is great for the atmosphere, but it’s not particularly good for the ocean in the sense that it makes the ocean more acidic,” Lovenduski said. “This acidification is not likely to be good for organisms living in the Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean is in fact believed to be one of the more vulnerable places for acidification.
Acidified ocean waters can weaken the shells in some species of algae and shellfish, putting stress on the base of the marine food web.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, more than 200 billion tons of carbon cycle through the planet’s atmosphere, oceans and plants every year, with humans adding about 10 billion additional tons annually. Today, the Southern Ocean absorbs roughly 1.2 billion tons of carbon, roughly doubling its uptake from 2002.
“It’s [an increase of] about 0.6 billion tons of carbon,” Landschützer said. “That sounds [like] a lot but if you put that in context, if you look at for example the global carbon budget, then you will find that this is actually a small fraction compared to the amount of CO2 that is emitted from humans.”
This unexpected rebound in carbon-absorption rates complicates the picture of the Southern Ocean, and researchers say that it makes it more difficult to calculate what might happen in the coming decades.
“We cannot predict the future with our data-based interpolation, but it certainly helps to understand the future, and to understand how the Southern Ocean as a carbon system works,” Landschützer said.
NSF-funded research in this story: Nicole Lovenduski, University of Colorado at Boulder, Award No. 1155240 ; Colm Sweeney, University of Colorado at Boulder, Award No. 1341647
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4221/
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Rainfall Makes the Ocean a Greater Carbon Sink
22 October 2024
Rain has so far been ignored in calculations of the ocean’s capacity to take up carbon, but a new estimate shows it enhances the ocean sink by 5%–7%.
https://eos.org/articles/rainfall-makes-the-ocean-a-greater-carbon-sink
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Alaska tundra has become a carbon emitter rather than carbon sink, study finds
May 8, 2017
https://www.arctictoday.com/alaska-tundra-has-become-a-carbon-emitter-rather-than-carbon-sink-study-finds/
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Ancient carbon released
06 September 2024
Manuel Ruben and colleagues from the Alfred Wagner Institute and University of Bremen incubated organic material from permafrost in Arctic seawater and used isotopic analysis to date the carbon in the CO2 produced. They find that nearly 90% of the released CO2 was from respired 40,000-year-old organic matter, demonstrating that the thaw of permafrost reintroduces long-stored ancient carbon into the modern short-term carbon cycle. A surplus of inorganic nitrogen was also produced, this could have a mitigating effect by stimulating Arctic Ocean primary productivity and increasing C02 drawdown...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02125-9
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Recent carbon, not ancient methane ‘time bombs,’ are this century’s big Arctic emissions threat
April 10, 2020
https://www.arctictoday.com/recent-carbon-not-ancient-methane-time-bombs-are-this-centurys-big-arctic-emissions-threat/
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A new study finds IMO’s low-sulphur fuel mandate actually boosts dangerous black carbon emissions in the Arctic
January 24, 2020
The International Maritime Organization has mandated the use of very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) in marine shipping starting January 1, 2020. This regulation is part of IMO’s 2020 program aimed at reducing sulphur emissions from marine transport by 80 percent. In contrast to heavy fuel oil (HFO), which contains up to 3.5 percent sulphur, VLSFO may only contain 0.5 percent.
Less than a month into these rules, a new study funded by Germany and Finland, in cooperation with DNV GL and marine engine manufacturer MAN, indicates that the switch from sulphur-rich HFO to VLSFO may have unintended negative consequences as it can increase black carbon emission by up to 85 percent.
“The results clearly indicate that new blends of marine fuels with 0.5 percent sulphur content can contain a large percentage of aromatic compounds which have a direct impact on black carbon emissions,” the study concludes.
“If immediate action isn’t taken by the International Maritime Organization, the shipping industry’s use of low sulphur shipping fuels (VLSFO) — introduced to comply with the 2020 sulphur cap — will lead to a massive increase in black carbon emissions,” states Sian Prior, Lead Advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance.
https://www.arctictoday.com/imos-new-low-sulphur-fuel-mandate-is-actually-boosting-dangerous-black-carbon-emissions-in-the-arctic/
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Dark oxygen: New deep sea expedition to explore mysterious discovery
23 January 2025
The shock discovery that metallic nodules could be producing oxygen in the deep sea made headlines last year – now the team behind it is launching a new project to confirm and explain the findings
Marine scientists who made headlines last year with their discovery that deep sea nodules could be producing “dark oxygen” are embarking on a three-year research project to explain their findings.
Amid swirling controversy over their research, project lead Andrew Sweetman at the Scottish Association for Marine Science says he hopes the new scheme will “show once and for all” that metallic lumps of rock are sources of deep sea oxygen and start to explain how the process is working. “We know that it’s going on, and what we need to now do is show it again, and then really start getting at the mechanism,” he says.
weetman had spent more than a decade studying life on the sea floor before his shock discovery made headlines in July last year, and confounded the research community. Previously, it was thought that oxygen production relied on the presence of plants, algae or cyanobacteria to perform photosynthesis, powered by sunlight.
But Sweetman’s team found rising oxygen levels on nodule-rich areas of sea floor, thousands of metres below the ocean surface where no light can penetrate and no plants grow. The researchers suggested that the nodules could be acting as “geobatteries”, generating an electric current that splits water molecules into hydrogen and “dark” oxygen, produced naturally without photosynthesis.
Sweetman found himself at the centre of a media storm. Life changed overnight, he says – he even gets stopped on the street by people wanting a photograph with him. “It’s been very surreal,” he says.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2465191-dark-oxygen-new-deep-sea-expedition-to-explore-mysterious-discovery/
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"Ancient Carbon" is Leaking into Our Atmosphere, Upending Our Thinking On Climate Change Models
June 15, 2025
A new international study has upended a foundational assumption in climate science, revealing that rivers are not just conduits for the rapid cycling of carbon from plants and soils, but are also major escape routes for ancient carbon stores that have been locked away for centuries, millennia, or even longer.
Published in Nature, the findings show that more than half of the carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) emitted from rivers worldwide originates from long-term carbon reservoirs—deep soils, sediments, and even weathered rocks—rather than from the recent decay of plant material as previously believed.
For decades, scientists have viewed rivers as part of the “fast lane” of the global carbon cycle. The prevailing wisdom held that river-based CO₂ and CH₄ emissions represented a quick turnover: plants absorb atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis, some of that carbon is rapidly decomposed in soils and flushed into rivers, and then released back into the air within years or decades. But this new research, led by Dr. Josh Dean at the University of Bristol, challenges that paradigm by showing that about 60% of river carbon emissions are actually sourced from ancient carbon stores—some dating back thousands or even millions of years.
The team reached this conclusion by assembling a global database of over 1,100 radiocarbon measurements from more than 700 river sites across 26 countries. By analyzing the carbon-14 content of dissolved inorganic carbon, CO₂, and CH₄ in river waters and comparing it to atmospheric levels, the researchers could determine the “age” of the carbon being released. Their isotopic mass balance calculations revealed that, on average, 59% (±17%) of river CO₂ emissions are derived from old carbon—either millennial-aged soil organic matter or petrogenic carbon from rocks—while only about 41% comes from recently fixed carbon.
Simply put, that’s a lot of ancient carbon...
https://thedebrief.org/ancient-carbon-is-leaking-into-our-atmosphere-upending-our-thinking-on-climate-change-models/
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Climate change is overhauling marine nutrient cycles, UC Irvine scientists say
February 4, 2025
https://news.uci.edu/2025/02/04/climate-change-is-overhauling-marine-nutrient-cycles-uc-irvine-scientists-say/
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Ocean Acidification: Will Marine Life Survive? | WION Podcast
Nov 10, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ilDR-gz8oo
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Sea snails may offer insights into Arctic Ocean’s acidification
August 7, 2018
https://www.arctictoday.com/sea-snails-may-offer-insights-arctic-oceans-acidification/
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NOAA finds 77% of world’s corals exposed to bleaching-level heat
6 Nov 2024
https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2024/11/noaa-finds-77-of-worlds-corals-exposed-to-bleaching-level-heat/
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400-year record heat threat to Great Barrier Reef
7 August 2024
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0ngx130kxo
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Scientists Find Corals With a Secret That Could Aid Reef Conservation
25 September 2024
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientist-find-corals-with-a-secret-that-could-aid-reef-conservation
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Solving the zinc riddle and how its cycle in the oceans affects life
12 August 2024
Researchers have created the first full picture of how zinc circulates in the Southern Ocean, affecting marine life and the whole planet's carbon cycle. In a study published in Science1 the team warns that the effect may be influenced by a warmer climate with increased erosion, leading to more dust in the atmosphere, deposited into the oceans
Field observations from three expeditions, by South Africa’s polar research vessel, the SA Agulhas II, have enabled scientists to provide the first in-situ data verifying the importance of “scavenging” of zinc by inorganic particles in the Southern Ocean’s zinc cycle.
The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica is the most important region to produce biologically available zinc (called biogenic zinc) to the world’s oceans, thereby influencing primary productivity and, by implication, the oceans’ ability to absorb atmospheric carbon.
Zinc is an essential micronutrient for the growth of phytoplankton – the microscopic, single-celled plant-like organisms suspended in the top layer of the ocean. Using sunlight for energy and dissolved inorganic nutrients (such as zinc) phytoplankton converts carbon dioxide to organic carbon, important in modifying the planet’s carbon cycle. However, since the 1970s2 scientists could only speculate about the unexpected correlation between zinc and silica and not as expected between zinc, nitrogen and phosphorus in the ocean. Zinc and silica have distinct biogeochemical cycles: silica is used by diatoms to build a protective shell or “frustule” around the cell, while zinc, nitrogen and phosphorous are consumed by phytoplankton in the sunlit layer of the ocean and stored together as biomass.
Ryan Cloete, co-first author and postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Environmental Marine Sciences, in Franceo, says the water samples from the Southern Ocean were collected at different depths and during the summer and winter months...
New insights into Southern Ocean's role in the global zinc cycle and its impact on marine life and climate.
Working with researchers from Princeton University, the Universities of Chicago and California Santa Cruz, as well as the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Cloete and colleagues subjected the samples to detailed particle by particle analysis, using X-ray spectroscopic techniques at a synchrotron facility, which allowed them to study the samples at atomic and molecular level.
Cloete, a postgraduate student at Stellenbosch University, South Africa at the time, participated in two of the expeditions. He says the team found that the chemical forms of zinc changed with latitude, depth, and season, indicating a more complex zinc cycle than previously thought.
The combination of zinc and the associated particles sink below the surface layer and “we observe a decrease in organic zinc particles and a transition to inorganic zinc particles. We found that zinc is then reabsorbed onto a variety of inorganic particles such as aluminium, iron, and manganese oxides, as well as silicate particles of remnant diatom frustules.
“As a result of this ‘scavenging’ of zinc onto inorganic particles, zinc is transferred and released deeper in the water column than nitrogen and phosphorus,” he explains.
The findings have important global implications, “because the Southern Ocean acts as a central hub for ocean circulation, its processes are imprinted on water masses which are then transported to the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. As a result, the strong zinc to silicate correlation persists throughout much of the global oceans says Cloete.”
For Alakendra Roychoudhury, co-author, environmental and marine geochemistry specialist at Stellenbosch University, the global zinc cycle should be interpreted in the context of warming oceans. “The earth system is intricately coupled through physical, chemical and biological processes. Our findings are a prime example of this coupling where biochemical processes happening at the molecular level can influence global processes like the warming of our planet,” Roychoudhury adds.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d44148-024-00239-y
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Iron deficient
May 25, 2012
Research cruise tracks down sources of trace element key to phytoplankton blooms
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/2667/
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Iron and nitrosative metabolism in the Antarctic mollusc Laternula elliptica
2010 Nov 20
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21094695/
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Magnetic screening and heavy metal pollution studies in soils from Marambio Station, Antarctica
29 June 2007
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/magnetic-screening-and-heavy-metal-pollution-studies-in-soils-from-marambio-station-antarctica/211B548446865E7A5BF658055A0E1345
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Influence of heavy metals on the occurrence of Antarctic soil microalgae
13 September 2021
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/influence-of-heavy-metals-on-the-occurrence-of-antarctic-soil-microalgae/5F2D570D4F85A5402A34A37FB0482A08
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Natural variability and distribution of trace elements in marine organisms from Antarctic coastal environments
16 November 2007
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/natural-variability-and-distribution-of-trace-elements-in-marine-organisms-from-antarctic-coastal-environments/C735298D5C1C19EB65F39C7EDFD2D234
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Analysis of acid-leachable barium, copper, iron, lead, & zinc concentrations in Taylor Valley, Antarctic stream sediments
05/2020
https://mcm.lternet.edu/content/analysis-acid-leachable-barium-copper-iron-lead-zinc-concentrations-taylor-valley-antarctic
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Preliminary study of cellular metal accumulation in two Antarctic marine microalgae – implications for mixture interactivity and dietary risk
2019
https://scholars.uow.edu.au/display/publication136877
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A robust bioassay to assess the toxicity of metals to the Antarctic marine microalga Phaeocystis antarctica
20 February 2015
https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/etc.2949
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Response of bacterial isolates from Antarctic shallow sediments towards heavy metals, antibiotics and polychlorinated biphenyls
2012 Nov 27
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23184332/
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Metals and metalloids in Antarctic krill and water in deep Weddell Sea areas
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X2200306X
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Extraordinary levels of cadmium and zinc in a marine sponge,Tedania charcoti Topsent: inorganic chemical defense agents
March 1993
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01923536
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A 1500-year record of lead, copper, arsenic, cadmium, zinc level in Antarctic seal hairs and sediments
2006 Aug 22
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16928392/
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The occurrence of zinc in Antarctic ancient ice and recent snow
1990
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0012821X9090157S
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Changes in the natural lead, cadmium, zinc and copper concentrations in the Vostok Antarctic ice over, the last two glacial-interglacial cycles (240,000 years)
May 2003
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003JPhy4.107..629H/abstract
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Assessing the risk of metals and their mixtures in the Antarctic nearshore marine environment with diffusive gradients in thin-films
https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/137197/4/Binder1.pdf
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The occurrence of lead in Antarctic recent snow, firn deposited over the last two centuries and prehistoric ice
1983
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0016703783902946
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Lead Pollution in Antarctic Waters: Have We Cleaned Up Our Act?
February 25, 2016
https://oceanbites.org/lead-pollution-in-antarctic/
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International team of scientists reports on Antarctic lead pollution
February 25, 2022
https://www.antarcticajournal.com/international-team-of-scientists-reports-on-antarctic-lead-pollution/
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Antarctic lead records chapters in human history
2019
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/magazine/issue-37-december-2019/science/antarctic-lead-records-chapters-in-human-history/
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Atlantic Water Flow Pathways Revealed by Lead Contamination in Arctic Basin Sediments
17 Aug 2001
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1062167
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The lead pollution history of Law Dome, Antarctica, from isotopic measurements on ice cores: 1500 AD to 1989 AD
2002
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X02009834
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Lead Sources to the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica
January 2016
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292304839_Lead_Sources_to_the_Amundsen_Sea_West_Antarctica
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Lead
pollution recorded in Greenland ice indicates European emissions
tracked plagues, wars, and imperial expansion during antiquity
14 May 2018
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Lead-pollution-recorded-in-Greenland-ice-indicates-McConnell-Wilson/b956441097e015341301b7a44c46f94c6f0486f5
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Australian lead mining caused early Antarctic pollution
July 29, 2014
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/australian-lead-mining-caused-early-antarctic-pollution-20140729-zxy82.html
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Antarctic-wide array of high-resolution ice core records reveals pervasive lead pollution began in 1889 and persists today
2014
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20150001454
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Antarctic-wide array of high-resolution ice core records reveals pervasive lead pollution began in 1889 and persists today
2014
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25068819/
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Lead pollution recorded in Greenland ice indicates European emissions tracked plagues, wars, and imperial expansion during antiquity
2018
Significance
An 1100 BCE to 800 CE record of estimated lead emissions based on continuous, subannually resolved, and precisely dated measurements of lead pollution in deep Greenland ice and atmospheric modeling shows that European emissions closely varied with historical events, including imperial expansion, wars, and major plagues. Emissions rose coeval with Phoenician expansion and accelerated during expanded Carthaginian and Roman lead–silver mining primarily in the Iberian Peninsula. Emissions fluctuated synchronously with wars and political instability, particularly during the Roman Republic, reaching a sustained maximum during the Roman Empire before plunging in the second century coincident with the Antonine plague, and remaining low for >500 years. Bullion in silver coinage declined in parallel, reflecting the importance of lead–silver mining in ancient economies.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1721818115
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Heavy metal pollution in Antarctica and its potential impacts on algae
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873965218300926
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Lead pollution in Antarctic surface snow revealed along the route of the International Trans-Antarctic Expedition
June 1999
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1999AnGla..29...94D/abstract
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The application of lead isotope ratios in the Antarctic macroalga Iridaea cordata as a contaminant monitoring tool
2009
https://www.academia.edu/11448593/The_application_of_lead_isotope_ratios_in_the_Antarctic_macroalga_Iridaea_cordata_as_a_contaminant_monitoring_tool
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Antarctic snow record of southern hemisphere lead pollution
1 May 1994
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/94GL00656
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Lead Pollution Beat Explorers to South Pole, Persists Today
July 28, 2014
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/lead-pollution-beat-explorers-to-south-pole-persists-today/
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Soluble and insoluble lithium dust in the EPICA DomeC ice core—Implications for changes of the East Antarctic dust provenance during the recent glacial–interglacial transition
June 2007
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222149167_Soluble_and_insoluble_lithium_dust_in_the_EPICA_DomeC_ice_core-Implications_for_changes_of_the_East_Antarctic_dust_provenance_during_the_recent_glacial-interglacial_transition
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Biomineralization of lithium nanoparticles by Li-resistant Pseudomonas rodhesiae isolated from the Atacama salt flat
16 March 2022
https://biolres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40659-022-00382-6
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Evaluation of aerosol iron solubility over Australian coastal regions based on inverse modeling: implications of bushfires on bioaccessible iron concentrations in the Southern Hemisphere
26 August 2020
https://progearthplanetsci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40645-020-00357-9
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Halocarbons in the Arctic and Antarctic Atmosphere
1993
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-78211-4_9
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Atmospheric histories of halocarbons from analysis of Antarctic firn air: Major Montreal Protocol species
2002
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2002JD002548
___________________________
On Biogenic Halocarbons in Antarctic Waters
2013
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/34086/gupea_2077_34086_1.pdf?sequence=1
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Halocarbon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halocarbon
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A record of atmospheric halocarbons during the twentieth century from polar firn air
24 June 1999
https://www.nature.com/articles/21586
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Past and Future for Ozone-Depleting Halocarbons in Antarctic Environment
2003
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-0183-0_12
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Emergence of healing in the Antarctic ozone layer
30 Jun 2016
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aae0061
___________________________
On Biogenic Halocarbons in Antarctic Waters
2013-11-08
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/34086
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Halocarbons Liked to Ozone Hole: The claimed detection of chlorine monoxide in the Antarctic ozone hole links man-made chlorofluorocarbons to the hole's creation and implies that things could get worse
5 Jun 1987
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.236.4806.1182
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Halocarbons in Aqueous matrices from the Rennick Glacier and the Ross Sea (Antarctica)
May 2004
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233358496_Halocarbons_in_Aqueous_matrices_from_the_Rennick_Glacier_and_the_Ross_Sea_Antarctica
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Past and Future for Ozone-Depleting Halocarbons in Antarctic Environment
January 2003
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300824001_Past_and_Future_for_Ozone-Depleting_Halocarbons_in_Antarctic_Environment
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Ozone hole over the Antarctic is one of the largest and deepest in recent years, satellite images reveal
6 October 2020
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8807551/Ozone-hole-Antarctic-one-largest-deepest-recent-years.html
___________________________
Occurrence, distribution, and sea-air fluxes of volatile halocarbons in the upper ocean off the northern Antarctic Peninsula in summer
2020 Dec 4
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33338791/
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'Larger than usual’: this year’s ozone layer hole bigger than Antarctica
15 Sep 2021
Scientists say ozone hole is unusually large for this stage in season and growing quickly
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/16/larger-than-usual-ozone-layer-hole-bigger-than-antarctica
___________________________
The relationship between biophysical variables and halocarbon distributions in the waters of the Amundsen and Ross Seas, Antarctica
2012
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304420312000862
___________________________
Halocarbons produced by natural oxidation processes during degradation of organic matter.
01 Jan 2000
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/10659846
___________________________
2020 Antarctic ozone hole is large and deep
2020
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/2020-antarctic-ozone-hole-large-and-deep
___________________________
Halocarbon
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/halocarbon
___________________________
Halocarbons, environmental effects of chlorofluoromethane release / Committee on Impacts of Stratospheric Change, Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Research Council
1976
https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2231894
___________________________
The Road to Recovery: Is the Ozone Layer Finally Healing?
07/15/2016
https://www.scienceintheclassroom.org/research-papers/emergence-healing-antarctic-ozone-layer
___________________________
Effect of irradiance on the emission of short-lived halocarbons from three common tropical marine microalgae
2019
https://peerj.com/articles/6758.pdf
___________________________
Long-lived halocarbon trends and budgets from atmospheric chemistry modelling constrained with measurements in polar firn
2009
https://research-portal.uea.ac.uk/en/publications/long-lived-halocarbon-trends-and-budgets-from-atmospheric-chemist
___________________________
Title: Emergence of Healing in the Antarctic Ozone Layer
June 23, 2016
https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/101876/1/SolomonEtAlHealing.pdf
___________________________
Scientists observe first signs of healing in the Antarctic ozone layer
June 30, 2016
https://phys.org/news/2016-06-scientists-antarctic-ozone-layer.html
___________________________
Scientists race to find who is pumping an incredibly dangerous gas into the atmosphere
May—28—2018
https://theoutline.com/post/4708/montreal-protocol-vienna-convention-noaa-nasa-ozone-layer-hole-cfc
___________________________
Climate science: Emissions from CFC banks could delay ozone recovery
March 18, 2020
https://www.natureasia.com/en/research/highlight/13255
___________________________
Ozone-destroying CFCs could make late-21st-century comeback
March 15, 2021
https://www.livescience.com/cfcs-release-from-oceans-ozone-destruction.html
___________________________
The discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole
October 24, 2019
https://eapsweb.mit.edu/news/2019/discovery-antarctic-ozone-hole
___________________________
Global warming caused by chlorofluorocarbons, not carbon dioxide, new study says
May 30, 2013
https://phys.org/news/2013-05-global-chlorofluorocarbons-carbon-dioxide.html
___________________________
CFCs, their replacements, and the ozone layer
25 Mar 2010
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10150493/
___________________________
Banned ozone-depleting CFC-11 gases traced to China
23 May 2019
Scientists say industries in China have spewed large quantities of an ozone-depleting gas into the atmosphere in violation of an international treaty.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/banned-ozone-depleting-cfc-11-gases-traced-to-china/4644kbl2w
___________________________
China factories releasing thousands of tonnes of illegal CFC gases, study finds
2019
Levels of ozone-depleting gas spiked when air from industrialised areas of China arrived, say researchers
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/23/china-factories-releasing-thousands-of-tonnes-of-illegal-cfc-gases-study-finds
___________________________
Emissions of an ozone-destroying chemical are rising again
May 16, 2018
https://www.noaa.gov/news/emissions-of-ozone-destroying-chemical-are-rising-again
___________________________
Landmark ban on CFCs in 1980s prevented deadly ‘scorched Earth’ scenario, research reveals
18 August 2021
Scientists paint apocalyptic vision of soaring temperatures and catastrophic impacts on agriculture without signing of crucial Montreal Protocol
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/cfcs-ozone-layer-montreal-protocol-b1904714.html
___________________________
Household aerosols including deodorants and cleaning sprays release more harmful smog chemicals per year than all the VEHICLES in the UK, scientists warn
2021
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9520555/Household-aerosols-release-harmful-smog-chemicals-UK-cars.html
___________________________
Polar stratospheric clouds and ozone depletion
June 1991
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991SciAm.264f..68T/abstract
___________________________
Recent Developments in the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer: The June 1990 Meeting and Beyond
1992
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40706945
___________________________
That Antarctic ozone hole the world thought it was fixing? There may be a glitch
2018
https://peakoil.com/enviroment/that-antarctic-ozone-hole-the-world-thought-it-was-fixing-there-may-be-a-glitch
___________________________
Air Samples Show Ozone Depletion May Have Other Causes Than Fluorocarbons
November 9, 1995
https://apnews.com/article/aa09fc127d4630a0af10533c02df53de
___________________________
Good news: 2012 Antarctic Ozone Hole is the second smallest in 20 years
2012
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/24/good-news-2012-antarctic-ozone-hole-is-the-second-smallest-in-20-years/
___________________________
Chlorofluorocarbons
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/chlorofluorocarbons
___________________________
Chlorofluorocarbons, Stratospheric Ozone, and the Antarctic ‘Ozone Hole’
24 August 2009
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/environmental-conservation/article/abs/chlorofluorocarbons-stratospheric-ozone-and-the-antarctic-ozone-hole/5C9507C0163E4BB22BCC4CB438849BD8
___________________________
Fluorocarbons in the global environment: a review of the important interactions with atmospheric chemistry and physics
2003
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022113903001052
___________________________
Occurrence and trophic transfer of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in an Antarctic ecosystem
2019 Oct 19
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31727419/
___________________________
Spatial and Interspecies Heterogeneity in Concentrations of Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs) in Seabirds of the Southern Ocean
2019 Aug 6
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31385515/
___________________________
Fluorocarbons and Ozone: New Predictions Ominous
October 5, 1974
https://www.sciencenews.org/archive/fluorocarbons-and-ozone-new-predictions-ominous
___________________________
CONTRASTING THIS SEASONS ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC OZONE LEVELS
01 May 2020
https://www.fluorocarbons.org/news/contrasting-this-seasons-arctic-and-antarctic-ozone-levels/
___________________________
Neutral Poly/Per-Fluoroalkyl Substances in Air from the Atlantic to the Southern Ocean and in Antarctic Snow
2015 Jun 15
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26052844/
___________________________
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in snow, lake, surface runoff water and coastal seawater in Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, Antarctica
2012 Jan 16
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22305203/
___________________________
Mechanisms leading to enrichment of the atmospheric fluorocarbons CCl 3 F and CCl 2 F 2 in groundwater
1983
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/mechanisms-leading-to-enrichment-of-the-atmospheric-fluorocarbons-ccl-rFKuOTzjxV
___________________________
Perfluorocarbons in the global atmosphere: tetrafluoromethane, hexafluoroethane, and octafluoropropane
2010
https://agage.mit.edu/biblio/perfluorocarbons-global-atmosphere-tetrafluoromethane-hexafluoroethane-and-octafluoropropane
___________________________
Chemistry of the global troposphere: Fluorocarbons as tracers of air motion
1987
https://www.academia.edu/6941388/Chemistry_of_the_global_troposphere_Fluorocarbons_as_tracers_of_air_motion
___________________________
Chlorofluorocarbons and the Depletion of Stratospheric Ozone
1989
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27855550
___________________________
New refrigerants and system configurations for vapor-compression refrigeration
13 Nov 2020
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe3692
___________________________
Ecological replacements of ozone-depleting substances
https://www.academia.edu/29286910/Ecological_replacements_of_ozone_depleting_substances
___________________________
Tropospheric transformation products of a series of hydrofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons
1993
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00702825
___________________________
CFC and Halon replacements in the environment
1999
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022113999001980
___________________________
Chlorofluorocarbon and Its Effects on the Ozone Layer: Is Legislation Sufficient to Protect the Environment
10-1-1990
https://archives.law.nccu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1524&context=ncclr
___________________________
Free radicals within the Antarctic vortex: The role of CFCs in Antarctic ozone loss
1991
https://www.academia.edu/5164735/Free_radicals_within_the_Antarctic_vortex_The_role_of_CFCs_in_Antarctic_ozone_loss
___________________________
2021 Antarctic ozone hole one of the longest-lasting on record, says CAMS
December 21, 2021
https://www.meteorologicaltechnologyinternational.com/news/climate-measurement/2021-antarctic-ozone-hole-one-of-the-longest-lasting-on-record-says-cams.html
___________________________
Atmospheric concentration of an ozone destroying chemical drops mysteriously
2015
Something strange has happened to the atmospheric concentration of a newly discovered, human-made, ozone-destroying gas: it has suddenly dropped and nobody knows why.
The gas, HCFC-133a, is a type of hydrochlorofluorocarbon, ozone-destroying compounds used in some industrial processes, including the manufacturing of refrigerants. The use of HCFCs, which are also powerful greenhouse gases, is restricted under the Montreal Protocol. A study last year first identified HCFC-133a as one of four previously undetected human-made gases in the atmosphere that are contributing to destruction of the ozone layer, but the source of HCFC-133a remains a mystery.
“This is enormous, how quickly the trend reversed,” said Martin Vollmer of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology in Dubendorf, Switzerland. But instead of deepening the mystery of HCFC-133a’s sources, the abrupt change offers new clues, Vollmer said.New measurements show that after a rapid increase of the compound in the atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere from 0.13 parts per trillion (ppt) in 2000 to 0.50 ppt in 2013, the concentration suddenly dropped to about 0.44 ppt by early 2015. This drop in concentration is equivalent to a 50 percent decline in global emissions percent of the gas: from 3,000 metric tons (3,300 US tons) in 2011 to about 1,500 metric tons (1,700 tons) in 2014, according to the new study.
___________________________
Saving the Ozone Layer Prevented Even More Intense Global Warming
09/01/21
https://whowhatwhy.org/science/environment/saving-the-ozone-layer-prevented-even-more-intense-global-warming/
___________________________
Is the atmospheric ozone recovery real, or just for scoring political points?
2014
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/12/is-the-atmospheric-ozone-recovery-real-or-just-for-scoring-political-points/
___________________________
The Remarkably Strong Arctic Stratospheric Polar Vortex of Winter 2020: Links to Record-Breaking Arctic Oscillation and Ozone Loss
18 October 2020
Abstract
The Northern Hemisphere (NH) polar winter stratosphere of 2019/2020 featured an exceptionally strong and cold stratospheric polar vortex. Wave activity from the troposphere during December–February was unusually low, which allowed the polar vortex to remain relatively undisturbed. Several transient wave pulses nonetheless served to help create a reflective configuration of the stratospheric circulation by disturbing the vortex in the upper stratosphere. Subsequently, multiple downward wave coupling events took place, which aided in dynamically cooling and strengthening the polar vortex. The persistent strength of the stratospheric polar vortex was accompanied by an unprecedentedly positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation in the troposphere during January–March, which was consistent with large portions of observed surface temperature and precipitation anomalies during the season. Similarly, conditions within the strong polar vortex were ripe for allowing substantial ozone loss: The undisturbed vortex was a strong transport barrier, and temperatures were low enough to form polar stratospheric clouds for over 4 months into late March. Total column ozone amounts in the NH polar cap decreased and were the lowest ever observed in the February–April period. The unique confluence of conditions and multiple broken records makes the 2019/2020 winter and early spring a particularly extreme example of two-way coupling between the troposphere and stratosphere.
Key Points
- The Arctic stratospheric polar vortex during the 2019/2020 winter was the strongest and most persistently cold in over 40 years
- Low tropospheric planetary wave driving and a wave-reflecting configuration of the stratosphere supported the strong and cold polar vortex
- Seasonal records in the Arctic Oscillation and stratospheric ozone loss were related to the strong polar vortex
Plain Language Summary
Wintertime westerly winds in the polar stratosphere (from ∼15–50 km), known as the stratospheric polar vortex, were extraordinarily strong during the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2019/2020. The exceptional strength of the stratospheric polar vortex had consequences for winter and early spring weather near the surface and for stratospheric ozone depletion. Typically atmospheric waves generated in the troposphere spread outward and upward into the stratosphere where they can disturb and weaken the polar vortex, but tropospheric wave activity was unusually weak during the 2019/2020 winter. In addition, an unusual configuration of the stratospheric polar vortex developed that reflected waves traveling upward from the troposphere back downward. These unique conditions allowed the vortex to remain strong and cold for several months. During January–March 2020, the strong stratospheric polar vortex was closely linked to a near-surface circulation pattern that resembles the positive phase of the so-called “Arctic Oscillation” (AO). This positive AO pattern was also of record strength and influenced the regional distributions of temperatures and precipitation during the late winter and early spring. Cold and stable conditions within the polar vortex also allowed strong ozone depletion to take place, leading to lower ozone levels than ever before seen above the Arctic in spring.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JD033271
___________________________
Stratospheric ozone depletion by chlorofluorocarbons
1990
Abstract
Man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) such as CCl{sub 2}F{sub 2} and
CCl{sub 3}F are inert in the lower atmosphere and can survive for a
hundred years or more without reaction. The only important destruction
process for CFCs is ultraviolet photolysis in the stratosphere, with the
release of atomic chlorine. Chlorine atoms attack stratospheric ozone
with the formation of the free radical ClO which reacts further to
regenerate atomic chlorine. This chain reaction can cause the removal of
100 000 molecules of ozone per Cl atom, and coupled with the emission
to the atmosphere of one million tons of CFCs per year, produces ozone
depletion on a significant global scale. Under the special
meteorological conditions of the Antarctic winter stratosphere, chlorine
and nitrogen chemistry occur which permit massive ozone depletion in
the lower stratosphere when sunlight returns in the spring. Similar
chemistry has also been found in experiments carried out in the Arctic
stratosphere. Analysis of long-term records from ground stations has
confirmed the loss of 2-3% ozone since 1970 in the Northern Hemisphere
between 30degN and 64degN, with the heaviest losses in the winter. The
Montreal Protocol of 1987 provides a framework for international control
of emissons of CFCs, and its 1990
modification calls
for elimination of further production within the next decade.
Substitutes for the CFCs are now being developed rapidly, with special
attention to HCFCs (e.g. CHClF{sub 2}) and HFCs (e.g. CH{sub 2}FCF{sub
3}) whose primary removal occurs through oxidation in the lower
atmosphere. (orig.) (With 56 refs.).
https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/biblio/6418934
___________________________
HCFOs, CF3I Stratospheric Ozone and Climate Change
https://www.fluorocarbons.org/environment/environmental-impact/stratospheric-ozone-hcfos-cf3i-and-hfcs/
___________________________
NASA Study Shows That Common Coolants Contribute to Ozone Depletion
Oct 22, 2015
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/nasa-study-shows-that-common-coolants-contribute-to-ozone-depletion
___________________________
Transcriptome of the Antarctic amphipod Gondogeneia antarctica and its response to pollutant exposure
2015 Aug 9
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26264254/
___________________________
Dimethyl siloxane oils as an alternative borehole fluid
14 September 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/dimethyl-siloxane-oils-as-an-alternative-borehole-fluid/8A05FC98DB666441B660A48F41DED9F4
___________________________
Climate change: Methane gas leaking from Antarctica seabed
23 Jul 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/53503094
___________________________
Scientists reveal how landmark CFC ban gave planet fighting chance against global warming
19.08.2021
https://www.sonnenseite.com/en/science/scientists-reveal-how-landmark-cfc-ban-gave-planet-fighting-chance-against-global-warming/
___________________________
The Mysterious Increase In CFC-11 Emissions Has Scientists Baffled
June 6, 2018
https://www.achrnews.com/articles/137201-the-mysterious-increase-in-cfc-11-emissions-has-scientists-baffled
___________________________
Microbial reductive dehalogenation in Antarctic melt pond sediments
02 August 2007
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/microbial-reductive-dehalogenation-in-antarctic-melt-pond-sediments/6B41469F04F3925EF9ACD210C7A9485F
___________________________
Scientists Track the Sudden Disappearance of an Antarctic Ice-Shelf Lake
June 24, 2021
https://lamont.columbia.edu/news/scientists-track-sudden-disappearance-antarctic-ice-shelf-lake
___________________________
Why You Should Be Worried About This Glacier
2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6A_7KS-eOY
___________________________
Antarctica's "Upside-Down Rivers"
March 14, 2016
Warming ocean water undercuts Antarctic ice shelves
“Upside-down rivers” of warm ocean water threaten the stability of floating ice shelves in Antarctica, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center. The study highlights how parts of Antarctica’s ice sheet may be weakening due to contact with warm ocean water.
“We found that warm ocean water is carving these 'upside-down rivers,’ or basal channels, into the undersides of ice shelves all around the Antarctic continent. In at least some cases these channels weaken the ice shelves, making them more vulnerable to disintegration,” said Karen Alley, a Ph.D. student in CU Boulder’s Department of Geological Sciences and lead author of an analysis published today in Nature Geoscience.
https://cires.colorado.edu/news/antarcticas-upside-down-rivers
___________________________
Proceedings of the conference on methyl chloroform and other halocarbon pollutants
1980
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6742138
___________________________
Mercury and Organochlorines in the Terrestrial Environment of Schirmacher Hills, Antarctica
2018 Nov 15
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30443660/
___________________________
Hazardous heavy metals in the pristine lacustrine systems of Antarctica: Insights from PMF model and ERA techniques
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389421002260
___________________________
Uranium series dating of Allan Hills ice
March 30, 1986
Uranium-238
decay series nuclides dissolved in Antarctic ice samples were measured
in areas of both high and low concentrations of volcanic glass shards.
Ice from the Allan Hills site (high shard content) had high Ra-226,
Th-230 and U-234 activities but similarly low U-238 activities in
comparison with Antarctic ice samples without shards. The Ra-226, Th-230
and U-234 excesses were found to be proportional to the shard content,
while the U-238 decay series results were consistent with the assumption
that alpha decay products recoiled into the ice from the shards.
Through this method of uranium series dating, it was learned that the
Allen Hills
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19860049995
___________________________
1.2 Billion-Year-Old Groundwater in South African Mine Has the Highest Radioactive Products Ever Discovered in a Fluid
___________________________
1.2-Billion-Year-Old Groundwater System Found in South African Mine
Jul 6, 2022
Geologists have discovered 1.2-billion-year-old groundwater about 3 km below surface in Moab Khotsong, a gold- and uranium-producing mine in South Africa. This ancient groundwater is enriched in the highest concentrations of radiogenic products yet discovered in fluid. The discovery have implications beyond Earth, where on rocky planets such as Mars, subsurface water may persist on long timescales despite surface conditions that no longer provide a habitable zone.
Uranium and other radioactive elements naturally occur in the surrounding host rock that contains mineral and ore deposits.
These elements hold new information about the groundwater’s role as a power generator for chemolithotrophic, or rock-eating, groups of co-habitating microorganisms previously discovered in the Earth’s deep subsurface.
When elements like uranium, thorium and potassium decay in the subsurface, the resulting alpha, beta, and gamma radiation has ripple effects, triggering what are called radiogenic reactions in the surrounding rocks and fluids.
At Moab Khotsong, a gold and uranium mine located in the Witwatersrand Basin, within the Kaapvaal Craton, South Africa, University of Toronto researcher Oliver Warr and colleagues found large amounts of radiogenic helium, neon, argon and xenon, and an unprecedented discovery of krypton-86 — a never-before-seen tracer of this powerful reaction history.
The radiation also breaks apart water molecules in a process called radiolysis, producing large concentrations of hydrogen, an essential energy source for subsurface microbial communities deep in the Earth that are unable to access energy from the sun for photosynthesis.
http://www.sci-news.com/geology/moab-khotsong-groundwater-10972.html
___________________________
Alpha decay
Alpha decay or α-decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha particle (helium nucleus). The parent nucleus transforms or "decays" into a daughter product, with a mass number that is reduced by four and an atomic number that is reduced by two. An alpha particle is identical to the nucleus of a helium-4 atom, which consists of two protons and two neutrons. It has a charge of +2 e and a mass of 4 Da. For example, uranium-238 decays to form thorium-234.
While alpha particles have a charge +2 e, this is not usually shown because a nuclear equation describes a nuclear reaction without considering the electrons – a convention that does not imply that the nuclei necessarily occur in neutral atoms.
Alpha decay typically occurs in the heaviest nuclides. Theoretically, it can occur only in nuclei somewhat heavier than nickel (element 28), where the overall binding energy per nucleon is no longer a maximum and the nuclides are therefore unstable toward spontaneous fission-type processes. In practice, this mode of decay has only been observed in nuclides considerably heavier than nickel, with the lightest known alpha emitter being the second lightest isotope of antimony, 104Sb.[1] Exceptionally, however, beryllium-8 decays to two alpha particles.
Alpha decay is by far the most common form of cluster decay, where the parent atom ejects a defined daughter collection of nucleons, leaving another defined product behind. It is the most common form because of the combined extremely high nuclear binding energy and relatively small mass of the alpha particle. Like other cluster decays, alpha decay is fundamentally a quantum tunneling process. Unlike beta decay, it is governed by the interplay between both the strong nuclear force and the electromagnetic force.
Alpha particles have a typical kinetic energy of 5 MeV (or ≈ 0.13% of their total energy, 110 TJ/kg) and have a speed of about 15,000,000 m/s, or 5% of the speed of light. There is surprisingly small variation around this energy, due to the strong dependence of the half-life of this process on the energy produced. Because of their relatively large mass, the electric charge of +2 e and relatively low velocity, alpha particles are very likely to interact with other atoms and lose their energy, and their forward motion can be stopped by a few centimeters of air.
Approximately 99% of the helium produced on Earth is the result of the alpha decay of underground deposits of minerals containing uranium or thorium. The helium is brought to the surface as a by-product of natural gas production.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_decay
___________________________
Synchronous Measurements of Alpha-Decay of 239 Pu Carried out at North Pole, Antarctic, and in Puschino Confirm that the Shapes of the Respective Histograms Depend on the Diurnal Rotation of the Earth and on the Direction of the Alpha-Particle Beam
July 2012
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259193691_Synchronous_Measurements_of_Alpha-Decay_of_239_Pu_Carried_out_at_North_Pole_Antarctic_and_in_Puschino_Confirm_that_the_Shapes_of_the_Respective_Histograms_Depend_on_the_Diurnal_Rotation_of_the_Earth_a
___________________________
The specific form of histograms presenting the distribution of data of alpha-decay measurements appears simultaneously in the moment of New Moon in different points from Arctic to Antarctic
December 2004
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004physics..12152Z/abstract
___________________________
Radon flux at King George Island, Antarctic Peninsula
2002
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0265931X01001370
___________________________
Measurements of radon (222Rn) and thoron (220Rn) exhalations and their decay product concentrations at Indian Stations in Antarctica
02 January 2019
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12665-018-8029-7
___________________________
Radioactive Decay Fuels Earth's Inner Fires
https://www.livescience.com/15084-radioactive-decay-increases-earths-heat.html
___________________________
Long-range transport of continental radon in subantarctic and antarctic areas
1986
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1600-0889.1986.tb00185.x
___________________________
Long-range transport of continental radon in subantarctic and antarctic areas
1995
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41529-021-00183-4
___________________________
Huge cavity in Antarctic glacier signals rapid decay
Jan 30, 2019
A NASA-led study has found that a giant, growing cavern two-thirds the
area of Manhattan is contributing to the rapid melting of Antarctica’s
Thwaites Glacier.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2838/huge-cavity-in-antarctic-glacier-signals-rapid-decay/
___________________________
Huge cavity in Antarctic glacier signals rapid decay
January 31, 2019
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-huge-cavity-antarctic-glacier-rapid.html#google_vignette
___________________________
Biogeographic traits of dimethyl sulfide and dimethylsulfoniopropionate cycling in polar oceans
16 October 2021
Background
Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is the dominant volatile organic sulfur in global oceans. The predominant source of oceanic DMS is the cleavage of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), which can be produced by marine bacteria and phytoplankton. Polar oceans, which represent about one fifth of Earth’s surface, contribute significantly to the global oceanic DMS sea-air flux. However, a global overview of DMS and DMSP cycling in polar oceans is still lacking and the key genes and the microbial assemblages involved in DMSP/DMS transformation remain to be fully unveiled.
https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-021-01153-3
___________________________
The diversity and commonalities of the radiation-resistance mechanisms of Deinococcus and its up-to-date applications
03 September 2019
https://amb-express.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13568-019-0862-x
___________________________
First evidence of microbial wood degradation in the coastal waters of the Antarctic
29 July 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68613-y
___________________________
Airborne microbial transport limitation to isolated Antarctic soil habitats
04 March 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-019-0370-4
___________________________
Dependence of UVB-UVA Solar Radiation in the 280–400 nm Range on Changes in the Total Magnetic Field of the Sun
23 July 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S1068373921030110
___________________________
SOIL TEMPERATURE REGIME IN THE AREAS OF RUSSIAN ANTARCTIC STATIONS
August 2013
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273961958_SOIL_TEMPERATURE_REGIME_IN_THE_AREAS_OF_RUSSIAN_ANTARCTIC_STATIONS
___________________________
Soil features in rookeries of Antarctic penguins reveal sea to land biotransport of chemical pollutants
2017
Abstract
The main soil physical-chemical features, the concentrations of a set of pollutants, and the soil microbiota linked to penguin rookeries have been studied in 10 selected sites located at the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula (Maritime Antarctica). This study aims to test the hypothesis that biotransport by penguins increases the concentration of pollutants, especially heavy metals, in Antarctic soils, and alters its microbiota. Our results show that penguins do transport certain chemical elements and thus cause accumulation in land areas through their excreta. Overall, a higher penguin activity is associated with higher organic carbon content and with higher concentrations of certain pollutants in soils, especially cadmium, cooper and arsenic, as well as zinc and selenium. In contrast, in soils that are less affected by penguins’ faecal depositions, the concentrations of elements of geochemical origin, such as iron and cobalt, increase their relative weighted contribution, whereas the above-mentioned pollutants maintain very low levels. The concentrations of pollutants are far higher in those penguin rookeries that are more exposed to ship traffic. In addition, the soil microbiota of penguin-influenced soils was studied by molecular methods. Heavily penguin-affected soils have a massive presence of enteric bacteria, whose relative dominance can be taken as an indicator of penguin influence. Faecal bacteria are present in addition to typical soil taxa, the former becoming dominant in the microbiota of penguin-affected soils, whereas typical soil bacteria, such as Actinomycetales, co-dominate the microbiota of less affected soils. Results indicate that the continuous supply by penguin faeces, and not the selectivity by increased pollutant concentrations is the main factor shaping the soil bacterial community. Overall, massive penguin influence results in increased concentrations of certain pollutants and in a strong change in taxa dominance in the soil bacterial community.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181901
___________________________
The influence of sea animals on selenium distribution in tundra soils and lake sediments in maritime Antarctica
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653521032203
___________________________
Distribution patterns of selenium and its fractions in penguin and seal colony soil profiles in response to their population dynamics in maritime Antarctica
08 June 2023
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-023-03157-1
___________________________
Selenium volatilization from tundra soils in maritime Antarctica
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020321449
___________________________
Aquatic selenium pollution is a global environmental safety issue.
2004
___________________________
A critical analysis of sources, pollution, and remediation of selenium, an emerging contaminant
2022
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9379879/
___________________________
Selenium-contaminated water: Recent advances in material function and adsorption performance
2023
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213343723012071
___________________________
Selenium contamination, consequences and remediation techniques in water and soils: A review
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935118301075
___________________________
Selenium Pollution Around the World
2002
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4613-0073-1_1
___________________________
The Global Marine Selenium Cycle: Insights From Measurements and Modeling
15 November 2018
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GB006029
___________________________
Instrumental neutron activation analysis of spherule samples recovered from the Pacific ocean sea sediment and Antarctic ice sheet
2007
Chemical compositions of spherules separated from deep sea sediment
dredged off Hawaiian islands and from Antarctic ice were measured by
instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) using Kyoto University
Reactor (KUR). Iron, cobalt, nickel, iridium, scandium and manganese
contents in those spherules were determined to be 19.3-97.7%, 23-4370
mg·kg-1, 0.08-7.04%, 0.84-35.4 mg·kg-1, 1.4-44.3 mg·kg-1 and 93.4 mg·kg-1-7.2
%, respectively, and compared with each other. Particularly, iridium
was detected in seven spherules among fourteen from Hawaii, but only one
spherule among twenty-two from Antarctic, and those spherules turned
out to be extraterrestrial in origin. However, it was shown that there
was little difference in characteristics of elemental contents between
both kinds of spherules, except for Ir-detected spherules.
https://waseda.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/instrumental-neutron-activation-analysis-of-spherule-samples-reco
___________________________
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
https://scitechdaily.com/tag/scripps-institution-of-oceanography/
___________________________
Concentrations of Thirteen Trace Metals in Scales of Three Nototheniid Fishes from Antarctica (James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula)
2019 Jan 2
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30600496/
___________________________
Organic complexation of cobalt across the Antarctic Polar Front in the Southern Ocean
January 2005
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230821664_Organic_complexation_of_cobalt_across_the_Antarctic_Polar_Front_in_the_Southern_Ocean
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Heavy metal pollution in Antarctica: A molecular ecotoxicological approach to exposure assessment
April 2005
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229699330_Heavy_metal_pollution_in_Antarctica_A_molecular_ecotoxicological_approach_to_exposure_assessment
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Anomalously high arsenic concentration in a West Antarctic ice core and its relationship to copper mining in Chile
2016
Arsenic variability records are preserved in snow and ice cores and can
be utilized to reconstruct air pollution history. The Mount Johns ice
core (79°55′S; 94°23′W and 91.2 m depth) was collected from the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet in the 2008/09 austral summer. Here, we report the
As concentration variability as determined by 2137 samples from the
upper 45 m of this core using ICP-SFMS (CCI, University of Maine, USA).
The record covers approximately 125 years (1883–2008) showing a mean
concentration of 4.32 pg g−1. The arsenic concentration in
the core follows global copper mining evolution, particularly in Chile
(the largest producer of Cu). From 1940 to 1990, copper-mining
production increased along with arsenic concentrations in the MJ core,
from 1.92 pg g−1 (before 1900) to 7.94 pg g−1
(1950). In the last two decades, environmental regulations for As
emissions have been implemented, forcing smelters to treat their gases
to conform to national and international environmental standards. In
Chile, decontamination
plants required by the government started operating from 1993 to 2000.
Thereafter, Chilean copper production more than doubled while As
emission levels declined, and the same reduction was observed in the
Mount Johns ice core. After 1999, arsenic concentrations in our samples
decreased to levels comparable to the period before 1900.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1352231015305343
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Greenpeace expedition finds plastic pollution and hazardous chemicals in remote Antarctic waters
June 6, 2018
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/greenpeace-expedition-finds-plastic-pollution-and-hazardous-chemicals-in-remote-antarctic-waters/
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The dangerous way tourism is polluting Antarctica and accelerating melting
Feb 22, 2022
https://www.inverse.com/science/researchers-tourists-pollute-antarctica
___________________________
Quartz from Antarctica
https://www.mindat.org/locentries.php?p=36&m=3337
___________________________
7-Part Mysterious Bismuth and Magnesium-Zinc Metal from Bottom of Wedge-Shaped UFO
https://www.earthfiles.com/bismuth/
___________________________
Anthropogenic effects on the marine environment adjacent to Palmer Station, Antarctica
07 December 2021
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/anthropogenic-effects-on-the-marine-environment-adjacent-to-palmer-station-antarctica/7B26916CFADF5DE44552DBD66086B3C2
___________________________
Remarkably coherent population structure for a dominant Antarctic Chlorobium species
2021 Nov 26
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8620254/
___________________________
Ancient Microbes in the Antarctic Ice
1999
https://www.umsl.edu/microbes/files/pdfs/antarctic.pdf
___________________________
Psychrophilic pseudomonas in antarctic freshwater lake at stornes peninsula, larsemann hills over east Antarctica
07 October 2015
https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40064-015-1354-3
___________________________
Antarctic marine invertebrates could act as sentinels of environmental change
13 July 2020
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/news/2020/antarctic-marine-invertebrates-could-act-as-sentinels-of-environmental-change/
___________________________
Anthropogenic trace elements (Bi, Cd, Cr, Pb) concentrations in a West Antarctic ice core
2022
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35508014/
___________________________
Plastic pollution continues to reach sub-Antarctic islands
April 30th 2020
https://en.mercopress.com/2020/04/30/plastic-pollution-continues-to-reach-sub-antarctic-islands
___________________________
Human Impacts on Antarctica and Threats to the Environment - Pollution
https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/science/threats_pollution.php
___________________________
Exotic-Looking Microbes Turn up in Ancient Antarctic Ice
1998
https://www.stevequayle.com/index.php?s=112
___________________________
Storm petrels as indicators of pelagic seabird exposure to chemical elements in the Antarctic marine ecosystem
2019 Jul 10
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31351282/
___________________________
Novel application of sub-Antarctic macroalgae as zinc oxide nanoparticles biosynthesizers
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167577X22006942
___________________________
Highly bioavailable dust-borne iron delivered to the Southern Ocean during glacial periods
October 15, 2018
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1809755115
___________________________
Iron oxides and hydroxides in the weathering interface between Stereocaulon vesuvianum and volcanic rock
09 July 2018
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/clay-minerals/article/abs/iron-oxides-and-hydroxides-in-the-weathering-interface-between-stereocaulon-vesuvianum-and-volcanic-rock/A2A043E20EFFA6D92E1F0BE07F92B21E
___________________________
Iron localization in Acarospora colonizing schist on Signy Island
08 October 2012
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/iron-localization-in-acarospora-colonizing-schist-on-signy-island/1C233974925A83506273D991F7D59ECB
___________________________
Iron cycling in the anoxic cryo-ecosystem of Antarctic Lake Vida
28 May 2017
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10533-017-0346-5
___________________________
Acid Rock Drainage and Rock Weathering in Antarctica: Important Sources for Iron Cycling in the Southern Ocean
May 17, 2013
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es305141b
___________________________
Aerosol iron speciation and seasonal variation of iron oxidation state over the western Antarctic Peninsula
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969722009822
___________________________
Blood Falls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Falls
___________________________
Air bubbles in Antarctic ice point to a cause of oxygen decline
December 20, 2021
An unknown culprit has been removing oxygen from our atmosphere for at least 800,000 years, and an analysis of air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice for up to 1.5 million years has revealed the likely suspect.
"We know atmospheric oxygen levels began declining slightly in the late Pleistocene, and it looks like glaciers might have something to do with that," said Rice University's Yuzhen Yan, corresponding author of the geochemistry study published in Science Advances. "Glaciation became more expansive and more intense about the same time, and the simple fact that there is glacial grinding increases weathering."
Weathering refers to the physical and chemical processes that break down rocks and minerals, and the oxidation of metals is among the most important. The rusting of iron is an example. Reddish iron oxide forms quickly on iron surfaces exposed to atmospheric oxygen, or O2.
"When you expose fresh crystalline surfaces from the sedimentary reservoir to O2, you get weathering that consumes oxygen," said Yan, a postdoctoral research associate in Rice's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences.
Another way glaciers could promote the consumption of atmospheric oxygen is by exposing organic carbon that had been buried for millions of years, Yan said...
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-air-antarctic-ice-oxygen-decline.html
___________________________
The Silent Bubble: How Ocean Bubbles Impact Sound in the Global Ocean
November 7, 2024
https://thetechylife.com/how-do-bubbles-affect-sound-in-the-global-ocean/
___________________________
Macroalgae degradation promotes microbial iron reduction via electron shuttling in coastal Antarctic sediments
2021 May 26
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34051435/
___________________________
Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) conjugated with lipase Candida antarctica A for biodiesel synthesis
2022
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2020/ra/d0ra06215d
___________________________
Human Impacts on Antarctica and Threats to the Environment - Mining and Oil
https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/science/threats_mining_oil.php
___________________________
Cadmium and phosphate in coastal Antarctic seawater: Implications for Southern Ocean nutrient cycling
2008
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304420308001485
___________________________
Long-term monitoring of atmospheric pollution in the Maritime Antarctic with the lichen Usnea aurantiaco-atra (Jacq.) Bory: a magnetic and elemental study
25 October 2021
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/longterm-monitoring-of-atmospheric-pollution-in-the-maritime-antarctic-with-the-lichen-usnea-aurantiacoatra-jacq-bory-a-magnetic-and-elemental-study/2FE306926A020D8DF58BFC9B66EB3E25
___________________________
Penicillium nalgiovense Laxa isolated from Antarctica is a new source of the antifungal metabolite amphotericin B
2015 Jan 17
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5611601/
___________________________
Climatically sensitive transfer of iron to maritime Antarctic ecosystems by surface runoff
15 February 2017
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Climatically-sensitive-transfer-of-iron-to-maritime-Hodson-Nowak/50daf1f9b76c08e678e24d0c9a11613425628fa7
___________________________
Nitrous oxide variability at sub-kilometre resolution in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean
July 6, 2018
https://peerj.com/articles/5100/
___________________________
EXPLANATORY NOTES FOR THE MINERAL-RESOURCES MAP OF THE CIRCUM-PACIFIC REGION ANTARCTIC SHEET
1998
https://pubs.usgs.gov/cp/47/report.pdf
___________________________
Vascular Expression of Hemoglobin Alpha in Antarctic Icefish Supports Iron Limitation as Novel Evolutionary Driver.
12 Nov 2019
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/31780954
___________________________
Colonization of Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Antarctica
___________________________
When did Antarctica become a continent?
December 11, 2021
Antarctica is frigid, but that's a pretty new phenomenon.
https://www.livescience.com/when-did-antarctica-become-continent
___________________________
Mesozoic tectonic evolution of the South Orkney Microcontinent, Scotia arc, Antarctica
01 May 1997
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/geological-magazine/article/abs/mesozoic-tectonic-evolution-of-the-south-orkney-microcontinent-scotia-arc-antarctica/52D851E39F363562050AA06FA87ECD57
___________________________
Evolution of the Karoo-Maud Plume and Formation of Mesozoic Igneous Provinces in Antarctica
06 June 2022
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S001670292206009X
___________________________
South Polar region of the Cretaceous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Polar_region_of_the_Cretaceous
___________________________
Category: Paleozoic Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Paleozoic_Antarctica
___________________________
The Ancient Fossil Forests of Antarctica
https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/blog/the-ancient-fossil-forests-of-antarctica
___________________________
Mesozoic radiolarian faunas from the Antarctic Peninsula: age, tectonic and palaeoceanographic significance
1 November 1992
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Mesozoic-radiolarian-faunas-from-the-Antarctic-age%2C-Holdsworth-Nell/d5baa5fd021d47dcbf84f51da3921f0636fa715f
___________________________
Sedimentology and structure of the trench-slope to forearc basin transition in the Mesozoic of Alexander Island, Antarctica
01 May 2009
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/geological-magazine/article/abs/sedimentology-and-structure-of-the-trenchslope-to-forearc-basin-transition-in-the-mesozoic-of-alexander-island-antarctica/A39A0BF882ACBD7609B86532096CEA1E
___________________________
Geochemistry of Palaeozoic–Mesozoic Pacific rim orogenic magmatism, Thurston Island area, West Antarctica
13 May 2004
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/geochemistry-of-palaeozoicmesozoic-pacific-rim-orogenic-magmatism-thurston-island-area-west-antarctica/B20D5903D42DC656C6DC61354BFCF604
___________________________
Early mesozoic microfloras from Antarctica
09 Feb 201
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00288306.1965.10428109
___________________________
Magmatism in Antarctica and its relation to Zealandia
2020
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10227447
___________________________
Pressure-Driven Poiseuille Flow Inherited From Mesozoic Mantle Circulation Led to the Eocene Separation of Australia and Antarctica
19 January 2021
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JB019945
___________________________
Marooned on Mesozoic Madagascar
April 29, 2020
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200429111133.htm
___________________________
Allochthonous oceanic basalts within the Mesozoic accretionary complex of Alexander Island, Antarctica: remnants of proto-Pacific oceanic crust
1 January 1994
https://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/151/1/65
___________________________
Geodynamic evolution of the Antarctic Peninsula during Mesozoic times and its bearing on Weddell Sea history (1996)
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/showciting?cid=25214530
___________________________
New perspectives on the Mesozoic seed fern order Corystospermales based on attached organs from the Triassic of Antarctica
2000
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10860906/
___________________________
Role of Pyroxenite Mantle in the Formation of the Mesozoic Karoo Plume Melts: Evidence from the Western Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica
16 April 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S001670292104008X
___________________________
Breakup and early seafloor spreading between India and Antarctica
01 July 2007
https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/170/1/151/2019630?login=false
___________________________
The Gondwanan margin in West Antarctica: Insights from Late Triassic magmatism of the Antarctic Peninsula
2019
https://repositorio.uchile.cl/bitstream/handle/2250/175048/The-Gondwanan-margin-in-West-Antarctica.pdf?sequence=1
___________________________
Triassic Period: Tectonics and Paleoclimate
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/triassic/triassictect.html
___________________________
Late Paleozoic Ice Age glaciers shaped East Antarctica landscape
29 Nov 2018
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01925658/document
___________________________
Chapter 1.1 Tectonic history of Antarctica over the past 200 million years
January 2021
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348626402_Chapter_11_Tectonic_history_of_Antarctica_over_the_past_200_million_years
___________________________
Mesozoic climates: General circulation models and the rock record
2006
https://antarctic-plate-tectonics.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/8/0/25809939/mesozoic_climate.pdf
___________________________
Tectonics of Antarctica
January 1, 1967
https://www.usgs.gov/publications/tectonics-antarctica
___________________________
Compositions of Igneous Rocks in the Thurston Island Area, Antarctica: Evidence for a Late Paleozoic-Middle Mesozoic Andinotype Continental Margin
1987
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30065729
___________________________
Mesozoic geology of Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica
1999-01-13
https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/ActaGeologica/article/view/5075
___________________________
Some evidence for a wide fan-shaped extension of the East Antarctic plate at the Mesozoic-Cenozoic transition
2022
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU21/EGU21-1825.html?pdf
___________________________
Two-Stepping into the Icehouse: East Antarctic Weathering During Progressive Ice-Sheet Expansion at the Eocene–Oligocene Progressive Ice-Sheet Expansion at the Eocene–Oligocene Transition
4-2011
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=geol_facpub
___________________________
The metamorphic rocks of the Nunatak Viedma in the Southern Patagonian Andes: Provenance sources and implications for the early Mesozoic Patagonia-Antarctic Peninsula connection
2019
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01968876
___________________________
Structurally preserved fungi from Antarctica: diversity and interactions in late Palaeozoic and Mesozoic polar forest ecosystems
2016
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/48903/1/Harper_structurally_preserved_fungi.pdf
___________________________
Geological Evolution of Antarctica Paperback: 1 (World and Regional Geology, Series Number 1)
2011
https://www.iberlibro.com/9780521188906/Geological-Evolution-Antarctica-Paperback-World-0521188903/plp
___________________________
Neodymium and strontium isotopic and trace element composition of a Mesozoic CFB suite from Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica: Implications for lithosphere and asthenosphere contributions to Karoo magmatism
1998
https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/publications/neodymium-and-strontium-isotopic-and-trace-element-composition-of
___________________________
Increased petrogenic and biospheric organic carbon burial in sub-Antarctic fjord sediments in response to recent glacier retreat
28 October 2021
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lno.11965
___________________________
An Eocene orthocone from Antarctica shows convergent evolution of internally shelled cephalopods
March 1, 2017
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172169
___________________________
Arc accretion to the early Paleozoic Antarctic margin of Gondwana in Victoria Land
2010
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236130613_Arc_accretion_to_the_early_Paleozoic_Antarctic_margin_of_Gondwana_in_Victoria_Land
___________________________
Synchronous alkaline and subalkaline magmatism during the late Neoproterozoic–early Paleozoic Ross orogeny, Antarctica: Insights into magmatic sources and processes within a continental arc
2016
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0024493716302067
___________________________
Aeromagnetic and gravity anomaly constraints for an early Paleozoic subduction system of Victoria Land, Antarctica
23 May 2002
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2001GL014138
___________________________
Archaeologists have found artifacts under the melted ice of Antarctica
February 20, 2020
As the last unexplored wilderness in the world, Antarctica is shrouded in secrets that scientists and researchers are trying to solve. To date, it is known about the 14 most fascinating mysteries of the Great White Continent.
Unusual creatures
Antarctica is a barren, icy desert with very little rain, strong winds and the coldest temperatures on earth (the coldest recorded temperature was -89.4 ° C); yet it is also home to many unique wildlife. There are microbes, crustaceans, giant squids, transparent icefish, long-legged spiders the size of dinner plates, giant worms with shiny golden bristles and a large jaw with sharp teeth.
Gamburtsev mountain range
Antarctica holds many secrets under its vast ice sheets – even a massive mountain range. Gamburtsev mountains are hidden under a layer of ice from two to four thousand kilometers thick. They stretch for 1200 kilometers and rise to 3000 meters, which is one third of the height of Everest.
Singing ice
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf in Antarctica. Its thickness is several hundred meters and covers an area of more than 500,000 square kilometers – the size of France.
Scientists have recently discovered that Ross’s ice shelf sings an eerie melody caused by winds blowing through the snow dunes. Winds create surface vibrations and almost non-stop seismic tones.
Giant hole
In 2017, a hole the size of Ireland was discovered in Antarctica. Known as wormwood, this hole is not new – with the exception of a span of 78,000 square kilometers, it is the largest hole seen since the 1970s.
Mount Erebus
Mount Erebus is a natural wonder, with liquid magma and ancient lava lakes that boil for about 1.3 million years. It is the southernmost active volcano in the world and the second largest volcano of Antarctica, whose height reaches 3800 meters.
South ocean
The Southern Ocean was named the fifth ocean in the world in 2000. It is the fourth largest ocean in the world that surrounds the entire continent of Antarctica.
Dry McMurdo Valley
The thought of the desert usually conjures up images of hot sandy plains, but Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. It is incredibly dry and windy, with only 50 mm of precipitation per year, while 99% of the continent is covered with ice. Dry valleys have a climate similar to Mars, and scientists believe that this region may contain the secrets of life on other planets.
Antarctic mushrooms
Many microorganisms and extremophiles were found in Antarctica, including endemic species of fungi.
Ancient meteorites
Antarctica is a golden field for meteorites. Although meteorites can fall all over the earth, they are easier to find in Antarctica because cold and dry conditions retain rocky fragments.
In 2013, a group of Japanese and Belgian scientists discovered the largest meteorite found in East Antarctica in the past 25 years. Extraterrestrial stone weighed 18 kilograms. The team searched for meteorites for 40 days, finding 425 meteorites with a total weight of 75 kilograms. The discoveries included a piece of the asteroid West and a meteorite from Mars.
https://www.soulask.com/archaeologists-have-found-artifacts-under-the-melted-ice-of-antarctica/
___________________________
Antarctic Iceberg's Split Reveals Ecosystem Hidden for Thousands of Years
October 04, 2017
The A-68 iceberg, shown here in mid-September, is slowly floating away from the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula.
https://www.livescience.com/60600-antarctica-ice-shelf-hidden-ecosystem.html
___________________________
Ancient Antarctica Rainforest Discovery Suggests Prehistoric World Much Warmer Than Thought
2020
https://scitechdaily.com/ancient-antarctica-rainforest-discovery-suggests-prehistoric-world-much-warmer-than-thought/
___________________________
East Antarctica magnetically linked to its ancient neighbours in Gondwana
2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84834-1
___________________________
An embayment in the East Antarctic basement constrains the shape of the Rodinian continental margin
09 March 2022
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00375-z
___________________________
Neoproterozoic and early paleozoic geological complexes of Eastern Antarctica: Composition and origin
2007
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S0145875207050018
___________________________
Early Paleozoic tectonism within the East Antarctic craton: The final suture between east and west Gondwana?
2001
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001Geo....29..463B/abstract
___________________________
Aeromagnetic and gravity anomaly constraints for an early Paleozoic subduction system of Victoria Land, Antarctica
2002
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/693019
___________________________
What Antarctica Looked Like Before the Ice
2013
https://www.livescience.com/27715-antarctica-before-ice.html
___________________________
Main stages and geodynamic regimes of the Earth’s crust formation in East Antarctica in the Proterozoic and Early Paleozoic
2008
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0016852108060010
___________________________
Late Paleozoic Glaciation and Ice Sheet Collapse Over Western and Eastern Gondwana: Sedimentology and Stratigraphy of Glacial to Post-Glacial Strata in Western Argentina and Tasmania, Australia
2013
https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/112/
___________________________
800,000-year Ice-Core Records of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html
___________________________
Upper Paleozoic glacigenic deposits of Gondwana: Stratigraphy and paleoenvironmental significance of a tillite succession in Northern Victoria Land (Antarctica)
2017
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017SedG..358...51C/abstract
___________________________
Meet the ‘Antarctic king,’ an unlikely fossil from 250 million years ago
2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/31/world/antarctic-king-iguana-dinosaur/index.html
___________________________
Cool as ice: Newly-discovered lake in Antarctica may hold prehistoric life
2016
https://www.rt.com/viral/341024-new-lake-discovered-antartica/
___________________________
Prehistoric puzzle settled: carbon dioxide link to global warming 22 million years ago
2017
https://blog.smu.edu/research/2017/11/14/study-settles-prehistoric-puzzle-finds-carbon-dioxide-link-global-warming-22-million-years-ago/
___________________________
Late Paleozoic Glaciation: Part III, Antarctica
1971
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-abstract/82/6/1581/7212/Late-Paleozoic-Glaciation-Part-III-Antarctica
___________________________
The Paleozoic and Andean magmatic arcs of West Antarctica and southern South America
1990
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/books/book/379/chapter-abstract/3797086/The-Paleozoic-and-Andean-magmatic-arcs-of-West?redirectedFrom=fulltext
___________________________
Paleozoic: an active margin in the Antarctic Peninsula, and the relative positions of
https://123dok.net/article/paleozoic-active-margin-antarctic-peninsula-relative-positions.y6e8dj67
___________________________
Arc accretion to the early Paleozoic Antarctic margin of Gondwana in Victoria Land
2010
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X10001462
___________________________
Late Paleozoic Ice Age glaciers shaped East Antarctica landscape
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X18306460
___________________________
Traces of ancient rainforest in Antarctica point to a warmer prehistoric world
2020
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200401130825.htm
___________________________
The skeleton of a mysterious “prehistoric beast” found in Antarctica?
2021
https://www.soulask.com/the-skeleton-of-a-mysterious-prehistoric-beast-found-in-antarctica/
___________________________
Early Paleozoic tectonism within the East Antarctic Craton: The final suture between east and west Gondwana?
May 2001
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249520668_Early_Paleozoic_tectonism_within_the_East_Antarctic_Craton_The_final_suture_between_east_and_west_Gondwana
___________________________
430,000 years ago a meteor exploded over Antarctica, leaving clues in the debris
2021
Remnants from the space rock may help explain how often these cosmic explosions occur—and the threat they pose to Earth.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/430000-years-ago-a-meteor-exploded-over-antarctica-leaving-clues-in-the-debris
___________________________
Delayed fungal evolution did not cause the Paleozoic peak in coal production
2016
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517943113
___________________________
Earth and Moon impact flux increased at the end of the Paleozoic
2019
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aar4058
___________________________
Cenozoic biogenic silica sedimentation in the Antarctic Ocean, based on two deep sea drilling project sites
1977
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/41687m260?locale=en
___________________________
The Cenozoic subduction history of the Pacific margin of the Antarctic Peninsula: ridge crest–trench interactions
1 November 1982
https://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/139/6/787
___________________________
Influence of the opening of the Drake Passage on the Cenozoic Antarctic Ice Sheet: A modeling approach
2012
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/31232/
___________________________
From greenhouse to icehouse – the Eocene/Oligocene in Antarctica
2008
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/From-greenhouse-to-icehouse-%E2%80%93-the-Eocene%2FOligocene-Francis-Marenssi/23e966aa99ae45bda5134c2b65fec7bfd9e01500
___________________________
Feedbacks of lithosphere dynamics and environmental change of the Cenozoic West Antarctic Rift System.
1999
https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/feedbacks-of-lithosphere-dynamics-and-environmental-change-of-the
___________________________
Cenozoic magmatism in the western Ross embayment: Role of mantle plume versus plate dynamics in the development of the West Antarctic Rift System
2002
https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/cenozoic-magmatism-in-the-western-ross-embayment-role-of-mantle-p
___________________________
Late Cenozoic glacier-volcano interaction on James Ross Island and adjacent areas, Antarctic Peninsula region
2008
https://pure.aber.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/late-cenozoic-glaciervolcano-interaction-on-james-ross-island-and-adjacent-areas-antarctic-peninsula-region(24ee858b-8bd5-454f-b1e3-20a92b100760).html
___________________________
Evolutionary History of Atmospheric CO2 during the Late Cenozoic from Fossilized Metasequoia Needles
July 8, 2015
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0130941
___________________________
Cenozoic evolution of Antarctic glaciation, the circum-Antarctic Ocean, and their impact on global paleoceanography
20 September 1977
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/JC082i027p03843
___________________________
Rapid Cenozoic glaciation of Antarctica induced by declining atmospheric CO2
16 January 2003
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01290
___________________________
Antarctic Cenozoic climate history from sedimentary records: ANDRILL and beyond
28 January 2016
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0301
___________________________
Onset of Cenozoic Antarctic glaciation
2007
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967064507001737
___________________________
Cenozoic Ice Age Caused by Drop in CO2… Because Models
August 6th, 2021
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/08/09/cenozoic-ice-age-caused-by-drop-in-co2-because-models/
___________________________
The Cenozoic history of Antarctica and its global impact
14 May 2004
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/cenozoic-history-of-antarctica-and-its-global-impact/96D5B20451DD9EE6A47FB046D2B5E04D
___________________________
Cenozoic motion between East and West Antarctica
09 March 2000
https://www.nature.com/articles/35004501
___________________________
Rapid Cenozoic glaciation of Antarctica induced by declining atmospheric CO2
2003
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12529638/
___________________________
Progressive Cenozoic cooling and the demise of Antarctica’s last refugium
June 27, 2011
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1014885108
___________________________
Late Cenozoic unification of East and West Antarctica
09 August 2018
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05270-w
___________________________
Antarctic Late Cenozoic Glaciation: Evidence for Initiation of Ice Rafting and Inferred Increased Bottom-Water Activity
June 01, 1973
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-abstract/84/6/2043/201411/Antarctic-Late-Cenozoic-Glaciation-Evidence-for
___________________________
Antarctica as an evolutionary arena during the Cenozoic global cooling
June 28, 2021
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108886118
___________________________
Hysteresis in Cenozoic Antarctic ice-sheet variations
2004
https://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/papers2/pollard_deconto_hysteresis.pdf
___________________________
Impact of Antarctic Circumpolar Current Development on Late Paleogene Ocean Structure
27 May 2011
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1202122
___________________________
Cenozoic Antarctic cryosphere evolution: Tales from deep-sea sedimentary records
2007
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967064507001749
___________________________
Cenozoic tectonic evolution of the Marguerite Bay area, Antarctic Peninsula, interpreted from geophysical data
10 May 2004
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/cenozoic-tectonic-evolution-of-the-marguerite-bay-area-antarctic-peninsula-interpreted-from-geophysical-data/FC52E41EC86941FAD9DA773D9B5CF320#
___________________________
Chapter 3 - Cenozoic history of Antarctic glaciation and climate from onshore and offshore studies
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128191095000086
___________________________
Deep water sedimentary processes in the Enderby Basin (East Antarctic margin) during the Cenozoic
01 July 2022
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bre.12690
___________________________
Mapping Crustal Shear Wave Velocity Structure and Radial Anisotropy Beneath West Antarctica Using Seismic Ambient Noise
15 October 2019
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GC008459?sid=researcher
___________________________
The Cenozoic diversity of Antarctic Bivalves does not reflect Southern Ocean environmental changes after the Antarctic thermal isolation
2007
https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/oa/article/view/8057
___________________________
Reconstruction of Antarctic Cenozoic Paleoenvironments Through Palynological Analysis of Subglacial Lake and Ice Stream Sediments
2018
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/4721/
___________________________
Links between CO2, glaciation and water flow: reconciling the Cenozoic history of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current
2014m
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/10/1957/2014/cp-10-1957-2014.pdf
___________________________
Sea Ice Feedback and Cenozoic Evolution of Antarctic Climate and Ice Sheets
2007
https://works.bepress.com/robert_deconto/19/
___________________________
Lithospheric Structure of the Antarctic Region Revealed by Rayleigh Wave Tomography
January 2001
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229038987_Lithospheric_Structure_of_the_Antarctic_Region_Revealed_by_Rayleigh_Wave_Tomography
___________________________
Multiple cenozoic invasions of Africa by penguins (Aves, Sphenisciformes)
2011 Sep 7
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3259938/
___________________________
Climate evolution in the Southeast Indian Ocean during the Miocene
July 6, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-climate-evolution-southeast-indian-ocean.html
___________________________
Antarctic prehistory
2020
Antarctica’s fossil record shows it was not always the icy continent we know today. Antarctica was once abundant plant and animal life.
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/geography-and-geology/geology/antarctic-prehistory/
___________________________
CO2 Levels Are as High as They Were Three Million Years Ago
April 4, 2019
The last time Earth had this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, trees were growing at the South Pole
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/warming-temperatures-could-transform-antarctica-plant-filled-land-green-180971880/
___________________________
Why are Seasonal CO2 Fluctuations Strongest at Northern Latitudes?
May 7, 2013
https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2013/05/07/why-are-seasonal-co2-fluctuations-strongest-in-northern-latitudes/
___________________________
The lithospheric setting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, edited by (2001)
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.556.2662
___________________________
There Could Be Hundreds of Frozen Corpses Buried Beneath Antarctica's Snow and Ice
Sep 18, 2018
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/557579/there-could-be-hundreds-frozen-corpses-buried-beneath-antarcticas-snow-and-ice
___________________________
Antarctica and supercontinent evolution: historical perspectives, recent advances and unresolved issues
https://espace.curtin.edu.au/bitstream/handle/20.500.11937/3416/193915_193915.pdf?sequence=2
___________________________
New Magnetic Anomaly Map of the Antarctic
08 June 2018
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GL078153
___________________________
Chemical characteristics of fluorine-bearing biotite of early Paleozoic plutonic rocks from the Sor Rondane Mountains, East Antarctica (2003)
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.511.7041
___________________________
28 prehistoric viruses unknown to science were found in a glacial ice cores. They are thought to be around 15,000 years old.
Aug 5, 2021
https://www.businessinsider.com/28-prehistoric-viruses-unknown-science-glacier-ice-guliya-2021-8?op=1
___________________________
King Crabs Are Invading Antarctica, Thanks to Warming Oceans
9/28/15
https://www.newsweek.com/king-crabs-are-invading-antarctica-thanks-warming-oceans-377682
___________________________
Scientists Accidentally Discover Strange Creatures Under a Half Mile of Ice
2021
Researchers only drilled through an Antarctic ice shelf to sample sediment. Instead, they found animals that weren't supposed to be there.
https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-discover-strange-creatures-under-a-half-mile-of-ice/
___________________________
Life found beneath Antarctic ice sheet 'shouldn't be there'
2021
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2267737-life-found-beneath-antarctic-ice-sheet-shouldnt-be-there/
___________________________
Antarctic ice shows Australia’s drought and flood risk is worse than thought
2016
https://theconversation.com/antarctic-ice-shows-australias-drought-and-flood-risk-is-worse-than-thought-59165
___________________________
Antarctic ice shows Australia’s drought and flood risk is worse than thought
May 10, 2016
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3970-pirates-put-antarctic-sea-life-in-peril/
___________________________
Flower growth in Antarctica is accelerating due to warming climate
14 February 2022
There are only two flowering plants native to Antarctica and both have seen an explosion in their numbers in the decade from 2009 to 2019
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2308214-flower-growth-in-antarctica-is-accelerating-due-to-warming-climate/
___________________________
ANDRILL Research and Publications
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/andrillrespub/48/
___________________________
Tectonics of the Antarctic
June 2019
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334082398_Tectonics_of_the_Antarctic
___________________________
New Magnetic Anomaly Constraints on the Antarctic Crust
23 February 2022
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021JB023329
___________________________
Antarctic ice shelf thickness change from multimission lidar mapping
2019
https://doaj.org/article/5aae4165a7004addaf4ad36e65bfd575
___________________________
Transoceanic infragravity waves impacting Antarctic ice shelves
2010
http://iodlabs.ucsd.edu/peter/pdfs/Bromirski_etal_GRL_RossIG_2010.pdf
___________________________
Oceanic controls on the mass balance of Wilkins Ice Shelf, Antarctica (2012)
2012
https://www.narcis.nl/publication/RecordID/oai%3Adspace.library.uu.nl%3A1874%2F242384
___________________________
Oceanic Controls on the Mass Balance of Wilkins Ice Shelf, Antarctica
2012
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=ccpo_pubs
___________________________
Monitoring a Massive Antarctica Ice Collapse
March 27, 2008
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89140238
___________________________
Quick facts, basic science, and information about snow, ice, and why the cryosphere matters
The cryosphere includes all of the snow and ice-covered regions across the planet. Explore our scientific content about what makes up this frozen realm, its importance to Earth's people, plants and animals, and what climate change means for the cryosphere and the world at large.
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/icelights/2021/10/what-broke-wilkins-ice-shelf
___________________________
Wilkins Ice Shelf
May 1, 2009
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1341.html
___________________________
Wilkins Ice Shelf, Near Antarctica, Hanging By Its Last Thread
July 10, 2008
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710115142.htm
___________________________
Antarctica: Wilkins Ice Shelf Under Threat
December 1, 2008
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081128132029.htm
___________________________
Wilkins Ice Shelf on verge of collapse
2009
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/magazine/issue-16-2009/science/wilkins-ice-shelf-on-verge-of-collapse/
___________________________
The 'Unstable' West Antarctic Ice Sheet: A Primer
May 12, 2014
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/the-unstable-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-a-primer
___________________________
24 percent of West Antarctic ice is now unstable: study
May 16, 2019
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-percent-west-antarctic-ice-unstable.html
___________________________
West Antarctic Ice Sheet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet
The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the segment of the continental ice sheet that covers West Antarctica, the portion of Antarctica on the side of the Transantarctic Mountains that lies in the Western Hemisphere. The WAIS is classified as a marine-based ice sheet, meaning that its bed lies well below sea level and its edges flow into floating ice shelves. The WAIS is bounded by the Ross Ice Shelf, the Ronne Ice Shelf, and outlet glaciers that drain into the Amundsen Sea.
___________________________
Extreme Melt on Antarctica’s George VI Ice Shelf
February 25, 2021
https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/article/extreme-melt-on-antarcticas-george-vi-ice-shelf/
___________________________
George VI Ice Shelf Projects
https://people.climate.columbia.edu/projects/showlocation/George%20VI%20Ice%20Shelf
___________________________
George VI Ice Shelf: past history, present behaviour and potential mechanisms for future collapse
28 February 2007
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/george-vi-ice-shelf-past-history-present-behaviour-and-potential-mechanisms-for-future-collapse/FCE44A5C6B4F0C4650E240EB6C4D1904
___________________________
George VI Ice Shelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_VI_Ice_Shelf
___________________________
Widespread Melt on the George VI Ice Shelf
January 23, 2020
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146189/widespread-melt-on-the-george-vi-ice-shelf
___________________________
Ice-dammed lateral lake and epishelf lake insights into Holocene dynamics of Marguerite Trough Ice Stream and George VI Ice Shelf, Alexander Island, Antarctic Peninsula
2017
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379117304651
___________________________
Studying Ice Shelf (In)Stability in Antarctica with BlinkX
July 23, 2019
https://cam-do.com/blogs/camdo-blog/studying-ice-shelf-instability-in-antarctica-with-blinkx
___________________________
The Holocene history of George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula from clast-provenance analysis of epishelf lake sediments
2007
http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/7274/
___________________________
Epishelf lakes
https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glacier-processes/glacial-lakes/epishelf-lakes/
___________________________
Traveling supraglacial lakes on George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctica
2011
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/traveling-supraglacial-lakes-on-george-vi-ice-shelf-antarctica-uCIElAcW9x
___________________________
Circulation and melting beneath George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctica
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.575.8213
___________________________
Validation of the basal stress boundary utilizing Satellite Imagery along the George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctica
2014
http://nia.ecsu.edu/reuomps2014/teams/antarctica/IEEE_USltr_format.pdf
___________________________
Borehole data from George VI Ice Shelf
2021-12-10
https://data.bas.ac.uk/metadata.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01590
___________________________
Antarctic ice-sheet loss driven by basal melting of ice shelves
25 April 2012
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10968/
___________________________
The Amundsen Sea and the Antarctic Ice Sheet
October 2, 2015
https://www.tos.org/oceanography/article/the-amundsen-sea-and-the-antarctic-ice-sheet
___________________________
World's biggest iceberg that broke off from Antarctica two years ago has travelled more than 155 miles towards South Georgia after a 270° spin
2019
Glacier expert Adrian Luckman from Swansea University published an animation of the glacier's movements.
It is roughly the size of Delaware, four times the size of Greater London and has twice the water of Lake Erie.
The iceberg is 100 miles (160 km) in length yet only 656 ft (200 m) thick - a similar ratio to a credit card.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7240387/Worlds-biggest-iceberg-270-spin.html
___________________________
Iceberg C-39 Has Calved From the Scott Glacier area of the Shackleton Ice Shelf
April 25, 2022
https://usicecenter.gov/PressRelease/IcebergC39
___________________________
Distribution and seasonal evolution of supraglacial lakes on Shackleton Ice Shelf, East Antarctica
18 Nov 2020
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/4103/2020/
___________________________
Shackleton Ice Shelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shackleton_Ice_Shelf
___________________________
Henderson Island (Shackleton Ice Shelf)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henderson_Island_(Shackleton_Ice_Shelf)
___________________________
Extraordinary 1915 Photos from Ernest Shackleton’s Disastrous Antarctic Expedition
Nov 19, 2020
https://www.history.com/news/shackleton-endurance-expedition-antarctica-photos
___________________________
Endurance: Explorer Shackleton’s ship found after a century
March 11, 2022
https://apnews.com/article/ernest-shackleton-endurance-ship-found-antarctic-4906562ce1c9d27ec472f628709073a8
___________________________
Supervised classification of slush and ponded water on Antarctic ice shelves using Landsat 8 imagery – CORRIGENDUM
04 April 2022
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-glaciology/article/supervised-classification-of-slush-and-ponded-water-on-antarctic-ice-shelves-using-landsat-8-imagery-corrigendum/3C92B6FCA3D3B80B9296FB0C6A29DE99
___________________________
Automated Extraction of Antarctic Glacier and Ice Shelf Fronts from Sentinel-1 Imagery Using Deep Learning
2019
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/11/21/2529/htm
___________________________
Large interannual variability in supraglacial lakes around East Antarctica
31 March 2022
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29385-3
___________________________
Warmer summers and meltwater lakes are threatening the fringes of the world's largest ice sheet
March 31, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-warmer-summers-meltwater-lakes-threatening.html
___________________________
NASA eyes colossal cracks in ice shelf near Antarctic station
Feb. 20, 2019
The Brunt ice shelf is preparing to unleash an iceberg twice the size of New York City.
https://www.cnet.com/science/nasa-eyes-colossal-cracks-in-ice-shelf-near-antarctic-station/
___________________________
The Denman Glacier and Shackleton Ice Shelf
2020
https://climatestate.com/2020/08/01/the-denman-glacier-and-shackleton-ice-shelf/
___________________________
How is an ice shelf different from an ice sheet?
According to Wikipedia, ice sheets are bigger than ice shelves. Additionally, ice shelves float on water, while ice sheets cover terrain.
https://www.answers.com/earth-science/How_is_an_ice_shelf_different_from_an_ice_sheet
___________________________
Quantifying vulnerability of Antarctic ice shelves to hydrofracture using microwave scattering properties
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034425718301263
___________________________
Recent understanding of Antarctic supraglacial lakes using satellite remote sensing
May 19, 2020
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0309133320916114
___________________________
Elephant seals help uncover slower-than-expected Antarctic melting
June 21, 2012
https://phys.org/news/2012-06-elephant-uncover-slower-than-expected-antarctic.html
___________________________
Localised thickening and grounding of an Antarctic ice shelf from tidal triggering and sizing of cryoseismicity
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X18305636
___________________________
Recent climate tendencies on an East Antarctic ice shelf inferred from a shallow firn core network
2014 Jun 11
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25821663/
___________________________
The 10 Largest Icebergs Ever in Recorded History
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-10-largest-icebergs-ever.html
___________________________
Slessor Glacier
https://atozwiki.com/Slessor_Glacier
The Slessor Glacier is a glacier at least 140 km (75 nmi) long and 90 km (50 nmi) wide, flowing west into the Filchner Ice Shelf to the north of the Shackleton Range. First seen from the air and mapped by the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) in 1956. Named by the CTAE for RAF Marshal Sir John Slessor, chairman of the expedition committee.
___________________________
Antarctic Ice Shelf, Almost as Big as Los Angeles, Completely Collapses
March 24, 2022
"The Conger ice shelf was there and then suddenly it was gone."
https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/antarctic-ice-shelf-almost-as-big-as-los-angeles-completely-collapses/
___________________________
Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
1994
https://doaj.org/article/be3c22e7d8b44798bed3851ac73c8a84
___________________________
Surface mass balance on Fimbul ice shelf, East Antarctica: Comparison of field measurements and large-scale studies
2013
http://elisabeth-schlosser.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/sinisaloetal_JGR2013.pdf
___________________________
Thermohaline structure and circulation beneath the Langhovde Glacier ice shelf in East Antarctica
2021 Jul 9
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8270922/
___________________________
Fimbul Ice Shelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fimbul_Ice_Shelf
The Fimbul Ice Shelf is an Antarctic ice shelf about 200 km (120 mi) long and 100 km (60 mi) wide, nourished by Jutulstraumen Glacier, bordering the coast of Queen Maud Land from 3°W to 3°E. It was photographed from the air by the Third German Antarctic Expedition (1938–1939), mapped by Norwegian cartographers from surveys and air photos by the Norwegian–British–Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1949–1952) and from air photos by the Norwegian expedition (1958–1959) and named Fimbulisen (the giant ice).
___________________________
Iceberg D-31 Calves from the Eastern Fimbul Ice Shelf
January 28, 2022
https://usicecenter.gov/PressRelease/IcebergD31
___________________________
Eddy-resolving simulations of the Fimbul Ice Shelf cavity circulation: Basal melting and exchange with open ocean
2014
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1463500314000948
___________________________
Two years of oceanic observations below the Fimbul Ice Shelf, Antarctica
22 June 2012
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2012GL051012
___________________________
The evolution of the western rift area of the Fimbul Ice Shelf, Antarctica
24 Oct 2011
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/5/931/2011/
___________________________
Variability of sea salts in ice and firn cores from Fimbul Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
2018
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/12/1681/2018/
___________________________
Sub-ice shelf circulation and basal melting of the Fimbul Ice Shelf
May 2010
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010EGUGA..12.9600N/abstract
___________________________
Arctic Trucks Found a New Route Across Antarctica
May 11, 2017
Almost 1000 miles across crevasses and an unexpected amount of ice melt to find a new way to drive along the Fimbul ice shelf.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/travel/g6964/new-route-antartica/
___________________________
Depth-related changes to density, diversity and structure of benthic megafaunal assemblages in the Fimbul ice shelf region, Weddell Sea, Antarctica
18 July 2007
The depth-related patterns in the benthic megafauna of the NE Weddell
Sea shelf at the edge of the Fimbul Ice Shelf were investigated at seven
sites using towed camera platform photographs. Megafaunal density
decreased with depth from 77,939 ha−1 at 245 m to 8,895 ha−1 at 510 m. While diversity was variable, with H′
ranging between 1.34 and 2.28, there were no depth related patterns.
Multivariate analyses revealed two distinct assemblages; a shallow
assemblage with dense patches of suspension feeders in undisturbed areas
and a deep assemblage where these were not present. Disturbance from
icebergs explained many observed patterns in faunal distribution. In
shallow waters probable effects of disturbance were observed as changes
in successional stages; in deeper waters changes in habitat as a result
of past disturbance explained faunal distributions. In deeper areas ice
ploughing created a mosaic landscape of fine and coarse sediments. Total
megafaunal density was highest in areas of coarse sediment (up to 2.9
higher than in finer sediment areas) but diversity was highest in
intermediate areas (H′ = 2.35).
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-007-0319-6
___________________________
Jutulstraumen Glacier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jutulstraumen_Glacier
Jutulstraumen Glacier is a large glacier in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, about 120 nautical miles (220 km) long, draining northward to the Fimbul Ice Shelf between the Kirwan Escarpment, Borg Massif and Ahlmann Ridge on the west and the Sverdrup Mountains on the east. It was mapped by Norwegian cartographers from surveys and air photos by the Norwegian–British–Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1949–52) and air photos by the Norwegian expedition (1958–59) and named Jutulstraumen (the giant's stream). More specifically jutulen are troll-like figures from Norwegian folk tales. The ice stream reaches speeds of around 4 metres per day near the coast where it is heavily crevassed.
___________________________
Dinoflagellates in a fast-ice covered inlet of the Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf (Weddell Sea)
2009
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225136630_Dinoflagellates_in_a_fast-ice_covered_inlet_of_the_Riiser-Larsen_Ice_Shelf_Weddell_Sea
___________________________
Marine and non-marine contribution to the chemical composition of snow at the Riiser-Larsenisen Ice Shelf in Antarctica
1984
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0004698184902671
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Riiser-Larsen Sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riiser-Larsen_Sea
The Riiser-Larsen Sea is one of the marginal seas located in the Southern Ocean off East Antarctica and south of the Indian Ocean. It is delimited Astrid Ridge in the west and the Gunnerus Ridge and the Kainanmaru Bank in the east. It is bordered by the Lazarev Sea to the west and the Cosmonauts Sea to the east, or between 14°E and 30°E. Its northern border is defined to be the 65th parallel south. The name, proposed by the Soviet Union, was never officially approved by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO).
To the south of this area lies the Princess Astrid Coast and Princess Ragnhild Coast of Queen Maud Land. In the western part is the Lazarev Ice Shelf, and further east are Erskine Iceport and Godel Iceport, and the former Belgian Roi-Baudouin Station.
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Numerical simulations of major ice streams in Western Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, under wet and dry basal conditions
2017
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258624993_Numerical_simulations_of_major_ice_streams_in_Western_Dronning_Maud_Land_Antarctica_under_wet_and_dry_basal_conditions
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Dinoflagellates in a fast-ice covered inlet of the Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf (Weddell Sea)
24 April 2009
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-009-0630-5
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Aeromagnetic reconnaissance over the Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf, east Antarctica
1988
https://www.academia.edu/22470580/Aeromagnetic_reconnaissance_over_the_Riiser_Larsen_Ice_Shelf_east_Antarctica
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Larsen Ice Shelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larsen_Ice_Shelf
The Larsen Ice Shelf is a long ice shelf in the northwest part of the Weddell Sea, extending along the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula[1] from Cape Longing to Smith Peninsula. It is named after Captain Carl Anton Larsen, the master of the Norwegian whaling vessel Jason, who sailed along the ice front as far as 68°10' South during December 1893.[2] In finer detail, the Larsen Ice Shelf is a series of shelves that occupy (or occupied) distinct embayments along the coast. From north to south, the segments are called Larsen A (the smallest), Larsen B, and Larsen C (the largest) by researchers who work in the area.[3] Further south, Larsen D and the much smaller Larsen E, F and G are also named.[4]
The breakup of the ice shelf since the mid-1990s has been widely reported,[5] with the collapse of Larsen B in 2002 being particularly dramatic. A large section of the Larsen C shelf broke away in July 2017 to form an iceberg known as A-68.[6]
The ice shelf originally covered an area of 85,000 square kilometres (33,000 sq mi), but following the disintegration in the north and the break away of iceberg A-17, it now covers an area of 67,000 square kilometres (26,000 sq mi).
An image of the collapsing Larsen B Ice Shelf and a comparison of this to the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
Glacier–ice shelf interactions.
The fractured berg and shelf are visible in this image acquired by the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on the Landsat 8 satellite on 21 July 2017 (Lighter = warmer).
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World of Change: Collapse of the Larsen-B Ice Shelf
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/LarsenB
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In Photos: Antarctica's Larsen C Ice Shelf Through Time
July 12, 2017
Hanging on by a thread
The Antarctic peninsula is made up of several ice shelves, including Larsen A, B and C. Whereas two of these ice shelves (A and B), which are floating extensions of land-based glaciers, collapsed in 1995 and 2002, respectively, Larsen C is still holding on … but only by a thread. Scientists say it could calve a Delaware-size iceberg at any moment now, as a rift continues to grow and the shelf speeds its Here, a snapshot of the rift in Larsen C, taken on Nov. 10, 2016; in early December 2016, the crack was 70 miles (112 km) long.
September issue
On Sept. 29, 2016, when this image was captured, the rift in the Larsen C ice shelf had grown to 80 miles (130 km).
Post calving
Another image of the Larsen C rift from Nov. 10, 2016. Once Larsen C calves an iceberg, scientists are concerned the ice shelf will begin to retreat. "Iceberg calving is a normal part of the glacier life cycle, and there is every chance that Larsen C will remain stable and this ice will regrow," Paul Holland, a BAS ice and ocean modeler, said in a statement. "However, it is also possible that this iceberg calving will leave Larsen C in an unstable configuration. If that happens, further iceberg calving could cause a retreat of Larsen C."
Gaping rift
The wider part of the rift in the Larsen C can be seen on Nov. 10, 2016, in this mosaic image created from multiple satellite snapshots.
https://www.livescience.com/59650-photos-antarctica-larsen-c-ice-shelf.html
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Study suggests Larsen A and B ice shelves collapsed due to atmospheric rivers
April 15, 2022
A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions across Europe has found evidence that suggests the collapse of the Larsen A and B ice shelves was due to the arrival of atmospheric rivers. In their paper published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, the group describes how they tracked the movement of atmospheric rivers during the time period when the ice shelves collapsed and what their work reveals about likely scenarios unfolding in Antarctica as global warming continues.
Ice shelves form when ice from glaciers meet the sea, and instead of breaking, they float on top of the ocean. Prior research has suggested that as global warming continues, ice shelves have begun to breakup. And while such breakups do not contribute to a rise in ocean levels, their loss does allow the glaciers that spawned them to flow unimpeded into the sea, which does raise sea levels. Prior research has also shown that one of the major reasons for ice shelf break up is the flow of warmer water beneath them. In this new effort, the researchers have found that atmospheric rivers are also very likely a contributing factor.
Atmospheric rivers, as their name suggests, are currents of air that have different properties than the air around them. In most cases, they are warmer and thus carry more moisture. To learn more about the possible impact of atmospheric rivers when they flow into the Antarctic region, the researchers used a variety of tools, including a computer algorithm developed specifically to detect atmospheric rivers, and climate models and imagery captured by satellites. By identifying and following the paths of atmospheric rivers as they arrived at Antarctica, they found that one arrived in 1995 just before the collapse of Larsen A, and another arrived in 2002 just before the collapse of Larsen B.
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-larsen-ice-shelves-collapsed-due.html
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NASA Study Shows Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf Nearing Its Final Act
May 14, 2015
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-study-shows-antarctica-s-larsen-b-ice-shelf-nearing-its-final-act
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What is Larsen C?
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-larcen-c.html
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Researchers identify biggest threats to Larsen C ice shelf
April 14, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-biggest-threats-larsen-ice-shelf.html
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Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf finally breaks, releases giant iceberg
Jul 12, 2017
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/antarcticas-larsen-c-ice-shelf-finally-breaks-releases-giant-iceberg
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Behold the collapsing beauty of Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf
February 8, 2017
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antarcticas-larsen-ice-shelf-collapsing/
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Rapid Collapse of Northern Larsen Ice Shelf, Antarctica
9 Feb 1996
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.271.5250.788
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A Severe Foehn Storm disintegrated in a couple of days 400 square kilometers of Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice shelf giving now a free way to land ice
06/02/2022
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/severe-foehn-storm-collapsed-400-square-kilometers-antarctica-larsenb-ice-shelf-rrc/
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Rift in Antarctica's Larsen C Ice Shelf
Dec 1, 2016
On Nov. 10, 2016, scientists on NASA's IceBridge mission photographed an oblique view of a massive rift in the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen C ice shelf. Icebridge, an airborne survey of polar ice, completed an eighth consecutive Antarctic deployment on Nov. 18.
Ice shelves are the floating parts of ice streams and glaciers, and they buttress the grounded ice behind them; when ice shelves collapse, the ice behind accelerates toward the ocean, where it then adds to sea level rise. Larsen C neighbors a smaller ice shelf that disintegrated in 2002 after developing a rift similar to the one now growing in Larsen C.
The IceBridge scientists measured the Larsen C fracture to be about 70 miles long, more than 300 feet wide and about a third of a mile deep. The crack completely cuts through the ice shelf but it does not go all the way across it – once it does, it will produce an iceberg roughly the size of the state of Delaware.
The mission of Operation IceBridge is to collect data on changing polar land and sea ice and maintain continuity of measurements between NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) missions. The original ICESat mission ended in 2009, and its successor, ICESat-2, is scheduled for launch in 2018. Operation IceBridge, which began in 2009, is currently funded until 2019. The planned overlap with ICESat-2 will help scientists validate the satellite’s measurements.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/rift-in-antarcticas-larsen-c-ice-shelf
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Larsen C Ice Shelf Calves Large Iceberg
September 9, 2016
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/larsen-c-ice-shelf-calves-large-iceberg
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Antarctic ice-shelf advance driven by anomalous atmospheric and sea-ice circulation
05 May 2022
Abstract
The disintegration of the eastern Antarctic Peninsula’s Larsen A and B ice shelves has been attributed to atmosphere and ocean warming, and increased mass losses from the glaciers once restrained by these ice shelves have increased Antarctica’s total contribution to sea-level rise. Abrupt recessions in ice-shelf frontal position presaged the break-up of Larsen A and B, yet, in the ~20 years since these events, documented knowledge of frontal change along the entire ~1,400-km-long eastern Antarctic Peninsula is limited. Here, we show that 85% of the seaward ice-shelf perimeter fringing this coastline underwent uninterrupted advance between the early 2000s and 2019, in contrast to the two previous decades. We attribute this advance to enhanced ocean-wave dampening, ice-shelf buttressing and the absence of sea-surface slope-induced gravitational ice-shelf flow. These phenomena were, in turn, enabled by increased near-shore sea ice driven by a Weddell Sea-wide intensification of cyclonic surface winds around 2002. Collectively, our observations demonstrate that sea-ice change can either safeguard from, or set in motion, the final rifting and calving of even large Antarctic ice shelves.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-00938-x
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The Larsen C Ice Shelf growing rift
19/06/2017
https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/2017/06/larsen-c-ice-rift/
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Demise of Antarctic Ice Shelf Reveals New Life
A research expedition to the site of the former Larsen B ice shelf leads to the discovery of an underwater habitat surviving in the most extreme conditions
July 26, 2007
https://beta.nsf.gov/news/demise-antarctic-ice-shelf-reveals-new-life
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Physical processes controlling the rifting of Larsen C Ice Shelf, Antarctica, prior to the calving of iceberg A68
September 27, 2021
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2105080118
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Delaware Sized Iceberg Splits Off from Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf
July 12, 2017
https://scitechdaily.com/delaware-sized-iceberg-splits-off-from-antarcticas-larsen-c-ice-shelf/
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Guest post: Ranking the reasons why the Larsen C ice shelf is melting
14 April 2022
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-ranking-the-reasons-why-the-larsen-c-ice-shelf-is-melting/
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Giant Antarctic Ice Shelf Crack Threatens to Become a Massive Iceberg
February 21, 2017
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/giant-antarctic-ice-shelf-crack-threatens-to-become-a-massive-iceberg/
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Antarctica's Larsen B sea ice embayment has disintegrated. Land ice will empty soon.
February 04, 2022
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/2/4/2078485/-Antarctica-s-Larsen-B-sea-ice-embayment-has-disintegrated-Land-ice-will-be-emptying-soon
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Massive crack in Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf is widening
August 23, 2016
https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/massive-crack-in-antarctica-s-larsen-c-ice-shelf-is-widening/article/473080
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Community dynamics of nematodes after Larsen ice‐shelf collapse in the eastern Antarctic Peninsula
2015 Dec 29
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4716525/
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Labile organic carbon dynamics in continental shelf sediments after the recent collapse of the Larsen ice shelves off the eastern Antarctic Peninsula: A radiochemical approach
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016703718304393
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British Antarctic Survey model ranks biggest threats to Larsen C ice shelf
April 22, 2022
https://www.meteorologicaltechnologyinternational.com/news/polar-weather/british-antarctic-survey-model-ranks-biggest-threats-to-larsen-c-ice-shelf.html
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Retrieve Ice Velocities and Invert Spatial Rigidity of the Larsen C Ice Shelf Based on Sentinel-1 Interferometric Data
17 June 2021
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/12/2361
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Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filchner%E2%80%93Ronne_Ice_Shelf
The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, also known as Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf, is an Antarctic ice shelf bordering the Weddell Sea.
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Observed vulnerability of Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf to wind-driven inflow of warm deep water
02 August 2016
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12300
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Tidal influences on a future evolution of the Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf cavity in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica
06 Feb 2018
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/12/453/2018/
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Irreversible ocean warming threatens the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf
May 11, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-irreversible-ocean-threatens-filchner-ronne-ice.html
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Observed interannual changes beneath Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf linked to large-scale atmospheric circulation
20 May 2021
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34016971/
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Remote Control of Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf Melt Rates by the Antarctic Slope Current
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JC016550
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Validity of the Ice Shelf Water plume concept under Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf
2006
http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/~klinck/Reprints/PDF/hollandFRISP2006.pdf
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A model study of ocean circulation beneath Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, Antarctica: Implications for bottom water formation
2002
https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/a-model-study-of-ocean-circulation-beneath-filchner-ronne-ice-she
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Ice-shelf dynamics near the front of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, Antarctica, revealed by SAR interferometry
1998
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9728p0rs
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Evidence for a dynamic grounding line in outer Filchner Trough, Antarctica, until the early Holocene
October 02, 2017
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/45/11/1035/516671/Evidence-for-a-dynamic-grounding-line-in-outer?redirectedFrom=fulltext
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New Antarctic ice shelf threatened by warming
May 9, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-antarctica-global-warming-idUSBRE84811E20120509
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Unprecedented strong Modified Warm Deep Water flow towards Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in 2017
2019
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/49519/
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Sediment Patterns in the Southern Weddell Sea: Filchner Shelf and Filchner Depression
1990
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-2029-3_21
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Tidally induced increases in melting of Amundsen Sea ice shelves
2013
http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/~klinck/Reprints/PDF/robertsonJGR2013.pdf
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Thermal structure of the Amery Ice Shelf from borehole observations and simulations
2022
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/1221/2022/
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Ambient noise correlation on the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica
21 December 2013
https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/196/3/1796/584808?login=false
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Characterization of ice shelf fracture features using ICESat-2 – A case study over the Amery Ice Shelf
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034425720306398
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Bathymetry Beneath the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, Revealed by Airborne Gravity
2021
https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10332866-bathymetry-beneath-amery-ice-shelf-east-antarctica-revealed-airborne-gravity
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The 'Loose Tooth' of the Amery Ice Shelf
Oct 18, 2019
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/23949/20191018/the-loose-tooth-of-the-amery-ice-shelf.htm
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Antarctic Avery Ice Shelf “Prograding Considerably In Last 2 Decades”, Team Of Scientists Find
May 6, 2020
https://www.climatedepot.com/2020/05/06/study-antarctic-amery-ice-shelf-grew-considerably-over-last-20-years/
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Recent and imminent calving events do little to impair Amery ice shelf’s stability
June 2020
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13131-020-1600-6
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Atmospheric extremes caused high oceanward sea surface slope triggering the biggest calving event in more than 50 years at the Amery Ice Shelf
2021
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/2147/2021/
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Rapid Formation of an Ice Doline on Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica
2021 Jul 14
Abstract
Surface meltwater accumulating on Antarctic ice shelves can drive fractures through to the ocean and potentially cause their collapse, leading to increased ice discharge from the continent. Implications of increasing surface melt for future ice shelf stability are inadequately understood. The southern Amery Ice Shelf has an extensive surface hydrological system, and we present data from satellite imagery and ICESat-2 showing a rapid surface disruption there in winter 2019, covering ∼60 km2. We interpret this as an ice-covered lake draining through the ice shelf, forming an ice doline with a central depression reaching 80 m depth amidst over 36 m uplift. Flexural rebound modeling suggests 0.75 km3 of water was lost. We observed transient refilling of the doline the following summer with rapid incision of a narrow meltwater channel (20 m wide and 6 m deep). This study demonstrates how high-resolution geodetic measurements can explore critical fine-scale ice shelf processes.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34433993/
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Amery Ice Shelf: Increase by 24% by 2021
June 5, 2020
https://www.gktoday.in/topic/amery-ice-shelf-increase-by-24-by-2021/
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Amery Ice Shelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amery_Ice_Shelf
The Amery Ice Shelf is a broad ice shelf in Antarctica at the head of Prydz Bay between the Lars Christensen Coast and Ingrid Christensen Coast. It is part of Mac. Robertson Land. The name "Cape Amery" was applied to a coastal angle mapped on 11 February 1931 by the British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) under Douglas Mawson. He named it for William Bankes Amery, a civil servant who represented the United Kingdom government in Australia (1925–28). The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names interpreted this feature to be a portion of an ice shelf and, in 1947, applied the name Amery to the whole shelf.
In 2001 two holes were drilled through the ice shelf by scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division and specially designed seabed sampling and photographic equipment was lowered to the underlying seabed. By studying the fossil composition of sediment samples recovered, scientists have inferred that a major retreat of the Amery Ice Shelf to at least 80 km landward of its present location may have occurred during the mid-Holocene climatic optimum (about 5,700 years ago).[1]
In December 2006, it was reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Australian scientists were heading to the Amery Ice Shelf to investigate enormous cracks that had been forming for over a decade at a rate of three to five metres a day. Scientists wanted to discover what was causing the cracks, as there has not been similar activity since the 1960s. However, the head of research stated that it is too early to attribute the cause to global warming as there is the possibility of a natural 50-60 year cycle being responsible.
Lambert Glacier flows from Lambert Graben into the Amery Ice Shelf on the southwest side of Prydz Bay.
The Amery Basin (68°15′S 74°30′E) is an undersea basin north of the Amery Ice Shelf.
The Chinese Antarctic Zhongshan Station and Russian Progress Station are located near this ice shelf.
The Amery Ice Shelf is the third largest ice shelf in Antarctica, after the Ross Ice Shelf and the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf.
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The slow-growing tooth of the Amery Ice Shelf from 2004 to 2012
1 July 2013
The Loose Tooth rift system is an active rift system located at the front of the Amery Ice Shelf, Antarctica, which is expected to calve and produce a large iceberg in the near future. A time series of Envisat advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR) images from February 2004 to February 2012 has been used here to observe the system. The results show that both the west (T1) and east (T2) rifts propagated rapidly over 9 years at average rates of 4.49 and 2.53 m d –1 , respectively. The rift system will not break during 2012–15 as previously projected, unless unforeseen events occur. Additionally, it was found that the heading direction of T1 turned dramatically in 2009–10. However, most surprising is that the propagation rates of both rifts have shown a decreasing trend since 2005, which might be due to increasing thickness of melange ice filling in the rifts. Other environmental factors (e.g. wind forcing and air temperature) may influence the rift motion by changing the melange ice thickness and other properties.
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Mass budgets of the Lambert, Mellor and Fisher glaciers and basal fluxes beneath their flowbands on Amery Ice Shelf
2019
https://asf.alaska.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wen_amery_massbudget.pdf
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DYNAMICS OF SURFACE MELTING OVER AMERY AND ROSS ICE SHELF IN ANTARCTIC USING OSCAT DATA
2014
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6c48/ea1efc6977dfdbcb6ddc556ecc0db18c60e7.pdf
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Robots roaming in Antarctic waters reveal why Ross Ice Shelf melts rapidly in summer
July 22, 2019
A new paper offers fresh insight into the forces causing the world's largest ice shelf to melt.
A study just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans helps to reveal the local factors that influence the Ross Ice Shelf's stability, refining predictions of how it will change and influence sea rise in the future.
Prior studies on ice shelf melt have focused on warming global waters. Yet three years of Rosetta data show that the Ross Ice Shelf is melting due to local surface waters, and that the melt is happening on an unanticipated part of the shelf. These discoveries were released in a Rosetta paper published in May; the new study details the source of this strange activity.
The study comes out of the Rosetta-Ice project, a three-year-long collection of geologic, oceanographic, and glaciological data in Antarctica. The project is immense in scope, involving a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary team with specialized instrumentation to collect first-of-its kind Antarctic data.
Local effects
"In other places in Antarctica, the ice shelves are being melted by flows of global warm water from the deep ocean to the coast," explained Dave Porter, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory scientist who led the new study. "But changing melt rates for the Ross are caused mainly by a local buildup of heat in the surface layer. The question is: What dictates how much heat we build up in the summer? And the answer is that it's mostly caused by local weather processes along the ice front."
The team found that the main source of ocean heat causing the ice shelf to melt was sunlight warming the upper ocean after the region's sea ice disappeared in summertime; sea ice normally reflects sunlight, whereas darker sea water absorbs it. The team also measured large amounts of fresh water coming into the Ross Sea from rapidly melting ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea to the east of the Ross Sea. Once this extra fresh water reaches the ice front, it changes how heat mixes down from the surface to the base of the ice shelf, where melting occurs, leading the team to conclude that future Ross Ice Shelf stability depends on changing coastal conditions in both the Amundsen Sea and close to the ice shelf front...
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-robots-roaming-antarctic-reveal-ross.html
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Late Quaternary dynamics of the Lambert Glacier-Amery Ice Shelf system, East Antarctica
2020
https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/410725
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History of benthic colonisation beneath the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica
2007
https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v344/p29-37/
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Modern sedimentation, circulation and life beneath the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica
2014
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/398664/
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The cavity under the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica
31 December 2007
https://core.ac.uk/display/33313910
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Antarctic Avery Ice Shelf “Prograding Considerably In Last 2 Decades”, Team Of Scientists Find
6. May 2020
https://notrickszone.com/2020/05/06/antarctic-avery-ice-shelf-prograding-considerably-in-last-2-decades-team-of-scientists-find/
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Mass balance reassessment of glaciers draining into the Abbot and Getz Ice Shelves of West Antarctica
2017
https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/353399
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Detailed Bathymetry of the Continental Shelf Beneath the Getz Ice Shelf, West Antarctica
2020
The Getz Ice Shelf (GIS) produces major
amounts of basal meltwater due to intrusions of warm modified
Circumpolar Deep Water (mCDW) beneath the ice shelf. However, multiple
cavity openings and complex geography mean that knowledge of bathymetry
beneath the GIS is required to understand ice/ocean interactions. We
invert NASA airborne gravity data to obtain bathymetry beneath the ice
shelf. Our gravity/geology‐constrained bathymetry is a significant
advance on Bedmap2 bathymetry. The sub‐ice shelf bathymetry consists of
three cavities separated by topographic ridges extending from the ice
shelf front to the grounding line. Passages allowing limited circulation
of shallow (≲400 meters below sea level [mbsl]) water between cavities
are present, but deeper water is confined to individual cavities. Within
each cavity, bathymetric troughs (>900 mbsl) extend from the ice
shelf front to subglacial valleys beneath the ice sheet. Our analysis of
the gravity data also allows us to infer the presence of thick (>500
m) sediments near the grounding line through much of the GIS, as well
as variations in the density and/or thickness of the crust underlying
the ice shelf.
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/vsm2-sm46
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Getz Ice Shelf melt enhanced by freshwater discharge from beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
27 Apr 2020
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/1399/2020/
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Getz Ice Shelf, West Antarctica: Little glacier speed increase despite basal ice shelf melting
December 2013
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFM.C21E..05A/abstract
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Year by Year, Line by Line, We Build an Image of Getz Ice Shelf
November 6, 2016
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2016/11/06/year-by-year-line-by-line-we-build-an-image-of-getz-ice-shelf/
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Widespread increase in dynamic imbalance in the Getz region of Antarctica from 1994 to 2018
23 February 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21321-1
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Ice front blocking of ocean heat transport to an Antarctic ice shelf
26 February 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2014-5/
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Antarctica has its own 'shield' against warm water—but this could now be under threat
May 23, 2025
A little-known ocean current surrounds Antarctica, shielding it from warm water farther north. But our new research published in Geophysical Research Letters shows Antarctica's melting ice is disrupting this current, putting the continent's last line of defense at risk.
We found meltwater from Antarctica is speeding up the current, known as the Antarctic Slope Current. And it's set to become even faster by mid-century.
A faster current could be more unstable. This means eddies of warm water could eat away at Antarctica's ice, posing a major concern for the stability of Earth's climate system.
Faster ice-melt means faster sea-level rise. Humanity must act now to preserve this natural phenomenon that helps Antarctica's ice shelves remain intact.
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-antarctica-shield-threat.html#google_vignette
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Ice shards in Antarctic clouds let more solar energy reach Earth's surface
April 13, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-ice-shards-antarctic-clouds-solar.html
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Loss of sea ice alters the colors of light in the ocean
May 2, 2025
The disappearance of sea ice in polar regions due to global warming not
only increases the amount of light entering the ocean, but also changes
its color. These changes have far-reaching consequences for
photosynthetic organisms such as ice algae and phytoplankton...
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-loss-sea-ice-ocean.html
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Ice Loss Is Transforming the Light-Absorption Properties of Seawater
May 23, 2025
This disappearing ice is narrowing the range of wavelengths available to
light-harvesting organisms in Earth’s polar regions, which has
implications for the sea life that feed in these icy regions of Earth.
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v18/109
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New Global Atlas: Bathed in a Sea of Artificial Light
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Intermittent reduction in ocean heat transport into the Getz Ice Shelf cavity during strong wind events
2021
https://presentations.copernicus.org/EGU21/EGU21-5948_presentation.pdf
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Seasonal variability of ocean circulation near the Dotson Ice Shelf, Antarctica
2022
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-152149/v1
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One-third of Antarctic ice shelf area at risk of collapse as planet warms
Fractures from melting and run-off will indirectly lead to sea level rise
April 8, 2021
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210408112315.htm
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Sea ice can control Antarctic ice sheet stability, new research finds
May 12, 2022
Summary: Despite the rapid melting of ice in many parts of Antarctica during the second half of the 20th century, researchers have found that the floating ice shelves which skirt the eastern Antarctic Peninsula have undergone sustained advance over the past 20 years.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220512210525.htm
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Antarctic ice cliffs may not contribute to sea-level rise as much as predicted
Study finds even the tallest ice cliffs should support their own weight rather than collapsing catastrophically
October 21, 2019
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191021135025.htm
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How hidden lakes threaten Antarctic ice sheet stability
April 3, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-04-hidden-lakes-threaten-antarctic-ice.html
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Strong tides, vanishing lakes may prove beneficial to Antarctic ice shelf
April 19, 2022
The lakes that form on Antarctica's ice shelves can drive vertical cracks deep within the ice, increasing the chance of ice shelf collapse and sea level rise. However, if meltwater accumulates in certain areas and drains fast enough, it may temporarily stabilize the ice shelf despite increased warming, according to researchers.
"Antarctica's ice is the largest potential source of sea level rise," said Luke Trusel, assistant professor of geography at Penn State. "A significant percentage of the global population lives along the coastline in many of the world's largest cities. We need to understand what is happening to ice shelves to make reliable sea level predictions. Water can destabilize ice shelves, so we need to know where the water is and what it's doing."
Trusel and his colleagues used satellite data to study a meltwater lake that forms annually at the grounding line of the Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica. The grounding line is a zone where land ice transitions to a floating ice shelf that prevents the land ice from flowing into the ocean and raising sea levels. The ice in this area tends to dip and form a basin that could collect water.
The researchers found that strong tidal activity may facilitate water-induced fracturing, or hydrofracturing, at the grounding line and cause the meltwater lake to drain quickly, often in as little as several days. The rapid draining prevents more water from accumulating and spreading onto the ice shelf, where hydrofracturing would raise the potential for collapse. The team reported their findings, which are the first observations of tides potentially forcing large-scale lake drainage, in Geophysical Research Letters.
The researchers used data from the Landsat 8 and Sentinel-1 satellites to measure and track changes to the lake during the austral summers—December through February—of 2014 to 2020. Whereas an ordinary camera captures three different wavelengths—red, green and blue—to create an image, the Landsat 8 instruments can capture up to 11 spectral bands, including infrared light. The data return as pixels that can be used to map ice, water, snow and cloud cover...
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-strong-tides-lakes-beneficial-antarctic.html
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NASA's ICESat-2 satellite reveals shape, depth of Antarctic ice shelf fractures
March 4, 2021
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210304125333.htm
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Korff Ice Rise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korff_Ice_Rise
Korff Ice Rise is an ice rise, 80 nautical miles (150 km) long and 20 nautical miles (40 km) wide, lying 50 nautical miles (90 km) east-northeast of Skytrain Ice Rise in the southwestern part of the Ronne Ice Shelf, Antarctica. It was discovered by the US–IGY Ellsworth Traverse Party, 1957–58, and named by the party for Professor Serge A. Korff,[1] vice chairman of the cosmic ray technical panel, U.S. National Committee for the International Geophysical Year, 1957–59.[2] Radar surveying in 2013-2015 by a team from the British Antarctic Survey found the ice to be up to around 600 metres (2,000 ft) thick and found evidence that the Raymond Effect was operating beneath the ice divide.
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The Dynamics of the Late Neogene Antarctic Ice Sheets in the Central Ross Sea using a Multianalytical Approach
2022
https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/handle/1805/29480?locale-attribute=en
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List of Antarctic ice shelves
https://wiki2.org/en/List_of_Antarctic_ice_shelves
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List of Antarctic ice streams
https://wiki2.org/en/List_of_Antarctic_ice_streams
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List of glaciers in the Antarctic
https://wiki2.org/en/List_of_glaciers_in_the_Antarctic
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Retreat of glaciers since 1850
https://wiki2.org/en/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850
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Retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet during the last glacial termination
16 January 2011
Abstract
The retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet at the end of the last glacial period has been attributed to both sea-level rise and warming of the ocean at the margin of the ice sheet, but it has been challenging to test these hypotheses. Given the lack of constraints on the timing of retreat, it has been difficult to evaluate whether the East Antarctic ice sheet contributed to meltwater pulse 1a, an abrupt sea-level rise of approximately 20 m that occurred about 14,700 years ago. Here we use terrestrial exposure ages and marine sedimentological analyses to show that ice retreat in Mac. Robertson Land, East Antarctica, initiated about 14,000 years ago, became widespread about 12,000 years ago, and was completed by about 7,000 years ago. We use two models of different complexities to assess the forcing of the retreat. Our simulations suggest that, although the initial stage of retreat may have been forced by sea-level rise, the majority of the ice loss resulted from ocean warming at the onset of the Holocene epoch. In light of our age model we conclude that the East Antarctic ice sheet is unlikely to have been the source of meltwater pulse 1a, and, on the basis of our simulations, suggest that Antarctic ice sheets made an insignificant contribution to eustatic sea-level rise at this time.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1061
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Ice front blocking of ocean heat transport to an Antarctic ice shelf
2020
Abstract
Mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet to the ocean has increased in recent decades, largely because the thinning of its floating ice shelves has allowed the outflow of grounded ice to accelerate1,2. Enhanced basal melting of the ice shelves is thought to be the ultimate driver of change2,3, motivating a recent focus on the processes that control ocean heat transport onto and across the seabed of the Antarctic continental shelf towards the ice4–6. However, the shoreward heat flux typically far exceeds that required to match observed melt rates2,7,8, suggesting that other critical controls exist. Here we show that the depth-independent (barotropic) component of the heat flow towards an ice shelf is blocked by the marked step shape of the ice front, and that only the depth-varying (baroclinic) component, which is typically much smaller, can enter the sub-ice cavity. Our results arise from direct observations of the Getz Ice Shelf system and laboratory experiments on a rotating platform. A similar blocking of the barotropic component may occur in other areas with comparable ice–bathymetry configurations, which may explain why changes in the density structure of the water column have been found to be a better indicator of basal melt rate variability than the heat transported onto the continental shelf9. Representing the step topography of the ice front accurately in models is thus important for simulating ocean heat fluxes and induced melt rates.
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Antarctic ice walls protect glaciers from warm ocean water
27 Feb 2020
The planet’s oceans are capable of storing a lot more heat than Earth’s atmosphere. But while Antarctica’s coastal glaciers have experienced accelerating melt rates over the last few decades, the continent’s interior ice remains relatively stable.
This stability isn’t well understood, nor are the threats to this stability.
Using data collected by an array of instruments deployed along the coast of the Getz glacier in West Antarctica, scientists at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, were able to gain new insights into the influence of warm ocean currents on the continent’s ice shelves.
The data confirmed what previous studies have shown, that Antarctica’s ice shelves are thinning as a result of global warming.
“What we found here is a crucial feedback process: the ice shelves are their own best protection against warm water intrusions,” Céline Heuzé, Gothenburg climate researcher, said in a news release. “If the ice thins, more oceanic heat comes in and melts the ice shelf, which becomes even thinner etc. It is worrying, as the ice shelves are already thinning because of global air and ocean warming.”
But the research also showed the walls at the edge of ice shelves are surprisingly effective at protecting inland ice from warm water.
The Getz glacier has a floating section measuring several hundred feet thick. Beneath this section lies saltwater. The end of this floating section features a vertical edge that plunges roughly 1,000 to 1,300 feet beneath the ocean surface.
“Warm seawater flows beneath this edge, towards the continent and the deeper ice further south,” said Anna Wåhlin, lead author of the study and professor of oceanography at Gothenburg.
But the new data showed most of the warm ocean currents are blocked by the vertical edge.
“This limits the extent to which the warm water can reach the continent,” Wåhlin said. “We have long been stumped in our attempts to establish a clear link between the transport of warm water up on the continental shelf and melting glaciers.”
The new research, published this week in the journal Nature, highlights the importance of monitoring the nexus between ice and ocean at the ends of the floating portions of coastal glaciers.
The findings suggest the threats to coastal glaciers and the inland ice they guard are different than researchers previously estimated.
“We no longer expect to see a direct link between increasing westerly winds and growing levels of melting ice,” Wåhlin said. “Instead, the increased water levels can be caused by the processes that pump up warmer, heavier water to the continental shelf, for example as low-pressure systems move closer to the continent.”
https://www.breitbart.com/news/antarctic-ice-walls-protect-glaciers-from-warm-ocean-water/
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Satellites offer new view of Chesapeake Bay's marine heat waves
May 22, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-satellites-view-chesapeake-bay-marine.html
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Both of the planet's poles experience extreme heat, and Antarctica breaks records
March 19, 2022
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/19/1087752486/antarctica-record-heat-arctic
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Atmospheric blocking and temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula
2024
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969724029991
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Heat-transfer analysis of the basal melting of antarctic ice shelves
1993
https://www.academia.edu/14021224/Heat_transfer_analysis_of_the_basal_melting_of_antarctic_ice_shelves
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Ice shelf basal melting in a global finite-element sea ice/ice shelf/ocean model
2012
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/24946/
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Late Quaternary ice sheet dynamics and deglaciation history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the Amundsen Sea Embayment: Preliminary results from recent research cruises
2007
https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/ea/of2007-1047ea127.pdf
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Morphometry of bedrock meltwater channels on Antarctic inner continental shelves: Implications for channel development and subglacial hydrology
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169555X20303421
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Antarctic meltwater streams shed light on longstanding hydrological mystery
February 1, 2019
https://phys.org/news/2019-02-antarctic-meltwater-streams-longstanding-hydrological.html
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Freshening by glacial meltwater enhances melting of ice shelves and reduces formation of Antarctic Bottom Water
2018 Apr
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29675467/
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Is Antarctica losing or gaining ice?
https://skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm
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The "Unstable" West Antarctic Ice Sheet: A Primer
May 12, 2014
https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/antarctic-ice-sheet-20140512/
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Complete List of Ice Shelves in Antarctica
https://sciencestruck.com/complete-list-of-ice-shelves-in-antarctica
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Interannual variations in meltwater input to the Southern Ocean from Antarctic ice shelves
2020 Aug 10
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7500482/
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An ice shelf is cracking in Antarctica, but not for the reason you think
January 16, 2017
A group of scientists is gathering this week in the U.K. to discuss a slab of ice that's cracking in Antarctica. The crack could soon split off a frozen chunk the size of Delaware.
One glacier scientist, Heidi Sevestre, spent six weeks last year living on that giant slab of ice off the Antarctic Peninsula.
"It's like being on a different planet," says Sevestre, a glaciologist with the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She and her colleagues would get really excited whenever they saw a bird pass overhead because it was the only other sign of life around.
"Everything is gigantic, everything is white," she says. And everything seemed so frozen and still. But it wasn't.
"When you're camping on the ice shelf, you have no idea that you're on something that is floating and moving," she says.
The ice shelf is in constant motion: rising with the tides, splitting off icebergs at its edges, and growing again as inland glaciers feed it.
The ice shelf Sevestre was studying is called Larsen C, and it now has a massive 90-mile crack running through it.
"The big rift is slicing the ice shelf from top to bottom," Sevestre says. It's now a third of a mile deep, and as wide across as 25 highway lanes.
But this is not just another sad climate change story. It's more complicated.
"A lot of things are going on deep inside the ice," says Adrian Luckman, a glaciologist at Swansea University in the U.K. He's also leading a project to track changes in the ice shelf.
Luckman says climate change is certainly influencing this region. Larsen C used to have two neighbors to the north, Larsen A and Larsen B. As the air and water warmed, those ice shelves started melting and then splintered into shards in 1995 and 2002.
But the crack in Larsen C seems to have happened on its own, for different reasons.
"This is probably not directly attributable to any warming in the region, although of course the warming won't have helped," says Luckman. "It's probably just simply a natural event that's just been waiting around to happen."
Larsen C has a bunch of cracks. All ice shelves do. This particular crack has been around since at least the 1960s. The unusual part is that in 2014, this crack — and only this crack — started growing in spurts. Why?
"Well, that is a little bit of a mystery and that's why it drew itself to our attention," says Luckman.
It left other cracks in the dust about 50 miles ago. Now, scientists are crunching satellite and radar data to figure out how.
"And that knowledge will be useful in helping us to understand other ice shelves and how they might respond to rifts coming into them," says Luckman.
One puzzling aspect is how it managed to plow through areas of softer ice, called suture zones, that bind the ice from neighboring glaciers into one giant sheet.
"There's something different about that ice that slows it down or causes it to hang up for some period of time," says Dan McGrath, a glaciologist at Colorado State University. But, starting in 2014, that soft ice did very little to slow down this rift.
"We need to get to the bottom of understanding what changed that allowed this rift to progress as it has, and will other rifts follow suit," says McGrath, who spent four field seasons camped out on the Larsen C ice shelf. (At one point, bad storms kept him inside his tent for more than a week. "Yeah, you're peeing in a bottle," he says. "There were moments during those seven days that I questioned whether I should have studied tropical reef ecology.")
Scientists are split on how important this crack is for the stability of the whole ice shelf.
"Just because this iceberg calves off, the ice shelf isn't just going to collapse and disappear overnight," says McGrath.
Some say if this giant section breaks off, it won't make a difference. Others think it could eventually cause the whole shelf to fall apart.
"I am cautiously worried," says Ala Khazendar, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Ice shelves are very important. They are the gates of Antarctica in a way, and the gatekeepers of Antarctica."
The ice shelves are already floating, so if they fall apart it does not immediately affect sea levels. It's what they hold back — water from all the inland glaciers — that could be problematic.
Khazendar says there are two possible scenarios. One, the iceberg will break off, he says, "and nothing spectacular will happen for many, many years." The glaciers will bulk it up with ice until it's back to its former look. Or, two, this iceberg is just the first of many irreversible losses for Larsen C, which, in combination with enough warm summers, will be weakened and shatter like the previous Larsens.
"We shall see if that big calving leads to a collapse of the ice shelf. At the moment, this is still a big question mark," says Heidi Sevestre.
According to pessimistic estimates, if the ice shelf completely disintegrated and if all the water packed in those glaciers made their way to the sea, it could significantly raise global sea levels.
"It is quite a large impact, indeed," says Sevestre.
The 30-or-so ice shelf experts gathered in the U.K. this week aren't sure whether this more serious chain reaction will happen, but they are confident, at least, that the Delaware-sized chunk will come off. The crack only has about 10 miles left to go.
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Strong El Niño Events Cause Large Changes In Antarctic Ice Shelves
January 9, 2018
https://www.eurasiareview.com/09012018-strong-el-nino-events-cause-large-changes-in-antarctic-ice-shelves/
A new study published Jan. 8 in the journal Nature Geoscience reveals that strong El Nino events can cause significant ice loss in some Antarctic ice shelves while the opposite may occur during strong La Nina events.
El Niño and La Niña are two distinct phases of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally occurring phenomenon characterized by how water temperatures in the tropical Pacific periodically oscillate between warmer than average during El Niños and cooler during La Niñas.
The research, funded by NASA and the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, provides new insights into how Antarctic ice shelves respond to variability in global ocean and atmospheric conditions.
The study was led by Fernando Paolo while a PhD graduate student and postdoc at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. Paolo is now a postdoctoral scholar at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Paolo and his colleagues, including Scripps glaciologist Helen Fricker, discovered that a strong El Niño event causes ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica to gain mass at the surface and melt from below at the same time, losing up to five times more ice from basal melting than they gain from increased snowfall. The study used satellite observations of the height of the ice shelves from 1994 to 2017.
“We’ve described for the first time the effect of El Niño/Southern Oscillation on the West Antarctic ice shelves,” Paolo said. “There have been some idealized studies using models, and even some indirect observations off the ice shelves, suggesting that El Niño might significantly affect some of these shelves, but we had no actual ice-shelf observations. Now we have presented a record of 23 years of satellite data on the West Antarctic ice shelves, confirming not only that ENSO affects them at a yearly basis, but also showing how.”
The opposing effects of El Niño on ice shelves – adding mass from snowfall but taking it away through basal melt – were at first difficult to untangle from the satellite data. “The satellites measure the height of the ice shelves, not the mass, and what we saw at first is that during strong El Niños the height of the ice shelves actually increased,” Paolo said. “I was expecting to see an overall reduction in height as a consequence of mass loss, but it turns out that height increases.”
After further analysis of the data, the scientists found that although a strong El Niño changes wind patterns in West Antarctica in a way that promotes flow of warm ocean waters towards the ice shelves to increase melting from below, it also increases snowfall particularly along the Amundsen Sea sector. The team then needed to determine the contribution of the two effects. Is the atmosphere adding more mass than the ocean is taking away or is it the other way around?
“We found out that the ocean ends up winning in terms of mass. Changes in mass, rather than height, control how the ice shelves and associated glaciers flow into the ocean,” Paolo said. While mass loss by basal melting exceeds mass gain from snowfall during strong El Niño events, the opposite appears to be true during La Niña events.
Over the entire 23-year observation period, the ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea sector of Antarctica had their height reduced by 20 centimeters (8 inches) a year, for a total of 5 meters (16 feet), mostly due to ocean melting. The intense 1997-98 El Nino increased the height of these ice shelves by more than 25 centimeters (10 inches). However, the much lighter snow contains far less water than solid ice does. When the researchers took density of snow into account, they found that ice shelves lost about five times more ice by submarine melting than they gained from new surface snowpack.
“Many people look at this ice-shelf data and will fit a straight line to the data, but we’re looking at all the wiggles that go into that linear fit, and trying to understand the processes causing them,” said Fricker, who was Paolo’s PhD adviser at the time the study was conceived. “These longer satellite records are allowing us to study processes that are driving changes in the ice shelves, improving our understanding on how the grounded ice will change,” Fricker said.
“The ice shelf response to ENSO climate variability can be used as a guide to how longer-term changes in global climate might affect ice shelves around Antarctica,” said co-author Laurie Padman, an oceanographer with Earth & Space Research, a nonprofit research company based in Seattle. “The new data set will allow us to check if our ocean models can correctly represent changes in the flow of warm water under ice shelves,” he added.
Melting of the ice shelves doesn’t directly affect sea level rise, because they’re already floating. What matters for sea-level rise is the addition of ice from land into the ocean, however it’s the ice shelves that hold off the flow of grounded ice toward the ocean.
Understanding what’s causing the changes in the ice shelves “puts us a little bit closer to knowing what’s going to happen to the grounded ice, which is what will ultimately affect sea-level rise,” Fricker said. “The holy grail of all of this work is improving sea-level rise projections,” she added.
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Troughs developed in ice-stream shear margins precondition ice shelves for ocean-driven breakup
9 Oct 2019
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aax2215
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Antarctic ice-shelf thickness changes from CryoSat-2 SARIn mode measurements: Assessment and comparison with IceBridge and ICESat
25 May 2020
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12040-020-01392-2
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'Upside-Down Rivers' of Warm Water Are Carving Antarctica to Pieces
October 10, 2019
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Ocean-Ice Shelf Interaction in East Antarctica
2016
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24862288
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Warm surface waters increase Antarctic ice shelf melt and delay dense water formation
June 2022
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361479637_Warm_surface_waters_increase_Antarctic_ice_shelf_melt_and_delay_dense_water_formation
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Explosive cyclones off Antarctica contribute to ice shelf calving
11 May 2021
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/news/2021/explosive-cyclones-off-antarctica-contribute-to-ice-shelf-calving/
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How a lake on an Antarctic ice shelf disappeared in three days
June 30, 2021
Landsat 8 images over the Southern
Amery Ice Shelf on the east coast of Antarctica show the ice-covered
lake before drainage and the resulting ice doline with summer meltwater
(Landsat 8/ UC San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/how-a-lake-on-an-antarctic-ice-shelf-disappeared-in-three-days-1.5492735
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Scientists Track the Sudden Disappearance of an Antarctic Ice-Shelf Lake
June 24, 2021
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/06/24/scientists-track-sudden-disappearance-of-an-antarctic-ice-shelf-lake/
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First sessile deep-sea community found on a hard substrate below Antarctic ice shelf
March 2021
https://www.accessscience.com/content/first-sessile-deep-sea-community-found-on-a-hard-substrate-below-antarctic-ice-shelf/BR0315211
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Ocean-driven thinning enhances iceberg calving and retreat of Antarctic ice shelves
March 2, 2015
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1415137112
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Scientists accidentally find life beneath ice shelves in the Antarctic
2021
https://news.sky.com/story/scientists-accidentally-find-life-beneath-ice-shelves-in-the-antarctic-12218906
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Clouds drive differences in future surface melt over the Antarctic ice shelves
07 Jul 2022
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/2655/2022/
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Antarctica’s Conger Ice Shelf Suffers ‘Complete Collapse’
3/25/22
Satellite images show the collapse happening around March 15.
https://gizmodo.com/antarctica-s-conger-ice-shelf-suffers-complete-collaps-1848703451
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What to Know about Antarctica’s Conger Ice Shelf Collapse
March 29, 2022
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-to-know-about-antarcticas-conger-ice-shelf-collapse/
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Satellite data shows entire Conger ice shelf has collapsed in Antarctica
March 2022
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/25/satellite-data-shows-entire-conger-ice-shelf-has-collapsed-in-antarctica
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A-68s: Largest floating Iceberg
December 18, 2020
https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/a-68s-largest-floating-iceberg/
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Studies on the influence of sampling on the levels of dioxins and PCB in fish
2018 Sep 3
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30286542/
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Geomagnetic pole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_pole
The geomagnetic poles are antipodal points where the axis of a best-fitting dipole intersects the surface of Earth. This theoretical dipole is equivalent to a powerful bar magnet at the center of Earth, and comes closer than any other point dipole model to describing the magnetic field observed at Earth's surface. In contrast, the magnetic poles of the actual Earth are not antipodal; that is, the line on which they lie does not pass through Earth's center.
Owing to motion of fluid in the Earth's outer core, the actual magnetic poles are constantly moving (secular variation). However, over thousands of years, their direction averages to the Earth's rotation axis. On the order of once every half a million years, the poles reverse (i.e., north switches place with south) although the time frame of this switching can be anywhere from every 10 thousand years to every 50 million years. The poles also swing in an oval of around 50 miles (80 km) in diameter daily due to solar wind deflecting the magnetic field.[3]
Although the geomagnetic pole is only theoretical and cannot be located directly, it arguably is of more practical relevance than the magnetic (dip) pole. This is because the poles describe a great deal about the Earth's magnetic field, determining for example where auroras can be observed. The dipole model of the Earth's magnetic field consists of the location of geomagnetic poles and the dipole moment, which describes the strength of the field.
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South magnetic pole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_magnetic_pole
The south magnetic pole is the point on Earth's Southern Hemisphere where the geomagnetic field lines are directed perpendicular to the nominal surface. The Geomagnetic South Pole, a related point, is the south pole of an ideal dipole model of the Earth's magnetic field that most closely fits the Earth's actual magnetic field.
For historical reasons, the "end" of a freely hanging magnet that points (roughly) north is itself called the "north pole" of the magnet, and the other end, pointing south, is called the magnet's "south pole". Because opposite poles attract, Earth's south magnetic pole is physically actually a magnetic north pole (see also North magnetic pole § Polarity).
The south magnetic pole is constantly shifting due to changes in Earth's magnetic field. As of 2005 it was calculated to lie at 64°31′48″S 137°51′36″E,[2] placing it off the coast of Antarctica, between Adélie Land and Wilkes Land. In 2015 it lay at 64.28°S 136.59°E (est).[3] That point lies outside the Antarctic Circle. Due to polar drift, the pole is moving northwest by about 10 to 15 kilometres (6 to 9 mi) per year. Its current distance from the actual Geographic South Pole is approximately 2,860 km (1,780 mi).[1] The nearest permanent science station is Dumont d'Urville Station.
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Wandering of the Geomagnetic poles
https://ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml
___________________________
The Earth’s magnetic poles (probably) aren’t about to flip, scientists say
July 4, 2022
https://news.yahoo.com/earth-magnetic-poles-probably-aren-083134518.html
____________
Boundary processes and neodymium cycling along the Pacific margin of West Antarctica
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016703722001855
___________________________
Neodymium and hafnium boundary contributions to seawater along the West Antarctic continental margin
2014
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X14001526
___________________________
Reconstruction of Ocean Circulation Based on Neodymium Isotopic Composition: Potential Limitations and Application to the Mid-Pleistocene Transition
June 29, 2020
https://tos.org/oceanography/article/reconstruction-of-ocean-circulationbased-on-neodymium-isotopic-composition-potential-limitations-and-application-to-the-mid-pleistocene-transition
___________________________
Isotopic Composition of Neodymium in Waters from the Drake Passage
16 Jul 1982
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.217.4556.207
___________________________
Boundary processes and neodymium cycling along the Pacific margin of West Antarctica
June 2022
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022GeCoA.327....1W/abstract
___________________________
NEODYMIUM ISOTOPIC COMPOSITION OF ANTARCTIC ORDINARY CHONDRITES.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/80071226.pdf
___________________________
The Neodymium Isotope Fingerprint of Adélie Coast Bottom Water
01 October 2018
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018GL080074
___________________________
Oligocene Deep Water Export from the North Atlantic and the Development of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current Examined with Development of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current Examined with Neodymium Isotopes Neodymium Isotope
1-19-2008
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=geol_facpub
___________________________
Pre-concentration of thorium and neodymium isotopes using Nobias chelating resin: Method development and application to chromatographic separation
2019 Mar 27
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31171227/
___________________________
Seasonal variability in carbon:234thorium ratios of suspended and sinking particles in coastal Antarctic waters: Field data and modeling synthesis
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967063722000772
___________________________
The neodymium composition of Atlantic Ocean water masses: implications for the past and present
April 17, 2015
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8DZ077F
___________________________
Deglacial Variability of Antarctic Intermediate Water Penetration into the North Atlantic from Authigenic Neodymium Isotope Ratios
2012
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1229&context=oeas_fac_pubs
___________________________
Neodymium isotopic signature of the Ross Sea Water characterized
12 June 2015
https://www.geotraces.org/nd-isotopic-signature-of-the-ross-sea-water-characterized/
___________________________
Neodymium and hafnium boundary contributions to seawater along the West Antarctic continental margin
May 2014
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261327628_Neodymium_and_hafnium_boundary_contributions_to_seawater_along_the_West_Antarctic_continental_margin
___________________________
Investigating the Applications of Neodymium Isotopic Compositions and Rare Earth Elements as Water Mass Tracers in the South Atlantic and North Pacific
April 30, 2019
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-kstx-xg38
___________________________
Tracing Water Mass Mixing From the Equatorial to the North Pacific Ocean With Dissolved Neodymium Isotopes and Concentrations
2001
The sluggish water mass transport in the deeper North Pacific Ocean complicates the assessment of formation, spreading and mixing of surface, intermediate and deep-water masses based on standard hydrographic parameters alone. Geochemical tracers sensitive to water mass provenance and mixing allow to better characterize the origin and fate of the prevailing water masses. Here, we present dissolved neodymium (Nd) isotope compositions (εNd) and concentrations ([Nd]) obtained along a longitudinal transect at ∼180°E from ∼7°S to ∼50°N. The strongest contrast in Nd isotope signatures is observed in equatorial regions between surface waters (εNd ∼0 at 4.5°N) and Lower Circumpolar Deep Water (LCDW) prevailing at 4500 m depth (εNd = −6.7 at 7.2°N). The Nd isotope compositions of equatorial surface and subsurface waters are strongly influenced by regional inputs from the volcanic rocks surrounding the Pacific, which facilitates the identification of the source regions of these waters and seasonal changes in their advection along the equator. Highly radiogenic weathering inputs from Papua-New-Guinea control the εNd signature of the equatorial surface waters and strongly alter the εNd signal of Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) by sea water-particle interactions leading to an εNd shift from −5.3 to −1.7 and an increase in [Nd] from 8.5 to 11.0 pmol/kg between 7°S and 15°N. Further north in the open North Pacific, mixing calculations based on εNd, [Nd] and salinity suggest that this modification of the AAIW composition has a strong impact on intermediate water εNd signatures of the entire region allowing for improved identification of the formation regions and pathways of North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW). The deep-water Nd isotope signatures indicate a southern Pacific origin and subsequent changes along its trajectory resulting from a combination of water mass mixing, vertical processes and Nd release from seafloor sediments, which precludes Nd isotopes as quantitative tracers of deep-water mass mixing. Moreover, comparison with previously reported data indicates that the Nd isotope signatures and concentrations below 100 m depth essentially remained stable over the past decades, which suggests constant impacts of water mass advection and mixing as well as of non-conservative vertical exchange and bottom release.
Introduction
The northern Pacific is the largest ocean basin on Earth, but its exact circulation and water mass mixing patterns, in particular at greater depth, are not well constrained. Due to the lack of deep-water formation, strong stratification and low horizontal density gradients prevail resulting in very slow flow velocities and the absence of large differences in physical water properties with depth. This complicates the investigation of water mass advection and mixing applying standard hydrographic parameters such as salinity, temperature, and oxygen concentrations. As a geochemical provenance tracer, radiogenic neodymium (Nd) isotopes add valuable independent information on the origin of water masses and present and past oceanic circulation (Frank, 2002; Goldstein and Hemming, 2003; van de Flierdt et al., 2012; Tachikawa et al., 2017). In the West and North Pacific, dissolved Nd isotope compositions and concentrations have previously been applied to help constrain water mass distribution and mixing (Piepgras and Jacobsen, 1988; Amakawa et al., 2004a, b, 2009; Zimmermann et al., 2009; Grenier et al., 2013; Haley et al., 2017; Behrens et al., 2018; Du et al., 2020). There are, however, still considerable gaps in data coverage and in our knowledge of North Pacific Ocean circulation and Nd isotope behavior in this region. The radiogenic Nd isotope compositions (143Nd/144Nd) are expressed in the εNd notation defined as:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.603761/full
___________________________
Testing the Fidelity of Neodymium Isotopes as a Paleocirculation Tracer in the Southeast Indian-Sout
2017
https://people.climate.columbia.edu/projects/view/1671
___________________________
Coherent Response of Antarctic Intermediate Water and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation During the Last Deglaciation: Reconciling Contrasting Neodymium Isotope Reconstructions From the Tropical Atlantic
22 September 2017
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017PA003092
___________________________
Crustal growth and reworking along the Antarctic peninsula : an isotopic approach
January 1993
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32975184_Crustal_growth_and_reworking_along_the_Antarctic_peninsula_an_isotopic_approach
___________________________
Neodymium isotopic characterization of Ross Sea Bottom Water and its advection through the southern South Pacific
June 2015
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015E%26PSL.419..211B/abstract
___________________________
Deep-Water Circulation over the Last Two Glacial Cycles Reconstructed from Authigenic Neodymium Isotopes in the Equatorial Indian Ocean (Core HI1808-GPC04)
15 November 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12601-021-00046-8
___________________________
New constraints on the sources and behavior of neodymium and hafnium in seawater from Pacific Ocean ferromanganese crusts
2004
https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70026613
___________________________
Neodymium in the oceans: a global database, a regional comparison and implications for palaeoceanographic research
4 October 2016
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Neodymium-in-the-oceans%3A-a-global-database%2C-a-and-Flierdt-Griffiths/94c7df583705dca259120a1fbb1abd7b842f835c
___________________________
Neodymium isotopic characterization of Ross Sea Bottom Water and its advection through the southern South Pacific
2015
https://core.ac.uk/display/160046789
___________________________
Neodymium isotopic variations in North Pacific modern silicate sediment and the insignificance of detrital REE contributions to seawater
1994
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/31272
___________________________
Neodymium and Strontium isotope compositions of Miocene to recent sediments collected at Site U1521 during International Ocean Discovery Programme (IODP) Expedition 374 to the Ross Sea, Antarctica
2021
https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/nationalgeosciencedatacentre/citedData/catalogue/3a646c8a-8422-4079-a928-a159532439eb.html
___________________________
Drake Passage gateway opening and Antarctic Circumpolar Current onset 31 Ma ago: The message of foraminifera and reconsideration of the Neodymium isotope record
2021
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03358760v1
___________________________
The neodymium isotopic composition of waters masses in the eastern Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean
2011
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016703711007095
___________________________
Neodymium Isotope Evidence for Coupled Southern Ocean Circulation and Antarctic Climate throughout the Last 118,000 Years
April 2021
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351055356_Neodymium_Isotope_Evidence_for_Coupled_Southern_Ocean_Circulation_and_Antarctic_Climate_throughout_the_Last_118000_Years
______________
The residence time of Southern Ocean surface waters and the 100,000-year ice age cycle
8 Mar 2019
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat7067
___________________________
Antarctic intermediate water circulation in the South Atlantic over the past 25,000 years
2016
http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/3928/1/palo20370.pdf
___________________________
Using Foraminifera to Understand the Influence of Antarctic Intermediate Water
http://bios.edu/currents/using-foraminifera-to-understand-the-influence-of-antarctic-intermediate-wa/
___________________________
Extreme environment datasets for the three poles
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/special_issue1144.html
___________________________
A database of radiogenic Sr-Nd isotopes at the "three poles”
16 Mar 2022
https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2022-91/
___________________________
Ice loss from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during late Pleistocene interglacials
19 September 2018
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0501-8/
___________________________
Last Glacial Maximum and Holocene Climate in CCSM3
01 Jun 2006
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/19/11/jcli3748.1.xml
___________________________
New Research Sheds Light on Antarctic Carbon ‘Sink’
February 22, 2018
New research reveals that changes in the Antarctic Ocean led to the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the end of the last ice age.
In the report, published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers show that the deep South Pacific was highly stratified during the last ice age, which could have enabled long-term, deep-sea storage of the greenhouse gas.
The findings also suggest that warming at the end of the last ice age coincided with the increased mixing of deep water masses, which released stored CO2 and enhanced global warming.
The Antarctic Ocean plays a critical role in climate events because CO2 can be absorbed by the ocean from the atmosphere. As the amounts of dust deposited into the sea increase, microscopic algae multiply because the iron contained in the dust serves as a fertilizer.
When these single-celled algae die, they sink to the ocean floor, bringing the sequestered greenhouse gas with them. Long-term removal of CO2 from the atmosphere relies on stable deep-water conditions over extended periods of time.
To determine how water masses in the deep South Pacific have evolved over the past 30,000 years, the researchers recovered sediment cores from water depths of nearly 10,000 feet to more than 13,000 feet. Co-lead authors Chandranath Basak and Henning Frollje extracted minute teeth and other skeletal debris of fossil fish from the sediment to analyze the samples’ ratio of isotopes of the rare earth metal neodymium.
“Neodymium is particularly useful for identifying water masses of different origin,” said co-author Katharina Pahnke, the head of the Max Planck Research Group for Marine Isotope Geochemistry in Germany.
The isotope ratios of neodymium vary according to the ocean basin from which the water originates. For example, the coldest and therefore deepest water mass in the South Pacific develops on the Antarctic continental shelf and bears a distinct neodymium signature. Directly above this mass is a layer that combines water from the North Pacific, the South Pacific and the North Atlantic and thus features a different signature.
The researchers used fish debris from deep-sea sediments to trace the variations in neodymium concentrations at different depths over time. They found that at the peak of the last ice age roughly 20,000 years ago, the neodymium signature of samples taken from depths below 13,000 feet was significantly lower than in deeper water.
“The only explanation for such a pronounced difference is that there was no mixing of the water masses at that time,” said Frollje, a biochemist at the University of Bremen in Germany. This led the team to conclude that the deep waters were strongly stratified during the glacial period.
As the climate in the Southern Hemisphere warmed around 18,000 years ago, the stratification of the water masses was broken up neodymium values at different depths intersected.
“There was probably more mixing because the density of the water decreased as a result of the warming,” Pahnke said. This then sparked the release of the CO2 stored in deep waters.
Climate researchers have long since speculated on why variations in atmospheric CO2 levels followed the same pattern as temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere, when conditions in the north at times ran counter to these fluctuations. One theory suggests that certain processes in the Southern Ocean – another name for the Antarctic Ocean – played a key role.
“With our analyses we have for the first time provided concrete evidence supporting the theory that there is a connection between the CO2 fluctuations and stratification in the Southern Ocean,” said co-author Frank Lamy, a geoscientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.
The findings support the theory that the warming of the Southern Hemisphere disrupted stratification in the Antarctic Ocean, leading to the release of CO2 that was stored in these waters.
https://www.courthousenews.com/new-research-sheds-light-on-antarctic-carbon-sink/
___________________________
Antarctic sea-ice controlled ocean circulation and carbon storage during the last Ice Age
19 June 2020
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/earth-sciences/news/2020/jun/antarctic-sea-ice-controlled-ocean-circulation-and-carbon-storage-during-last-ice-age
___________________________
Onset of Antarctic Circumpolar Current 30 million years ago as Tasmanian Gateway aligned with westerlies
2015
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26223626/
___________________________
Atlantic deep water provenance decoupled from atmospheric CO2 concentration during the lukewarm interglacials
08 December 2017
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01939-w
___________________________
Overfishing of Krill Is Disrupting Antarctic Food Chains
Mar 30, 2018
Commercial fishing for the tiny crustacean has increased in recent years to supply growing demand for nutritional supplements.
https://psmag.com/environment/overfishing-krill-in-antarctica
___________________________
Identifying Risk: Concurrent Overlap of the Antarctic Krill Fishery with Krill-Dependent Predators in the Scotia Sea
2017
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5234819/
___________________________
Antarctica's Only Native Insect Could Be Destined For Extinction as Winters Warm
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/antarcticas-only-native-insect-could-be-destined-for-extinction-as-winters-warm/ar-AAZ7Ttg
___________________________
Levels and interactions of heavy metals in sea birds from Svalbard and the Antarctic
1987
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/026974918790039X
___________________________
Metal Dynamics in an Antarctic Food Chain
2001
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X0000206X
___________________________
Algae Bloom in Antarctic Sea Ice
February 23, 2008
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/8517/algae-bloom-in-antarctic-sea-ice
___________________________
Researchers Map Green Snow Algae Blooms in Antarctica
May 22, 2020
http://www.sci-news.com/biology/green-snow-algae-blooms-antarctica-08458.html
___________________________
Algae
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/plants/algae/
___________________________
Algae Found in Antarctica – What Does It Mean?
May 22, 2020
https://webbyfeed.com/algae-found-in-antarctica-what-does-it-mean/8714/
___________________________
Underwater drones map algae beneath Antarctic ice
May 3, 2016
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/underwater-drones-map-algae-beneath-antarctic-ice
___________________________
Snow Algae
Algae on the ice at Pleneau Island.
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/plants/snow-algae/
___________________________
Remote sensing reveals Antarctic green snow algae as important terrestrial carbon sink
20 May 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16018-w
___________________________
Snow algae communities in Antarctica: metabolic and taxonomic composition
2019 Feb 27
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6492300/
___________________________
Australian Bushfires Fueled Algae Blooms Near Antarctica
Oct 8, 2021
https://www.forbes.com/sites/priyashukla/2021/10/08/australian-bushfires-fueled-algae-blooms-near-antarctica/?sh=1a0134903d5b
___________________________
Antarctic ice cores reveal Australian drought risk worse than thought
February 18, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-antarctic-ice-cores-reveal-australian.html
___________________________
'Green Snow' May Blanket Coast of Antarctica As Global Temperatures Increase
5/20/20
Green snow algae, Rothera Point, Antarctica 2018. Researchers say a larger area of the Antarctic coast will be covered by the algal blooms as global temperatures increase.
https://www.newsweek.com/green-snow-algae-antarctica-1505458
___________________________
This ‘Blood-Red’ Snow Is Taking Over Parts of Antarctica
February 28, 2020
After a month of record-breaking temperatures, a kind of snow algae that turns ruby-hued in warm temperatures thrives
So-called 'watermelon snow' sounds better than it looks and tastes; do not eat pink snow.
Earlier this month, Antarctica experienced record high temperatures, causing the southernmost continent’s ice caps to melt at an unprecedented rate. As a result, Eagle Island, a small island off Antarctica’s northwest tip, experienced peak melt; brown rock appeared from beneath the ice and several ponds of melt water accumulated at the center.
And with these unprecedented temperatures, the algae that normally thrive in freezing water and lie dormant across the continent’s snow and ice are now in full bloom and cover the Antarctic Peninsula with blood-red, flower-like spores.
On February 24, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine posted photos of the phenomenon to their Facebook page, showing ice around their Vernadsky Research Base—located on the Galindez Island off the coast of Antarctica’s northern Peninsula—covered in what researchers call “raspberry snow” or “watermelon snow”. This red-pigmented algae, also known as Chlamydomonas nivalis, has the potential to jumpstart a feedback loop of warming and melting, worrying scientists about the continued impact of climate change on this critical region.
“Snow blooms contribute to climate change,” the Ministry wrote on Facebook. “Because of the red-crimson color, the snow reflects less sunlight and melts faster. As a consequence, it produces more and more bright algae.”
“Blood red” snow has been observed many times before. Aristotle noticed this phenomenon in the third century B.C., reports Brandon Specktor of Live Science. In 1818, Captain John Ross found pink snow during his expedition through the Northwest Passage; though he first thought it was iron-nickel meteorite.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/blood-red-snow-taking-over-parts-antarctica-180974309/
___________________________
Red and green snow algae increase snowmelt in the Antarctic Peninsula
January 13, 2021
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-red-green-algae-snowmelt-antarctic.html
___________________________
Microbial composition and photosynthesis in Antarctic snow algae communities: Integrating metabarcoding and pulse amplitude modulation fluorometry
2019
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S221192641930342X
___________________________
Antarctica’s ‘green snow’ is sucking carbon out of the air
Jun 22, 2020
A new study reveals that the continent's green patches act as a carbon sink.
https://grist.org/climate/antarcticas-green-snow-is-sucking-carbon-out-of-the-air/
___________________________
Algae, lichens and fungi in La Gorce Mountains, Antarctica
07 May 2004
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/algae-lichens-and-fungi-in-la-gorce-mountains-antarctica/0AE3049CADDA5802B9C8969A514CD0A5
___________________________
Antarctica: tiny algae turning snow green 'could create new ecosystem' – video
21 May 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2020/may/21/antarctica-tiny-algae-turning-snow-green-could-create-new-ecosystem-video
___________________________
The Contributions of Sea Ice Algae to Antarctic Marine Primary Production
01 August 2015
https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/41/1/57/98878?login=false
___________________________
Filamentous green algae in freshwater streams on Signy Island, Antarctica
March 1989
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00031608
___________________________
Microbial composition and photosynthesis in Antarctic snow algae communities: Integrating metabarcoding and pulse amplitude modulation fluorometry
2019
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S221192641930342X
___________________________
Filamentous green algae in freshwater streams on Signy Island, Antarctica
1989
https://www.academia.edu/33471024/Filamentous_green_algae_in_freshwater_streams_on_Signy_Island_Antarctica
___________________________
Green algae (Viridiplantae) in sediments from three lakes on Vega Island, Antarctica, assessed using DNA metabarcoding
2021 Oct 22
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34686990/
___________________________
Characterization of copper (II) biosorption by brown algae Durvillaea antarctica dead biomass
14 November 2015
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10450-015-9715-3
___________________________
Glass algae and other oddities of Antarctica's microworld
Jul 15, 2020
https://boingboing.net/2020/07/15/glass-algae-and-other-oddities.html
___________________________
Ancient gene family protects algae from salt and cold in an Antarctic lake
August 20, 2020
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2020/08/20/ancient-gene-family-protects-algae-from-salt-and-cold-in-an-antarctic-lake/
___________________________
Diversity of algae and lichens in biological soil crusts of Ardley and King George islands, Antarctica
12 January 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/diversity-of-algae-and-lichens-in-biological-soil-crusts-of-ardley-and-king-george-islands-antarctica/2F92D44D3E1F8BCE597567ADAB0C8F30
___________________________
Heavy metal pollution in Antarctica and its potential impacts on algae
June 2019
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019PolSc..20...75C/abstract
___________________________
The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice
2020
https://www.ted.com/talks/ariel_waldman_the_invisible_life_hidden_beneath_antarctica_s_ice
___________________________
How do mosses survive in Antarctica?
October 16, 2013
https://bogology.org/2013/10/16/how-do-mosses-survive-in-antarctica/
___________________________
Video: Drones help scientists check the health of Antarctic mosses, revealing climate change clues
September 12, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-methane-eating-microbes-gases-antarctic-ice.html
___________________________
Scientists Unravel the Mystery of Antarctica’s Blood Falls
May 1, 2017
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/248493-scientists-unravel-mystery-antarcticas-blood-falls
This flow of red liquid on Taylor Glacier in Antarctica has been perplexing scientists since it was discovered, but they've finally figured it out. No, it's not actually blood. Thank goodness.
Most of us, if we encountered what was obviously a waterfall of blood, would turn tail and run. However, geologist Griffith Taylor was made of sterner stuff when he discovered Blood Falls in the early 1900s. This flow of red liquid on Taylor Glacier in Antarctica has been perplexing scientists since it was discovered, but they’ve finally figured it out. No, it’s not actually blood. Thank goodness.
When Taylor (after whom the glacier was named) found Blood Falls, he believed it to be the result of algae blooms on the glacier that were washed into West Lake Bonney. Some species of algae have been known to cause similar discolorations. That would have been proof positive that life was more hearty than believed at the time. Of course, we’ve found organisms since then that are capable of living in even more harsh conditions, but it wasn’t algae that was responsible for Blood Falls.
An analysis in 2003, which laid the groundwork for the most recent discoveries, confirmed it was not algae that caused the red flow into West Lake Bonney. The water was found to contain extremely high levels of iron. The iron atoms in the water turned red when exposed to air — they actually become iron oxide, also known as rust. So, this isn’t blood or algae, but water with rust dissolved in it.
Figuring out what caused the red color was not the end of the mystery, though. Researchers suspected that the iron-rich water was coming from an ancient source, at least 5 million years old. There didn’t appear to be any liquid water around that would be a match. The answer turns out to be under the glacier’s surface.
Using radio-echo sounding, researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks were able to scan the area around Blood Falls. No drilling was necessary. The team found not just a subsurface lake, but an entire network of flowing water with high salt content in addition to iron. The high salinity of the water (also known as brine) prevents it from freezing, like when you sprinkle salt on your icy steps during the winter. The salt content of the water made this discovery possible due to its high contrast in radar reflections.
Researchers now say that Taylor Glacier represents the oldest known example of flowing water in a glacier. This research could help us understand the way water can persist inside other extremely cold glaciers.
___________________________
Viral images show Antarctica’s snow turning red due to microscopic algae
February 28, 2020
The phenomenon is said to be caused by a microscopic algae that thrives in sub-zero temperatures.
https://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-globally/antarctica-red-snow-viral-pictures-algae-6291370/
___________________________
Phenotypic and ecological diversity of freshwater coccoid cyanobacteria from maritime Antarctica and islands of NW Weddell Sea. I. Synechococcales.
2013
https://journals.muni.cz/CPR/article/view/12835
___________________________
Contributions to the knowledge of macroalgae of the Gerlache Strait - Antarctica
2021
http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0122-97612021000300213
___________________________
PCBs and organochlorine pesticides in Antarctic algae
http://www.coastalwiki.org/wiki/PCBs_and_organochlorine_pesticides_in_Antarctic_algae
___________________________
A Superabundance of Antarctic Algae Killers
December 10th, 2018
https://research.csiro.au/environomics/a-superabundance-of-antarctic-algae-killers/
___________________________
Vitamin B12 adaptability in Antarctic algae has implications for climate change, life in the Southern Ocean
February 5, 2024
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-vitamin-b12-antarctic-algae-implications.html
___________________________
Toxicity of fuel-contaminated soil to Antarctic moss and terrestrial algae
18 April 2015
https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.3021
___________________________
Linking an ancient CO2 drop to the Antarctic Ice Sheet using algae as a proxy
2011
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/02/linking-an-ancient-co2-drop-to-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-using-algae-as-a-proxy/
___________________________
Microplastics Found in Antarctic Ice for First Time
Apr 24th 2020
https://earth.org/microplastics-antarctic-ice/
___________________________
Sea ice history sheds light on future climate change impact on Antarctic plankton
10 September 2021
https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago832688.html
___________________________
Why some penguin populations are shrinking on Antarctica
Apr 25, 2017
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/penguin-populations-shrinking-antarctica
___________________________
Invasive Species “Hitchhiking” on Ships Threaten Antarctica’s Unique Ecosystems
January 10, 2022
https://scitechdaily.com/invasive-species-hitchhiking-on-ships-threaten-antarcticas-unique-ecosystems/
___________________________
Antarctica’s coasts vulnerable to hitchhiking pests and pollution
https://antarctic.org.au/antarcticas-coasts-vulnerable-to-hitchhiking-pests-and-pollution/
___________________________
The invasion of Antarctica: Non-native species threaten the world’s last wilderness
January 7, 2022
With
around 5,000 summertime residents, increased tourism, and a warming
planet, it is becoming difficult to protect Antarctica from invasion.
https://bigthink.com/life/antarctica-invasive-species/
___________________________
Iron From Antarctic Rocks Fuels Algae Growth
2013
https://science.slashdot.org/story/13/05/28/1428251/iron-from-antarctic-rocks-fuels-algae-growth
___________________________
Algae helps explains Antarctic ice sheet formation
December 2, 2011
Antarctic ice sheets first began to form some 34 million years ago, during a period of sharply declining atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, a new study of ancient algae suggests.
This photo, taken from NASA's DC-8 research plane in October, shows a giant crack forming across Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier ice shelf. The ice shelf is in the midst of a natural process of calving a large iceberg, which it hasn't done since 2001. Scientists say this type of cracking happens naturally every decade and is not related to global warming.
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1202/Algae-helps-explains-Antarctic-ice-sheet-formation
___________________________
Red tide isn't red, but it is toxic
Feb. 28, 2013
https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Red-tide-isn-t-red-but-it-is-toxic-4318466.php
___________________________
Behemoth Antarctic Algae Bloom Seen from Space
March 07, 2012
https://www.livescience.com/18915-antarctic-algae-bloom-nasa.html
___________________________
Hitting Us Where it Hurts: The Untold Story of Harmful Algal Blooms
2021
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/hitting-us-where-it-hurts-untold-story-harmful-algal-blooms
___________________________
Experts Sound Algae and Red Tide Alarm at ‘COTI Conversation’
November 22, 2019
https://santivachronicle.com/news/experts-sound-algae-and-red-tide-alarm-at-coti-conversation/
___________________________
Red tide of death discovered in Southern Ocean
10 Mar 2008
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-03-11/red-tide-of-death-discovered-in-southern-ocean/1068830
___________________________
Antarctic red macroalgae: a source of polyunsaturated fatty acids
05 January 2017
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10811-016-1034-x
___________________________
Sterols in red macroalgae from antarctica: extraction and quantification by Gas Chromatography–Mass spectrometry
15 April 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-021-02853-0
___________________________
Macroalgae Extracts From Antarctica Have Antimicrobial and Anticancer Potential
2018 Mar 8
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5852318/
___________________________
Red tide fossils point to Jurassic sea flood
June 5, 2018
https://www.geologypage.com/2018/06/red-tide-fossils-point-to-jurassic-sea-flood.html
___________________________
Cyanobacteria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria, also known as Cyanophyta, are a phylum of Gram-negative bacteria[4] that obtain energy via photosynthesis. The name cyanobacteria refers to their color (from Ancient Greek κυανός (kuanós) 'blue'),[5][6] which similarly forms the basis of cyanobacteria's common name, blue-green algae.[7][8][9][note 1] They appear to have originated in a freshwater or terrestrial environment.[10] Sericytochromatia, the proposed name of the paraphyletic and most basal group, is the ancestor of both the non-photosynthetic group Melainabacteria and the photosynthetic cyanobacteria, also called Oxyphotobacteria.
___________________________
The Response of Antarctic Sea Ice Algae to Changes in pH and CO2
January 28, 2014
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0086984
___________________________
Antarctic macroalgae — Sources of volatile halogenated organic compounds
1996
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0141113695000178
___________________________
Evaluation of the Antioxidant Capacities of Antarctic Macroalgae and Their Use for Nanoparticles Production
2021 Feb 23
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7926919/
___________________________
Low phytoplankton biomass and ice algal blooms in the Weddell Sea during the ice-filled summer of 1997
22 April 2004
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/low-phytoplankton-biomass-and-ice-algal-blooms-in-the-weddell-sea-during-the-icefilled-summer-of-1997/2DF53E51CAD7A41353470D870A9B0C98
___________________________
Chileans cut losses, as new algae bloom sweeps in
26 January 2018
https://salmonbusiness.com/chileans-cut-losses-as-new-algae-bloom-sweeps-in/
___________________________
Harmful algal bloom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmful_algal_bloom
A harmful algal bloom (HAB) (or excessive algae growth) is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms by production of natural algae-produced toxins, mechanical damage to other organisms, or by other means. HABs are sometimes defined as only those algal blooms that produce toxins, and sometimes as any algal bloom that can result in severely lower oxygen levels in natural waters, killing organisms in marine or fresh waters. Blooms can last from a few days to many months. After the bloom dies, the microbes that decompose the dead algae use up more of the oxygen, generating a "dead zone" which can cause fish die-offs. When these zones cover a large area for an extended period of time, neither fish nor plants are able to survive. Harmful algal blooms in marine environments are often called "red tides".
It is sometimes unclear what causes specific HABs as their occurrence in some locations appears to be entirely natural, while in others they appear to be a result of human activities.[5] In certain locations there are links to particular drivers like nutrients, but HABs have also been occurring since before humans started to affect the environment. HABs are induced by eutrophication, which is an overabundance of nutrients in the water. The two most common nutrients are fixed nitrogen (nitrates, ammonia, and urea) and phosphate. The excess nutrients are emitted by agriculture, industrial pollution, excessive fertilizer use in urban/suburban areas, and associated urban runoff. Higher water temperature and low circulation also contribute.
HABs can cause significant harm to animals, the environment and economies. They have been increasing in size and frequency worldwide, a fact that many experts attribute to global climate change. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts more harmful blooms in the Pacific Ocean. Potential remedies include chemical treatment, additional reservoirs, sensors and monitoring devices, reducing nutrient runoff, research and management as well as monitoring and reporting.
Terrestrial runoff, containing fertilizer, sewage and livestock wastes, transports abundant nutrients to the seawater and stimulates bloom events. Natural causes, such as river floods or upwelling of nutrients from the sea floor, often following massive storms, provide nutrients and trigger bloom events as well. Increasing coastal developments and aquaculture also contribute to the occurrence of coastal HABs. Effects of HABs can worsen locally due to wind driven Langmuir circulation and their biological effects.
___________________________
Lethal red tide threatens south shores of Chile
March 31st 2009
https://en.mercopress.com/2009/03/30/lethal-red-tide-threatens-south-shores-of-chile
___________________________
Chilean fishermen struggle with toxic algae
2016
https://apimagesblog.com/blog/2016/05/17/chilean-fishermen-struggle
___________________________
The Amazing, and Alarming, Science Behind Red Snow
Large swaths of red snow can be seen here in Neko Harbour, Antarctica. The red color is sometimes caused from the presence of the algae Chlamydomonas nivalis.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/amazing-and-alarming-science-behind-red-snow.htm
___________________________
Independent effects of grazing and tide pool habitats on the early colonisation of an intertidal community on western Antarctic Peninsula
10 March 2016
https://revchilhistnat.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40693-016-0053-y
___________________________
Explosion of life on Earth linked to heavy metal act at planet’s centre
3 Jul 2022
Formation of solid iron core 550m years ago restored magnetic field and protected surface
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/03/explosion-of-life-on-earth-linked-to-heavy-metal-act-at-planets-centre?utm_source=pocket-newtab
___________________________
Glacial events in the Transantarctic Mountains: a record of the east Antarctic ice sheet Late Paleozoic glacial patterns in the central Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica
1985
https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA84449081
___________________________
Mountains Of Madness: A Scientist's Odyssey In Antarctica
http://2020ok.com/books/84/mountains-of-madness-a-scientist-s-odyssey-in-antarctica-184.htm
___________________________
Transantarctic Mountains – Antarctica’s Largest Range
https://www.mountainiq.com/antarctica/transantarctic-mountains/
___________________________
The Crust and Upper Mantle Structure of Central and West Antarctica From Bayesian Inversion of Rayleigh Wave and Receiver Functions
24 August 2018
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2017JB015346
___________________________
Major middle Miocene global climate change: Evidence from East Antarctica and the Transantarctic Mountains
November 01, 2007
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-abstract/119/11-12/1449/125372/Major-middle-Miocene-global-climate-change
___________________________
Sub-ice geology inland of the Transantarctic Mountains in light of new aerogeophysical data
2004
https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/node/12707
___________________________
Crustal architecture of the Transantarctic Mountains between the Scott and Reedy Glacier region and South Pole from aerogeophysical data
2006
https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/node/7660
___________________________
Sub-ice geology inland of the Transantarctic Mountains in light of new aerogeophysical data
2004
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X04000664
___________________________
Reconnaissance geologic map of the Plunket Point quadrangle, Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica
1974
https://www.worldcat.org/title/reconnaissance-geologic-map-of-the-plunket-point-quadrangle-transantarctic-mountains-antarctica/oclc/976167348
___________________________
Double dating detrital zircons in till from the Ross Embayment, Antarctica
2014-05-21
https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/handle/1805/4450
___________________________
The Ross Orogen of the Transantarctic Mountains
2005
https://www.alibris.com/The-Ross-Orogen-of-the-Transantarctic-Mountains-Edmund-Stump/book/5815144
___________________________
Metagenomic assembly of new (sub)polar Cyanobacteria and their associated microbiome from non-axenic cultures
2018 Aug 23
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6202449/
___________________________
Uncharted Permian to Jurassic continental deposits in the far north of Victoria Land, East Antarctica
2020
https://www.peeref.com/zh/works/21078465
___________________________
Transantarctic Mountains
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transantarctic_Mountains
The Transantarctic Mountains (abbreviated TAM) comprise a mountain range of uplifted (primarily sedimentary) rock in Antarctica which extend, with some interruptions, across the continent from Cape Adare in northern Victoria Land to Coats Land. These mountains divide East Antarctica and West Antarctica. They include a number of separately named mountain groups, which are often again subdivided into smaller ranges.
The range was first sighted by James Clark Ross in 1841 at what was later named the Ross Ice Shelf in his honour. It was first crossed during the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904.
___________________________
Antarctic Plateau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Plateau
___________________________
Antarctic polar plateau snow surface conversion of deposited oxidized mercury to gaseous elemental mercury with fractional long-term burial
2007
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135223100700458X
___________________________
Shallow methylmercury production in the marginal sea ice zone of the central Arctic Ocean
20 May 2015
https://www.geotraces.org/shallow-methylmercury-production/
___________________________
Antarctic Polar Front migrations in the Kerguelen Plateau region, Southern Ocean, over the past 360 kyrs
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818121001119
___________________________
Antarctic ozone hole modifies iodine geochemistry on the Antarctic Plateau
05 October 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26109-x
___________________________
Antarctic polar plateau vertical electric field variations across heliocentric current sheet crossings
March 2006
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006JASTP..68..639B/abstract
___________________________
Direct measurements of episodic snow accumulation on the Antarctic polar plateau
2000
https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/15758/Braaten_Direct_Measurements_of_Episodic_Snow_Accumulation_on_the_Antartic_Polar_Plateau.pdf;sequence=1
___________________________
Contamination in polar regions: Arctic, Antarctic, and the Tibetan Plateau
24 November 2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/environmental-pollution/special-issue/100L3T5D9FG
___________________________
Environmental contamination and climate change in Antarctic ecosystems: an updated overview
9th February 2024
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2024/va/d3va00113j
___________________________
Upper ocean vertical mixing in the Antarctic Polar Front Zone
1 May 2005
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Upper-ocean-vertical-mixing-in-the-Antarctic-Polar-Cisewski-Strass/7c78a23d3f9a102f4a90f7cd794260d2d4720a51
___________________________
Infrared and Submillimeter Atmospheric Characteristics of High Antarctic Plateau Sites
2004
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/420757
___________________________
Seasonal meandering of the polar front upstream of the Kerguelen Plateau
2018
https://eprints.utas.edu.au/29284/
___________________________
Levoglucosan and phenols in Antarctic marine, coastal and plateau aerosols
2016
https://openpolar.no/Record/crelsevierbv:10.1016%2Fj.scitotenv.2015.11.166
___________________________
Plants and Soil Microbes Respond to Recent Warming on the Antarctic Peninsula
August 29, 2013
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(13)00834-8
___________________________
Externally forced symmetric warming in the Arctic and Antarctic during the second half of the twentieth century
27 April 2022
https://geoscienceletters.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40562-022-00226-x
___________________________
Polar Icebreakers in a Changing World: An Assessment of U.S. Needs (2007)
Chapter: 4 Polar Science's Key Role in Earth System Science
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/11753/chapter/7
___________________________
Antarctic Polar Front migrations in the Kerguelen Plateau region, Southern Ocean, over the past 360 kyrs
May 2021
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351898424_Antarctic_Polar_Front_migrations_in_the_Kerguelen_Plateau_region_Southern_Ocean_over_the_past_360_kyrs
___________________________
The Impact of a Large-Scale Climate Event on Antarctic Ecosystem Processes
09 October 2016
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/66/10/848/2415548?login=false
___________________________
THE ANTARCTICA POLAR VORTEX: STUDY OF WINTER 2005
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9781848164864_0044
___________________________
One Antarctic slug to confuse them all: the underestimated diversity of Doris kerguelenensis
1 June 2022
https://bioone.org/journals/invertebrate-systematics/volume-36/issue-5/IS21073/One-Antarctic-slug-to-confuse-them-all--the-underestimated/10.1071/IS21073.full
___________________________
Effects of Diesel, Heavy Metals and Plastics Pollution on Penguins in Antarctica: A Review
2021
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8465831/
___________________________
Penguin feathers reveal mercury contamination in remote Southern Ocean
April 10, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-04-penguin-feathers-reveal-mercury-contamination.html
___________________________
Influence of the polar light cycle on seasonal dynamics of an Antarctic lake microbial community
09 August 2020
https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-020-00889-8
___________________________
Antarctic Marine Biodiversity – What Do We Know About the Distribution of Life in the Southern Ocean?
2010 Aug 2
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2914006/
___________________________
Fifty million years of beetle evolution along the Antarctic Polar Front
June 9, 2021
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2017384118
___________________________
The Moho depth map of the Antarctica region
2013
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004019511300005X
___________________________
Do the Northern Lights Occur in Antarctica?
The Northern Lights are widely recognized as one of the most significant natural attractions of the Arctic Circle. For generations, humans have observed auroras and spun myths and legends around them, and thanks to modern technology, tourists from around the world can now journey to the Arctic and view the Northern Lights for themselves. Given that the Northern Lights occur around the North Pole, that begs the question: do the Northern Lights also occur in Antarctica?
The answer is yes, though they are not referred to as the “Northern Lights.” Auroras occur around both the North and South Poles, but auroras that occur in the southern hemisphere don’t get much attention for various reasons. Read on to learn about auroras in Antarctica.
https://airlinkalaska.com/do-the-northern-lights-occur-in-antarctica/
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Antarctica may have hit record highs, but is this fake news? HD
Mar 2, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoJEMyKIOiM
___________________________
74 trillion tons of fake snow over Antarctic could 'save coastal cities' from climate change, researchers say
July 18, 2019
https://www.foxnews.com/science/74-trillion-tons-fake-snow-antarctic-cities-climate-change
___________________________
A claim-by-claim analysis of a climate denial ‘news’ story
Mar 20, 2018
Anatomy of a fact check.
https://www.popsci.com/fakenews/
___________________________
Dome A
Dome A or Dome Argus is the highest ice dome on the Antarctic Plateau, located 1,200 km (750 mi) inland. It is thought to be the coldest naturally occurring place on Earth, with temperatures believed to reach −90 to −98 °C (−130 to −144 °F).[3] It is the highest ice feature in Antarctica, consisting of an ice dome or eminence 4,087 m (13,409 ft) above sea level. It is located near the center of East Antarctica, approximately midway between the enormous head of Lambert Glacier and the geographic South Pole, within the Australian claim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_A
___________________________
Dome Argus
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/antarctic-operations/stations/other-locations/dome-a/
___________________________
The Coldest Place in the World: Dome Argus, East Antarctica
2013-12-11
https://www.jeffreydonenfeld.com/blog/2013/12/the-coldest-place-in-the-world-dome-argus-east-antarctica/
___________________________
Minus credibility? Antarctic record low temperature disputed
9 Dec, 2013
https://www.rt.com/news/antarctica-temperature-record-questioned-922/
___________________________
Insoluble dust in a new core from Dome Argus, Central East Antarctica
08 September 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-glaciology/article/insoluble-dust-in-a-new-core-from-dome-argus-central-east-antarctica/27494FFE53651E3A0B8DF7B9C9AE29F1
___________________________
An association analysis between psychophysical characteristics and genome-wide gene expression changes in human adaptation to the extreme climate at the Antarctic Dome Argus
2014 Sep 9
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25199918/
___________________________
Uranium record from a 3 m snow pit at Dome Argus, East Antarctica
2018
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30379958/
___________________________
The atmospheric iron variations during 1950–2016 recorded in snow at Dome Argus, East Antarctica
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016980952031200X
___________________________
Holocene paleolimnological changes in Rundvågshetta lakes of the Soya Coast region and their paleoenvironmental significance with glacio-isostatic uplift in East Antarctica
2022
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1312982/v1
___________________________
The geology of the Mt Markham region, Ross dependency, Antarctica
August 1962
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-geology-of-the-Mt-Markham-region%2C-Ross-Gunn-Walcott/e5b4da545ca5e7ca960ae086aba3ec40544d7b48
___________________________
The Earth’s coldest permafrost is in a mountain in Antarctica
7. february, 2020
The first map of permafrost distribution in the Northern and Southern hemispheres has been developed by researchers from UiO with help of satellite data and a new model. The very first global estimate of permafrost temperatures reveals that the coldest ground on the Earth is found in the Transantarctic Mountains.
https://titan.uio.no/universet-naturvitenskap-energi-og-miljo-innovasjon-english/2020/earths-coldest-permafrost-mountain-antarctica
___________________________
Mount Markham
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Markham
___________________________
Concordia Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_Station
___________________________
Dome F
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_F
___________________________
Antarctic and global climate history viewed from ice cores
13 June 2018
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0172-5
___________________________
Magnetic anomalies in East Antarctica and surrounding regions: a window on major tectonic provinces and their boundaries
January 2007
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233853531_Magnetic_anomalies_in_East_Antarctica_and_surrounding_regions_a_window_on_major_tectonic_provinces_and_their_boundaries
___________________________
Preserved landscapes underneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet reveal the geomorphological history of Jutulstraumen Basin
14 July 2021
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.5203
___________________________
Knowing the Antarctic Domes
13 Gennaio 2022
http://www.waponline.it/knowing-the-antarctic-domes/
___________________________
Subglacial geology and tectonics of the Dome F Region, Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica
December 2020
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020AGUFMT008...08G/abstract
___________________________
DOME FUJI: 720,000 YEARS OF HISTORY IN ICE
15 January, 2019
https://greenland.net/windsled/domefuji-720000-years-of-history-in-ice/
___________________________
Studies of melting ice using CO2 laser for ice drilling
2015
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165232X15002116
___________________________
Modeling Satellite Gravity Gradient Data to Derive Density, Temperature, and Viscosity Structure of the Antarctic Lithosphere
25 October 2019
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019JB017997
___________________________
Top 10 Longest Mountain Ranges in the World
2021
https://pickytop.com/longest-mountain-ranges-in-the-world/
___________________________
How Beautiful Clouds Are Worrying Scientists | Noctilucent Clouds
Jun 18, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJrV6v_k0fw
___________________________
Observation of large and all-season ozone losses over the tropics
2022
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0094629
___________________________
Mount Tyree
Mount Tyree (4852m) is the second highest mountain of Antarctica located 13 kilometres northwest of Mount Vinson (4,892 m), the highest peak on the continent. It surmounts Patton Glacier to the north and Cervellati Glacier to the southeast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tyree
___________________________
Palmer Land
Palmer Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica that lies south of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This application of Palmer Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names and the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee, in which the name Antarctic Peninsula was approved for the major peninsula of Antarctica, and the names Graham Land and Palmer Land for the northern and southern portions, respectively. The line dividing them is roughly 69° S.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Land
___________________________
Palmer Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Station
___________________________
Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map of the Palmer Land Area, Antarctica: 1947-2009
1994
https://www.usgs.gov/maps/coastal-change-and-glaciological-map-palmer-land-area-antarctica-1947-2009
___________________________
Demonstration of the Peninsularity of Palmer Land, Antarctica, Through Ellsworth's Flight of 1935
1940
https://www.jstor.org/stable/984893
___________________________
Palmer Land (Antarctica)
https://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85097237.html
___________________________
A Lower Cretaceous, syn-extensional magmatic source for a linear belt of positive magnetic anomalies: the Pacific Margin Anomaly (PMA), western Palmer Land, Antarctica
1998
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X98000545
___________________________
The evolution of the Antarctic Peninsular magmatic arc; Evidence from northwestern Palmer Land
1990
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/books/book/379/chapter-abstract/3797090/The-evolution-of-the-Antarctic-Peninsular-magmatic?redirectedFrom=fulltext
___________________________
Cretaceous arc volcanism of Palmer Land, Antarctic Peninsula: Zircon U-Pb geochronology, geochemistry, distribution and field relationships
2020
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342239756_Cretaceous_arc_volcanism_of_Palmer_Land_Antarctic_Peninsula_Zircon_U-Pb_geochronology_geochemistry_distribution_and_field_relationships
___________________________
Increased ice flow in Western Palmer Land linked to ocean melting
2017
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016GL072110
___________________________
Subglacial Morphology in Northern Palmer Land, Antarctic Peninsula
1981
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Subglacial-Morphology-in-Northern-Palmer-Land%2C-Crabtree/6107712424c0eb4da245500fe767c8c71f649ed7
___________________________
Mid-Cretaceous ductile deformation on the Eastern Palmer Land Shear Zone, Antarctica, and implications for timing of Mesozoic terrane collision
28 October 2002
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/geological-magazine/article/abs/midcretaceous-ductile-deformation-on-the-eastern-palmer-land-shear-zone-antarctica-and-implications-for-timing-of-mesozoic-terrane-collision/247B3B2E76C0910A787334C3BD627D9C
___________________________
Ellsworth Land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Land
___________________________
Exceptional Tardigrade-Dominated Ecosystems in Ellsworth Land, Antarctica
2005
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3450971
___________________________
Dry permafrost over ice-cemented ground at Elephant Head, Ellsworth Land, Antarctica
2019
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/mckay_etal_2019_dry_permafrost_ellsworth_land21.pdf
___________________________
Regional variability of diatoms in ice cores from the Antarctic Peninsula and Ellsworth Land, Antarctica
2022
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359125212_Regional_variability_of_diatoms_in_ice_cores_from_the_Antarctic_Peninsula_and_Ellsworth_Land_Antarctica
___________________________
Analysis of coastal change in Marie Byrd Land and Ellsworth Land, West Antarctica, using Landsat imagery
1998
https://www.usgs.gov/publications/analysis-coastal-change-marie-byrd-land-and-ellsworth-land-west-antarctica-using
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Bajocian bivalves from Ellsworth Land, Antarctica
2012
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00288306.1983.10422256
___________________________
Flat Top (Coats Land)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Top_(Coats_Land)
___________________________
Coats Land crustal block, East Antarctica: A tectonic tracer for Laurentia?
September 01, 2011
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/39/9/859/130686/Coats-Land-crustal-block-East-Antarctica-A?redirectedFrom=fulltext
___________________________
Deglaciation and future stability of the Coats Land ice margin, Antarctica
20 Jul 2018
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/12/2383/2018/tc-12-2383-2018-relations.html
___________________________
Katabatic winds and polynya dynamics at Coats Land, Antarctica
26 November 2013
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/katabatic-winds-and-polynya-dynamics-at-coats-land-antarctica/B267539A0E12A814476269E12D594EAD
___________________________
Cornwall Glacier (Coats Land)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornwall_Glacier_%28Coats_Land%29
___________________________
The Age of the Littlewood Volcanics of Coats Land, Antarctica
1971
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/627612
___________________________
New aeromagnetic view of the geological fabric of southern Dronning Maud Land and Coats Land, East Antarctica
2013
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X13001226
___________________________
Short-term variations in the occurrence of heavy metals in Antarctic snow from Coats Land since the 1920s
2002
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969702002772
___________________________
The surface climatology of an ordinary katabatic wind regime in Coats Land, Antarctica
January 2002
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002TellA..54..463R/abstract
___________________________
Short-term variations in the occurrence of heavy metals in Antarctic snow from Coats Land since the 1920s
2002
https://www.academia.edu/10013066/Short_term_variations_in_the_occurrence_of_heavy_metals_in_Antarctic_snow_from_Coats_Land_since_the_1920s
___________________________
Changes in heavy metals in Antarctic snow from Coats Land since the mid-19th to the late-20th century
2002
https://www.academia.edu/10013064/Changes_in_heavy_metals_in_Antarctic_snow_from_Coats_Land_since_the_mid_19th_to_the_late_20th_century
___________________________
Research paper suggests East Antarctica and North America once linked
August 26, 2011
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/2497/
___________________________
Paleomagnetic data and U-Pb isotopic age determinations from Coats Land, Antarctica: Implications for late Proterozoic plate reconstructions
10 April 1997
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Paleomagnetic-data-and-U-Pb-isotopic-age-from-Coats-Gose-Helper/1aa65c30ba2d8694f9c700ce1a12070851e44e2c
___________________________
The surface climatology of an ordinary katabatic wind regime in Coats Land, Antarctica
11 October 2002
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0870.2002.201397.x
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The Main Geological Units of Antarctica Before Gondwana Amalgamation
19 Feb 2023
https://www.climate-policy-watcher.org/antarctic-climate/the-main-geological-units-of-antarctica-before-gondwana-amalgamation.html
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Marie Byrd Land
Marie Byrd Land (MBL) is an unclaimed region of Antarctica. With an area of 1,610,000 km2 (620,000 sq mi), it is the largest unclaimed territory on Earth. It was named after the wife of American naval officer Richard E. Byrd, who explored the region in the early 20th century.[1]
The territory lies in West Antarctica, east of the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea and south of the Pacific Ocean portion of the Antarctic or Southern Ocean, extending eastward approximately to a line between the head of the Ross Ice Shelf and Eights Coast. It stretches between 158°W and 103°24'W. The inclusion of the area between the Rockefeller Plateau and Eights Coast is based upon Byrd's exploration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Byrd_Land
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Antarctica’s Marie Bird Land
Nov 6, 2014
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/icebridge/fall14/antarcticas-marie-bird-land
___________________________
Breakup at Land Glacier: Old Sea Ice Crumbled Away off the Coast of Antarctica’s Marie Byrd Land
April 3, 2022
https://scitechdaily.com/breakup-at-land-glacier-old-sea-ice-crumbled-away-off-the-coast-of-antarcticas-marie-byrd-land/
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Geochronology and geochemistry of pre-Jurassic superterranes in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica
10 February 1998
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/97JB02605
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Paleomagnetic study of the northern Ford Ranges, western Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica: Motion between West and East Antarctica
January 1, 1996
https://www.usgs.gov/publications/paleomagnetic-study-northern-ford-ranges-western-marie-byrd-land-west-antarctica
___________________________
Soils of Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica
11 October 2013
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S1064229313100049
___________________________
Seismic detection of an active subglacial magmatic complex in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica
17 November 2013
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1992
___________________________
Analysis of coastal change in Marie Byrd Land and Ellsworth Land, West Antarctica, using Landsat imagery
20 January 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/analysis-of-coastal-change-in-marie-byrd-land-and-ellsworth-land-west-antarctica-using-landsat-imagery/C3720E38F98C010806C12C85389CFBF2
___________________________
Glacier change along West Antarctica's Marie Byrd Land Sector and links to inter-decadal atmosphere–ocean variability
26 Jul 2018
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/12/2461/2018/
___________________________
Mid-Cretaceous paleomagnetic results from Land, West Antarctica: A test of post-100 motion between East and West Antarctica
1994
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8JW8QB5/download
___________________________
Evolution of pantellerite-trachyte-phonolite volcanoes by fractional crystallization of basanite magma in a continental rift setting, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica
19 May 2011
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00410-011-0646-z
___________________________
High spatial and temporal variability in Antarctic ice discharge linked to ice shelf buttressing and bed geometry
June 2022
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361623916_High_spatial_and_temporal_variability_in_Antarctic_ice_discharge_linked_to_ice_shelf_buttressing_and_bed_geometry
___________________________
Halley Research Station
Halley Research Station is a research facility in Antarctica[3] on the Brunt Ice Shelf operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The base was established in 1956 to study the Earth's atmosphere. Measurements from Halley led to the discovery of the ozone hole in 1985.[4] The current base is the sixth in a line of structures and includes design elements intended to overcome the challenge of building on a floating ice shelf without being buried and crushed by snow. As of 2020, the base has been left unstaffed through winter since 2017, due to concerns over the propagation of an ice crack and how this might cut off the evacuation route in an emergency. The Halley Bay Important Bird Area with its emperor penguin colony lies in the general vicinity of the base.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley_Research_Station
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Halley Bay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley_Bay
Halley Bay was a location on the fast ice on the north-western margin of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Coats Land, Antarctica. The series of British Halley Research Stations were constructed near here and named after the bay. The original ice bay was transitory and no longer exists although other bays in the same area keep reforming and breaking off as the shelf calves into icebergs. The location contains a 177 ha site which has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supported a breeding colony of about 22,500 emperor penguins (estimated from 2009 satellite imagery) although as of 2019 the colony has dispersed due to repeated failure of the sea ice.[2] In addition to the recent seasonal failures of ice the Brunt Ice shelf is approaching a large calving event which will reshape this section of coast and leave the original location of Halley Bay many Km out at sea.
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POLAR PANIC: UK Antarctica base ABANDONED as fears grow over ‘giant chasm’ racing across ice shelf
1 Mar 2019
BRITAIN has closed down its Halley base in Antarctica as fears grow that an ice shelf the size of Manhattan could break away from the mainland.
Staff have now left the British Antarctic Survey base, departing just days after Nasa revealed aerial photos showing an enormous rift in the ice shelf.
Researchers fear that a huge chasm in the ice could break the shelf apart completely
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/8538273/halley-base-antarctica-ice-shelf-break/
___________________________
The seasonal cycle of sublimation at Halley, Antarctica
08 September 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-glaciology/article/seasonal-cycle-of-sublimation-at-halley-antarctica/F660A45D9587DF34C7D6F9C66148FE6A
___________________________
Biodiversity of air-borne microorganisms at Halley Station, Antarctica
2010 Jan 21
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20091326/
___________________________
A humidity climatology for Halley, Antarctica, based on frost-point hygrometer measurements
1 March 1999
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-humidity-climatology-for-Halley%2C-Antarctica%2C-on-King-Anderson/842397f5a8336acc1c206212832d961543f9e438
___________________________
Investigation of the Stable Atmospheric Boundary Layer at Halley Antarctica
18 June 2013
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10546-013-9831-0
___________________________
A year-long record of size-segregated aerosol composition at Halley, Antarctica
20 December 2003
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003JD003993
___________________________
Ozone depletion - An undeniable problem in Antarctica
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/ozone_depletion_09
___________________________
Measurements of Surface Ozone at Belgrano Antarctic Station
May 2010
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241340447_Measurements_of_Surface_Ozone_at_Belgrano_Antarctic_Station_78S_35W
___________________________
Analysis of extreme wind events in the Weddell Sea region (Antarctica) at Belgrano II Station
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0895981122000955
___________________________
Belgrano II Base
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgrano_II_Base
___________________________
Ozone loss in the lower stratosphere over Belgrano, Antarctica (78ºS, 5º W) from 1999-2001 as obtained by ozonesondes: comparison with the SLIMCAT model
https://www.academia.edu/62157718/Ozone_loss_in_the_lower_stratosphere_over_Belgrano_Antarctica_78oS_5o_W_from_1999_2001_as_obtained_by_ozonesondes_comparison_with_the_SLIMCAT_model_
___________________________
Great Wall Station (Antarctica)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_Station_(Antarctica)
___________________________
Esperanza Base
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanza_Base
___________________________
Subjective time estimation in Antarctica: The impact of extreme environments and isolation on a time production task
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304394020301634
___________________________
Marine pelagic ecosystems: the West Antarctic Peninsula
30 November 2006
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2006.1955
___________________________
Cretaceous arc volcanism of Palmer Land, Antarctic Peninsula: Zircon U-Pb geochronology, geochemistry, distribution and field relationships
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S037702732030233X
___________________________
Palmer, Antarctica Long Term Ecological Research
September 2008
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/deep-sea-research-part-ii-topical-studies-in-oceanography/vol/55/issue/18
___________________________
Subglacial topography and ice flux along the English Coast of Palmer Land, Antarctic Peninsula
2020
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/3453/2020/
___________________________
Palmer Archipelago (Antarctica) penguin data
https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/parulpandey/palmer-archipelago-antarctica-penguin-data
___________________________
Palmer Archipelago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Archipelago
___________________________
Palmer Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Station
___________________________
Antarctic Peninsula
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Peninsula
___________________________
The Palmer Archipelago: a group of islands off Antarctica
https://www.travelguide-en.org/the-palmer-archipelago-a-group-of-islands-off-antarctica-antarctic-peninsula/
___________________________
Antibiotic resistance among bacteria isolated from seawater and penguin fecal samples collected near Palmer Station, Antarctica
2009
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19190699/
___________________________
A geomorphological seabed classification for the Weddell Sea, Antarctica
24 May 2015
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11001-015-9256-x
___________________________
Antarctic ozone variability inside the polar vortex estimated from balloon measurements
2014
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/14/217/2014/acp-14-217-2014.pdf
___________________________
Phylogenentic and enzymatic characterization of psychrophilic and psychrotolerant marine bacteria belong to γ-Proteobacteria group isolated from the sub-Antarctic Beagle Channel, Argentina
2014 Oct 26
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25344742/
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Antarctic ozone variability inside the Polar Vortex estimated from balloon measurements
June 2013
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258738674_Antarctic_ozone_variability_inside_the_Polar_Vortex_estimated_from_balloon_measurements
___________________________
Burkholderia gladioli MB39 an Antarctic Strain as a Biocontrol Agent
2021 Apr 27
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33904974/
___________________________
From Antarctica to space: telemedicine at the limit
Jan 31, 2020
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/From_Antarctica_to_space_telemedicine_at_the_limit_999.html
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Argentine research project in Antarctica exploring limits of telemedicine
August 26, 2020
https://www.laprensalatina.com/argentine-research-project-in-antarctica-exploring-limits-of-telemedicine/
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Territorial claims in Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_claims_in_Antarctica
___________________________
Hot News from the Antarctic Underground
Nov. 7, 2017
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/hot-news-from-the-antarctic-underground
___________________________
Ice Climbers Nearly Killed When Massive Iceberg Rolls Over On Them
Sep 25, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3k5QlQvdio
___________________________
Why No One's Allowed To Explore The Antarctic
Oct 29, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0N6aMczu78
___________________________
Climbing Antarctica's Mt. Vinson | Full Mountaineering Documentary on Vinson Massif
Sep 16, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SW5um2wkj0
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Antarctic bases turn to renewables - even solar
January 20, 2009
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-antarctica-renewables-idUSTRE50J1X120090120
___________________________
Metamorphic rocks in the Antarctic Peninsula region
2008
https://www.academia.edu/es/3328054/Metamorphic_rocks_in_the_Antarctic_Peninsula_region
___________________________
Neumayer III and Kohnen Station in Antarctica operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute
August 2016
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306270274_Neumayer_III_and_Kohnen_Station_in_Antarctica_operated_by_the_Alfred_Wegener_Institute
___________________________
Neumayer Glacier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neumayer_Glacier
___________________________
Neumayer Station II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neumayer-Station_II
___________________________
Neumayer Station III
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neumayer-Station_III
___________________________
Thurston Island (West Antarctica) Between Gondwana Subduction and Continental Separation: A Multistage Evolution Revealed by Apatite Thermochronology
March 2019
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330755504_Thurston_Island_West_Antarctica_Between_Gondwana_Subduction_and_Continental_Separation_A_Multistage_Evolution_Revealed_by_Apatite_Thermochronology
___________________________
A revised geochronology of Thurston Island, West Antarctica, and correlations along the proto-Pacific margin of Gondwana
30 August 2016
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/revised-geochronology-of-thurston-island-west-antarctica-and-correlations-along-the-protopacific-margin-of-gondwana/E66C563CA780C7B80AD2EEED8FF5A008
___________________________
Thurston Island (West Antarctica) Between Gondwana Subduction and Continental Separation: A Multistage Evolution Revealed by Apatite Thermochronology
30 January 2019
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018TC005150
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A revised geochronology of Thurston Island, West Antarctica, and correlations along the proto-Pacific margin of Gondwana
30 August 2016
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/revised-geochronology-of-thurston-island-west-antarctica-and-correlations-along-the-protopacific-margin-of-gondwana/E66C563CA780C7B80AD2EEED8FF5A008
___________________________
Thurston Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurston_Island
___________________________
Is Google Trying To Silence A Dead Antarctic Hero? Rothschild Island Or Latady Island?
Mar 20, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImxQ0KgDD90
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The Pre‐Cenozoic magmatic history of the Thurston Island Crustal Block, west Antarctica
10 July 1993
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Pre%E2%80%90Cenozoic-magmatic-history-of-the-Thurston-Pankhurst-Millar/cac13e81cabeaee944d9e4bdc4edb4482fedd06e
___________________________
Are We Being Told The Truth About Antarctica? Rothschild Island & More...
Mar 20, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdqb_uubYcI
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Rothschild Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_Island
Rothschild Island is a black rugged island 39 kilometres (24 mi) long, mainly ice-covered but surmounted by prominent peaks of Desko Mountains in Antarctica, 8 kilometres (5 mi) west of the north part of Alexander Island in the north entrance to Wilkins Sound.
The island was named in honor after Jacob Rothschild
In the subsequent explorations of the area by the British Graham Land Expedition (BGLE) (c. 1934-1937), the feature was believed to be a mountain connected to Alexander Island. Geologically this might be true—but it has not been proven by any means due to a lack of anything like a complete geological survey of the region.
However, Rothschild Island's insularity was reaffirmed by the United States Antarctic Service (USAS, c. 1939-1941) who photographed and roughly mapped the island from the air.
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Actual Island Names In Antarctica: Rothschild, Coronation, Delta, Omicron And Deception – EU Central Bank President And WEF’s Head Klaus Schwab Met There In December ‘This Will Change Everything. Everything.’
January 13, 2022
https://www.sgtreport.com/2022/01/actual-island-names-in-antarctica-rothschild-coronation-delta-omicron-and-deception-eu-central-bank-president-and-wefs-head-klaus-schwab-met-there-in-december-this-will/
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Electrifying Photos of the Early Age of Antarctic Exploration Found
January 2, 2014
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/131231-antarctica-photographs-aurora-endurance-south-pole
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List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Antarctic_and_subantarctic_islands
___________________________
Scientists tackle Antarctic mold
2007
Study contributes to effort to restore historic buildings around the continent
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/1243/
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Mushrooming problem?
March 26, 2012
Fungi makes rare appearance near Palmer Station
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/2629/
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Scientists Are Trying to Grow Mushrooms in Space — Here’s Why That Matters
May 6, 2025
Space scientists are betting that mushrooms could be the next big leap in sustainable food.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-trying-grow-mushrooms-space-113100463.html
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Over 100 years of Antarctic agriculture is helping scientists grow food in space
___________________________
Investigations of fungal diversity in wooden structures and soils at historic sites on the Antarctic Peninsula
2009
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19190700/
___________________________
Mysterious Antarctic algae blown in by high winds
December 20, 2016
https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/mysterious-antarctic-algae-blown-high-winds
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Legacy
Arsenic Pollution of Lakes Near Cobalt, Ontario, Canada: Arsenic in
Lake Water and Sediment Remains Elevated Nearly a Century After Mining
Activity Has Ceased
28 February 2018
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11270-018-3741-1
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Arsenic and Cadmium Bioremediation by Antarctic Bacteria Capable of Biosynthesizing CdS Fluorescent Nanoparticles
2018
https://researchers.unab.cl/es/publications/arsenic-and-cadmium-bioremediation-by-antarctic-bacteria-capable-
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Total and inorganic arsenic in Antarctic macroalgae.
2007
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/17544055
___________________________
Bacteria Can Grow Using Arsenic
December 13, 2010
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/bacteria-can-grow-using-arsenic
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Earth's hidden carbon recyclers: Sulfur bacteria team up to break down organic substances in the seabed
March 7, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-earth-hidden-carbon-recyclers-sulfur.html
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Arsenic from Chilean mines found in Antarctica
December 8, 2015
https://phys.org/news/2015-12-arsenic-chilean-antarctica.html
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Arsenic record from a 3 m snow pit at Dome Argus, Antarctica
18 March 2016
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/arsenic-record-from-a-3-m-snow-pit-at-dome-argus-antarctica/26909257754EBE408A883AA1DD2116E8
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Anomalously high arsenic concentration in a West Antarctic ice core and its relationship to copper mining in Chile
2016
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1352231015305343
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Advances in Chilean Antarctic Science
2013
https://www.inach.cl/inach/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/ILAIA-3.pdf
___________________________
Penguins dumping arsenic in Antarctica
21 August 2008
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14580-penguins-dumping-arsenic-in-antarctica/
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Investigation of arsenic speciation in algae of the Antarctic region by HPLC-ICP-MS and HPLC-ESI-Ion Trap MS
2006
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2006/ja/b607203h
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Arsenic species in certified reference material MURST-ISS-A2 (Antarctic krill)
2009
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20006111/
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Mono Lake bacteria build their DNA using arsenic (and no, this isn’t about aliens)
December 2, 2010
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mono-lake-bacteria-build-their-dna-using-arsenic-and-no-this-isnt-about-aliens
___________________________
A 1,800-year record of arsenic concentration in the penguin dropping sediment, Antarctic
03 October 2007
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00254-007-1054-6
___________________________
Closely Watched Study Fails to Find Arsenic in Microbial DNA
2 Feb 2012
https://www.science.org/content/article/closely-watched-study-fails-find-arsenic-microbial-dna
___________________________
Bacteria Can Grow Using Arsenic
December 13, 2010
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/bacteria-can-grow-using-arsenic
___________________________
Antarctic Snow Shows Record Of Airborne Arsenic And Other Pollutants
2012
https://cen.acs.org/articles/90/web/2012/10/Antarctic-Snow-Shows-Record-Airborne.html
___________________________
Growth and Productivity of Antarctic Sea Ice Algae under PAR and UV Irradiances
June 1, 2005
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/BOT.1999.046/html
___________________________
New Plant Species Discovered in Antarctica
July 21, 2021
https://www.treehugger.com/new-plant-species-discovered-in-antarctica-5193574
___________________________
'Antarctic Dinosaurs' reveals what's hidden under frozen tundra
https://buffalonews.com/news/local/antarctic-dinosaurs-reveals-whats-hidden-under-frozen-tundra/article_0ea6fdbc-835b-11ec-91c9-a76a404033dc.html
___________________________
Digging for Dinosaurs in Antarctica
January 23, 2004
https://www.npr.org/2004/01/23/1612988/digging-for-dinosaurs-in-antarctica
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Transantarctic Mountains
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transantarctic_Mountains
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Mount Kirkpatrick
Fossil Site
Mount Kirkpatrick holds one of the most important fossil sites in Antarctica, the Hanson Formation. Because Antarctica used to be warmer and supported dense conifer and cycad forest, and because all the continents were fused into a giant supercontinent called Pangaea, many ancient Antarctic wildlife share relatives elsewhere in the world. Among these creatures are tritylodonts, herbivorous mammal-like reptiles that are prevalent elsewhere at the time. A crow-sized pterosaur has been identified. In addition to these finds, numerous dinosaur remains have been uncovered. Fossils of dinosaurs resembling Plateosaurus, Coelophysis, and Dilophosaurus were excavated. Mount Kirkpatrick holds the first dinosaur scientifically named on the continent: the large predatory Cryolophosaurus. In 2004, scientists have even found partial remains of a large sauropod plant-eating dinosaur.
Glacialisaurus hammeri, an herbivorous dinosaur thought to be around 25 feet (7.6 m) long and weighing perhaps 4-6 tons, was also identified from fossils on Mount Kirkpatrick in 2007, the only known site of Glacialisaurus hammeri.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kirkpatrick
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Mountains of madness : a scientist's odyssey in Antarctica
2001
https://catalog.tadl.org/main/details?id=30425079
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Interesting Facts About Mount Vinson In Antarctica
2023
https://bigseventravel.com/facts-about-mount-vinson-antarctica/
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Vinson Massif
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinson_Massif
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Welcome to Mount Vinson
https://climbingthesevensummits.com/vinson/
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Mount Vinson: The Tallest Mountain in Antarctica
2019
https://www.liveabout.com/climbing-facts-about-mount-vison-756091
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Alpine Ascents 1999 Vinson Massif Climbing Expedition
https://www.mountainzone.com/climbing/antarctica/
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Alex Honnold Summits Antarctica’s Vinson: ‘I Felt Shockingly Bad’
January 21, 2023
https://explorersweb.com/alex-honnold-mount-vinson-antarctica-altitude-sickness/
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Thwaites: Antarctic glacier heading for dramatic change
13 December 2021
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59644494
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Researchers Drilling Into Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf Make A Genuinely Surprising Discovery
March 5, 2018
https://www.iflscience.com/researchers-drilling-into-antarcticas-ross-ice-shelf-genuinely-surprising-discovery-46439
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Colossal Antarctic ice-shelf collapse followed last ice age
100,000 square miles of Ross Ice Shelf disappeared in 1,500 years
February 18, 2016
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160218083225.htm
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Scripps: Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse Possibly Triggered by Ocean Waves
2010
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/13/antarctic-ice-shelf-collapse-possibly-triggered-by-ocean-waves/
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The Ross Ice shelf vibrates with the wind!
17 October, 2018
https://www.antarcticreport.com/articles/the-ross-ice-shelf-sings
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Dynamic linkage between the interannual variability of the spring Ross Ice Shelf Polynya and the atmospheric circulation anomalies
21 August 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-021-05936-0
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Multidecadal Basal Melt Rates and Structure of the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, Using Airborne Ice Penetrating Radar
2020
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-7gg2-bw28
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Seismic explosion set-off by Ross Ice Shelf Traverse (RIST) group
1957
https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/53525
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Ross Ice Shelf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/ross-ice-shelf
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Science of the Ross Ice Shelf
https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/blog/science-of-the-ross-ice-shelf
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The crack in this Antarctic ice shelf just grew by 17 kilometres. A break could be imminent
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/the-crack-in-this-antarctic-ice-shelf-just-grew-by-17-kilometres-a-break-could-be-imminent-20170107-gtngs2.html
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Unlocking the Secrets of the Ross Ice Shelf
November 13, 2015
https://lamont.columbia.edu/news/unlocking-secrets-ross-ice-shelf
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Seasonal Outlook for Ross Sea and McMurdo Sound 2021-2022
https://usicecenter.gov/current/ross_sea_seasonal_outlook_2021-2022.pdf
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An Antarctic ice shelf is singing, and it sounds like an eerie sci-fi soundtrack
Oct. 18, 2018
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/antarctic-ice-shelf-singing-it-sounds-eerie-sci-fi-soundtrack-ncna921676
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Widespread collapse of the Ross Ice Shelf during the late Holocene
2016 Feb 16
Abstract
The stability of modern ice shelves is threatened by atmospheric and oceanic warming. The geologic record of formerly glaciated continental shelves provides a window into the past of how ice shelves responded to a warming climate. Fields of deep (-560 m), linear iceberg furrows on the outer, western Ross Sea continental shelf record an early post-Last Glacial Maximum episode of ice-shelf collapse that was followed by continuous retreat of the grounding line for ∼200 km. Runaway grounding line conditions culminated once the ice became pinned on shallow banks in the western Ross Sea. This early episode of ice-shelf collapse is not observed in the eastern Ross Sea, where more episodic grounding line retreat took place. More widespread (∼280,000 km(2)) retreat of the ancestral Ross Ice Shelf occurred during the late Holocene. This event is recorded in sediment cores by a shift from terrigenous glacimarine mud to diatomaceous open-marine sediment as well as an increase in radiogenic beryllium ((10)Be) concentrations. The timing of ice-shelf breakup is constrained by compound specific radiocarbon ages, the first application of this technique systematically applied to Antarctic marine sediments. Breakup initiated around 5 ka, with the ice shelf reaching its current configuration ∼1.5 ka. In the eastern Ross Sea, the ice shelf retreated up to 100 km in about a thousand years. Three-dimensional thermodynamic ice-shelf/ocean modeling results and comparison with ice-core records indicate that ice-shelf breakup resulted from combined atmospheric warming and warm ocean currents impinging onto the continental shelf.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26884201/
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The Ross Ice Shelf Project
2 Feb 1979
Abstract
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.203.4379.433
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The Ross Ice Shelf is Freezing, Not Melting. Which Is Weird.
Feb 23, 2018
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a18697409/ross-ice-shelf-melting/
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Ross Ice Shelf response to climate driven by the tectonic imprint on seafloor bathymetry
Ocean melting has thinned Antarctica's ice shelves at an increasing rate
over the past two decades, leading to loss of grounded ice. The Ross
Ice Shelf is currently close to steady state but geological records
indicate that it can disintegrate rapidly, which would accelerate
grounded ice loss from catchments equivalent to 11.6 m of global sea
level rise. Here, we use data from the ROSETTA-Ice airborne survey and
new ocean simulations, to identify the principal threats to Ross Ice
Shelf stability. We locate the tectonic boundary between East and West
Antarctica from magnetic anomalies and use gravity data to generate a
new high-resolution map of sub-ice-shelf bathymetry. The tectonic
imprint on bathymetry constrains sub-ice-shelf ocean circulation,
protecting the ice shelf grounding line from moderate changes in global
ocean heat content. In contrast, local, seasonal production of warm
upper-ocean water near the ice front drives rapid ice shelf melting east
of Ross Island, where thinning would lead to faster grounded ice loss
from both East and West Antarctic ice sheets. We confirm high modelled
melt rates in this region using ROSETTA-Ice radar data. Our findings
highlight the significance of both the tectonic framework and local
ocean-atmosphere exchange processes near the ice front in determining
the future of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
https://www.usgs.gov/publications/ross-ice-shelf-response-climate-driven-tectonic-imprint-seafloor-bathymetry
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Study Uncovers Surprising Melting Patterns Beneath Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf
May 27, 2019
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Ross Ice Shelf Oxygen Isotopes and West Antarctic Climate History
20 January 2017
Abstract
The Ross Ice Shelf δ18O profile at station J-9 covers at least the last 30,000 yr. It identifies the depth in the core of ice from (i) the last glacial-interglacial transition (266 to 286 m) and (ii) the 1000-m surface elevation (about 140 m). Various processes contribute to the δ18O change observed in the core: (i) climatic warming, mainly caused by a decrease in winter sea ice extent around Antarctica of about 6° latitude early in the glacial-interglacial transition, (ii) decreasing ice sheet thickness later in the glacial-interglacial transition and during the Holocene, and (iii) decreases in elevation and effective distance from the open ocean as the source of the ice in the core shifts along the flow line toward J-9. Average δ18O values of the last 3000 yr imply a fairly stable climate. Yet shorter (102 to 103 yr) δ18O climatic oscillations up to 6‰ are seen in both the Holocene and the glacial portion of the record.
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Ross Sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Sea
The Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica, between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land and within the Ross Embayment, and is the southernmost sea on Earth. It derives its name from the British explorer James Ross who visited this area in 1841. To the west of the sea lies Ross Island and Victoria Land, to the east Roosevelt Island and Edward VII Peninsula in Marie Byrd Land, while the southernmost part is covered by the Ross Ice Shelf, and is about 200 miles (320 km) from the South Pole. Its boundaries and area have been defined by the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research as having an area of 637,000 square kilometres (246,000 sq mi).
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Ross Sea Floats Show Why Antarctica’s Largest Ice Shelf Melts Rapidly in Summer
Warming of adjacent ocean surface waters main cause of melt in austral summer
July 22, 2019
https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/ross-sea-floats-show-why-antarcticas-largest-ice-shelf-melts-rapidly-in-summer
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Study uncovers surprising melting patterns beneath Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf
May 29, 2019
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Signs of faster melting in world's largest ice shelf
30 April 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48107497
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Ice shelf's eerie song could be early warning system for collapse
October 18, 2018
https://newatlas.com/ross-ice-shelf-singing-early-warning-collapse/56859/
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Cenozoic Antarctic Cryosphere Evolution: Tales from Deep-Sea Sedimentary Records
10-2007
Abstract
Antarctica and the Southern Ocean system evolved in the Cenozoic, but the details of this complex evolution are just beginning to emerge via high-resolution investigations of globally distributed marine sedimentary sequences. Here we review the recent progress in defining the orbital-scale evolution of the Antarctic/Southern Ocean system, with particular attention paid to new high-resolution multi-proxy records generated across intervals of abrupt Antarctic ice growth in the Paleogene and early Neogene. This more detailed perspective has allowed researchers to assess the processes and feedbacks involved in the Cenozoic evolution of the Antarctic cryosphere, absent potential complication of the paleoceanographic record by a substantial Northern Hemisphere ice volume signal. In this paper, we review the new tools being used to examine these high-resolution records, assess lead–lag relationships between ice volume, temperature, and carbon cycling during intervals of abrupt Antarctic ice growth, and consider the resulting implications for the global climate system.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_facpub/584/
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Causes of Antarctic Glaciation in the Cenozoic
20 January 2017
Abstract
The causes of Antarctic glaciation are analyzed by means of numeral experiments based on the three-dimensional thermodynamic model of a large ice sheet. Refrigeration of the climate between the Eocene and the Oligocene was due to the opening of the passage south of Australia and to the formation of the South Ring Stream. Calculations have shown that this led to the development of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet which might have existed in spite of relatively high temperatures of the surrounding ocean air. A new cooling of the climate in the Middle Miocene is connected with the fact that the South Ring Stream found its way through the Drake Passage glaciers spreading on to the Western Antarctic. Between Miocene and Pliocene, glaciation of the South Polar regions was at its maximum due to the regression of the world ocean. In Quaternary time, sea level was lowering due to the glaciation of the Northern Hemisphere, which resulted in glacier growth in the Antarctic. The anticipated warming of the climate due to the activity of man is not likely to bring about any considerable change in the size of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.
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Cenozoic
The Cenozoic Era (/ˌsiːnəˈzoʊ.ɪk, ˌsɛn-/ SEE-nə-ZOH-ik, SEN-ə-;[1][2] lit. 'new life') is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66 million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon, preceded by the Mesozoic and Paleozoic. The Cenozoic started with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, when many species, including the non-avian dinosaurs, became extinct in an event attributed by most experts to the impact of a large asteroid or other celestial body, the Chicxulub impactor.
The Cenozoic is also known as the Age of Mammals because the terrestrial animals that dominated both hemispheres were mammals – the eutherians (placentals) in the Northern Hemisphere and the metatherians (marsupials, now mainly restricted to Australia and to some extent South America) in the Southern Hemisphere. The extinction of many groups allowed mammals and birds to greatly diversify so that large mammals and birds dominated life on Earth. The continents also moved into their current positions during this era.
The climate during the early Cenozoic was warmer than today, particularly during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. However, the Eocene to Oligocene transition and the Quaternary glaciation dried and cooled Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenozoic
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Late Cenozoic Ice Age
The Late Cenozoic Ice Age,[5][6] or Antarctic Glaciation,[7][8] began 34 million years ago at the Eocene-Oligocene Boundary and is ongoing.[5] It is Earth's current ice age or icehouse period. Its beginning is marked by the formation of the Antarctic ice sheets.[9]
Six million years after the start of the Late Cenozoic Ice Age, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet had formed, and 14 million years ago it had reached its current extent.[10]
In the last three million years, glaciations have spread to the northern hemisphere. It commenced with Greenland becoming increasingly covered by an ice sheet in late Pliocene (2.9-2.58 Ma ago)[11] During the Pleistocene Epoch (starting 2.58 Ma ago), the Quaternary glaciation developed with decreasing mean temperatures and increasing amplitudes between glacials and interglacials. During the glacial periods of the Pleistocene, large areas of northern North America and northern Eurasia have been covered by ice sheets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Cenozoic_Ice_Age
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Cenozoic transtension along the Transantarctic Mountains‐West Antarctic rift boundary, southern Victoria Land, Antarctica
1995
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Effects of Late-Cenozoic glaciation on habitat availability in Antarctic benthic shrimps (Crustacea: Decapoda: Caridea)
October 2012
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/342450/
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The importance of Antarctic krill in biogeochemical cycles
2019
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6800442/
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Plastics counteract the ability of Antarctic krill to promote the blue carbon pathway in the deep ocean
2024
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X24012153
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The Quest to Save an Antarctic Kingdom Before It Falls Into Ruin
May 5, 2022
At the bottom of the world, scientists work to protect the kingdom of krill.
https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/features/the-quest-to-save-an-antarctic-kingdom-before-it-falls-into-ruin/
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Antarctic Geology and Solid-Earth Geophysics: Guidelines for U.S. Program Planning, 1973-1983 (1974)
Chapter: STUDIES OF THE LATE CENOZOIC ENVIRONMENT
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 1974. Antarctic Geology and Solid-Earth Geophysics: Guidelines for U.S. Program Planning, 1973-1983. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/20174.
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/20174/chapter/6
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Scientists Are Drilling Holes in Antarctica's Largest Ice Shelf to Explore The Ocean Beneath
31 January 2018
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-study-beneath-antarctica-s-ross-ice-shelf-climate-change-models
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Quick facts, basic science, and information about snow, ice, and why the cryosphere matters
The cryosphere includes all of the snow and ice-covered regions across the planet. Explore our scientific content about what makes up this frozen realm, its importance to Earth's people, plants and animals, and what climate change means for the cryosphere and the world at large.
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/icelights/2021/09/what-happened-larsen-ice-shelf
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The Major Ice Shelves In Antarctica (Debated Informtion)
Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf in Antarctica.
Emperor penguins at the Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-major-ice-shelves-in-antarctica.html
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The Antarctic Rift: Plume vs. Plate Dynamics
Introduction
Thinning of the lithosphere in major continental rift systems is commonly considered in terms of the end-members models of active versus passive rifting, and a genetic connection is commonly acknowledged between lithospheric extension, magmatism and mantle plume activity.
The West Antarctic Rift System (WARS) (Figure 1) in one of the major active continental rifts on Earth, with late Oligocene to Recent volcanic activity [1]. Geophysical investigations and studies of volcanism led to the proposal of a genetic link between the WARS and an active plume centered below Marie Byrd Land [2]. The evidence cited in favour of this hypothesis includes:
-
geochemical similarity between the basalts from the WARS and basalts associated with long-lived hot-spot tracks [3];
-
the presence in Marie Byrd Land of horst-graben sub-ice topography producing a large uplifted dome [4];
-
modest Cenozoic extension in the WARS, insufficient to generate the observed amount of magmatism;
-
the lack of significant plate tectonic events coeval with rifting and volcanism in West Antarctica [3]; and
-
high heat flow in the Ross Sea area [5].
Recent geological-geophysical investigations in the Ross Sea region (namely Victoria Land and the Ross Sea) highlighted complex Cenozoic geodynamics dominated by intraplate, right-lateral strike-slip tectonics inducing a significant oblique component in the rifting process [6]. This, and the spatial, structural, and chronological distribution of plutons and dyke swarms recently found on the western Ross Sea shoulder (e.g., [7-10]), casts doubts on the plume scenario and may support a transtension-related source for the Cenozoic magmatism of the Ross Sea region.
In this webpage, the geochemical, chronological and structural evidence is critically compared with the main features expected for a plume-powered system, and a model is proposed that is an alternative to both plume-driven and purely passive rifting.
http://www.mantleplumes.org/Antarctica.html
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Ice shelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_shelf
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Geology of Antarctica
See also
- Antarctic Plate
- Beacon Supergroup
- Beardmore orogeny
- Climate of Antarctica
- Dufek Intrusion
- East Antarctic Shield
- Erebus hotspot
- Geography of Antarctica
- Geology of Enderby Land
- Geology of the Antarctic Peninsula
- Gondwanide orogeny
- List of volcanoes in Antarctica
- Ross orogeny
- SWEAT (hypothesis)
- Tectonic evolution of the Transantarctic Mountains
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Antarctica
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Antarctic plate
The Antarctic plate is a tectonic plate containing the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau, and some remote islands in the Southern Ocean and other surrounding oceans. After breakup from Gondwana (the southern part of the supercontinent Pangea), the Antarctic plate began moving the continent of Antarctica south to its present isolated location, causing the continent to develop a much colder climate.[2] The Antarctic plate is bounded almost entirely by extensional mid-ocean ridge systems. The adjoining plates are the Nazca plate, the South American plate, the African plate, the Somali plate, the Indo-Australian plate, the Pacific plate, and, across a transform boundary, the Scotia and South Sandwich plates.
The Antarctic plate has an area of about 60,900,000 km2 (23,500,000 sq mi).[3] It is Earth's fifth-largest tectonic plate.
The Antarctic plate's movement is estimated to be at least 1 cm (0.4 in) per year towards the Atlantic Ocean.
Subduction beneath South America
The Antarctic plate started to subduct beneath South America 14 million years ago in the Miocene epoch. At first it subducted only in the southernmost tip of Patagonia, meaning that the Chile triple junction lay near the Strait of Magellan. As the southern part of the Nazca plate and the Chile Rise became consumed by subduction the more northerly regions of the Antarctic plate began to subduct beneath Patagonia so that the Chile triple junction lies at present in front of Taitao Peninsula at 46°15' S.[5][6] The subduction of the Antarctic plate beneath South America is held to have uplifted Patagonia as it reduced the previously vigorous down-dragging flow in the Earth's mantle caused by the subduction of the Nazca plate beneath Patagonia. The dynamic topography caused by this uplift raised Quaternary-aged marine terraces and beaches across the Atlantic coast of Patagonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_plate
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Hanson Formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanson_Formation
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Category:Jurassic System of Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jurassic_System_of_Antarctica
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Mawson Formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawson_Formation
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Ellsworth Land Volcanic Group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashly_Formation
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Lashly Formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashly_Formation
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Fremouw Formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremouw_Formation
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Category:Mesozoic Erathem of Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mesozoic_Erathem_of_Antarctica
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Category:Paleozoic animals of Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Paleozoic_animals_of_Antarctica
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Paleozoic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleozoic
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Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica
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Category: Cretaceous System of Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cretaceous_System_of_Antarctica
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Lopez de Bertodano Formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lopez_de_Bertodano_Formation
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Santa Marta Formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Marta_Formation
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Palaeozoic to Mesozoic polyphase deformation of the Patuxent Range, Pensacola Mountains, Antarctica
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Snow Hill Island Formation
The Snow Hill Island Formation is an Early Maastrichtian geologic formation found on James Ross Island, James Ross Island group, Antarctica.[1] Remains of a paravian theropod Imperobator antarcticus[2] have been recovered from it, as well as the elasmarian ornithopods Trinisaura santamartaensis, "Biscoveosaurus" and Morrosaurus antarcticus, the ankylosaurian Antarctopelta oliveroi, and the shark Notidanodon sp. Alongside these described genera are also the remains of indeterminate elasmosaurids,[3] lithostrotian titanosaurs and an indeterminate pterosaur.[4]
In the Herbert Sound Member of the Snow Hill Island Formation, bivalves, ammonites, and fish were found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Hill_Island_Formation
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Mesozoic Vertebrates of Antarctica
2020
http://www.gsmn.geosocmn.org/content/mesozoic-vertebrates-antarctica
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West Antarctic Rift System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Antarctic_Rift_System
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Geological Evolution of Antarctica
May 16, 1991
https://books.google.com/books/about/Geological_Evolution_of_Antarctica.html?id=D0zjDidZnO4C
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The Geology of Antarctica
1991
https://books.google.com/books?id=AL4SAQAAIAAJ&source=gbs_book_similarbooks
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Antarctic Earth Science
1983
https://books.google.com/books?id=KE3wCs13g7IC&source=gbs_book_similarbooks
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Antarctica – a land of extremes
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/326-antarctic-life-and-ecosystems
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Antarctica
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica
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Geophysical Monograph
American Geophysical Union, 1956
https://books.google.com/books?id=LvMbAAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_book_similarbooks
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Antarctica at the Close of a Millennium
1999
https://books.google.com/books?id=ER0aAQAAIAAJ&source=gbs_book_similarbooks
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Volume of Abstracts: Third Symposium on Antarctic Geology and Geophysics, 22-27 August 1977
https://books.google.com/books?id=DDsrAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_book_similarbooks
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The Ross Orogen of the Transantarctic Mountains
Mar 31, 1995
https://books.google.com/books?id=tS-GueGKj68C&source=gbs_book_similarbooks
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Antarctic Geology: Proceedings
1964
https://books.google.com/books?id=_LgSAQAAIAAJ&source=gbs_book_similarbooks
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Plate Tectonics
May 7, 1997
https://books.google.com/books?id=SsZR_zsqQWsC&source=gbs_book_similarbooks
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What is glacial isostatic adjustment?
Glacial isostatic adjustment is the ongoing movement of land once burdened by ice-age glaciers.
Earth
is always on the move, constantly, if slowly, changing. Temperatures
rise and fall in cycles over millions of years. The last ice age
occurred just 16,000 years ago, when great sheets of ice, two miles
thick, covered much of Earth's Northern Hemisphere. Though the ice
melted long ago, the land once under and around the ice is still rising
and falling in reaction to its ice-age burden.
This ongoing
movement of land is called glacial isostatic adjustment. Here's how it
works: Imagine lying down on a soft mattress and then getting up from
the same spot. You see an indentation in the mattress where your body
had been, and a puffed-up area around the indentation where the mattress
rose. Once you get up, the mattress takes a little time before it
relaxes back to its original shape.
Even the strongest materials
(including the Earth's crust) move, or deform, when enough pressure is
applied. So when ice by the megaton settled on parts of the Earth for
several thousand years, the ice bore down on the land beneath it, and
the land rose up beyond the ice's perimeter—just like the mattress did
when you lay down on and then got up off of it.
That's what
happened over large portions of the Northern Hemisphere during the last
ice age, when ice covered the Midwest and Northeast United States as
well as much of Canada. Even though the ice retreated long ago, North
America is still rising where the massive layers of ice pushed it down.
The U.S. East Coast and Great Lakes regions—once on the bulging edges,
or forebulge, of those ancient ice layers—are still slowly sinking from
forebulge collapse.
Forbulge collapse is one of the larger causes
of ground movement in the United States. Many places in the Eastern
U.S. have been sinking for thousands of years and will continue to sink
for thousands more. In fact, estimates say land around the Chesapeake
Bay will sink as much as half a foot over the next 100 years because of
the forebulge collapse. Other big contributors to ground movement in the
U.S. include earthquakes and subsidence. Subsidence is when the ground
sinks, either due to natural causes or when resources like water, gas,
and oil are pumped out of the ground.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/glacial-adjustment.html
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Present-day glacial isostatic adjustment of Antarctica
Changes
in mass balance (or the amount of ice that has melted) can be measured
using space-geodetic techniques that detect variations in the Earth's
gravity field and changes in ice height. Both satellite altimetry (used
to measure ice topography heights) and GRACE (measures changes in
potential) are sensitive to ongoing changes in continental lithosphere
from glacial isostatic adjustment, the visco-elastic response of the
Earth to the removal of a load after significant ice sheet melting over
the past 10,000 years.
The rate of present-day uplift can be
estimated using data from permanent GPS installations in Antarctica and
can provide constraints on the modelling of the timing and amount of ice
that has melted. Since 1998, RSES has installed and operated a network
of remote GPS sites in East Antarctica specifically to estimate the
isostatic adjustment pattern in the region. Uplift rates are
significantly lower than anticipated, implying that either less ice has
melted than is incorporated in the glaciology models or that the melting
process ended earlier than expected.
Cosmogenic exposure dating
utilises the amount of bombardment of cosmic particles that rocks have
undergone to calculate when the rocks were exposed to the atmosphere.
This provides constraints on the retreat of ice sheets. Coupled with
dating of raised marine platforms, lake sediments and biological
samples, past ice histories can be reconstructed to generate predicted
present-day uplift scenarios that can be compared to observed uplift
rates from GPS.
https://earthsciences.anu.edu.au/research/research-projects/present-day-glacial-isostatic-adjustment-antarctica
___________________________
What is glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), and why do you correct for it?
https://sealevel.colorado.edu/index.php/presentation/what-glacial-isostatic-adjustment-gia-and-why-do-you-correct-it
___________________________
Post-glacial rebound
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound
Post-glacial
rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise
of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during
the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression.
Post-glacial rebound and isostatic depression are phases of glacial
isostasy (glacial isostatic adjustment, glacioisostasy), the deformation
of the Earth's crust in response to changes in ice mass
distribution.[1] The direct raising effects of post-glacial rebound are
readily apparent in parts of Northern Eurasia, Northern America,
Patagonia, and Antarctica. However, through the processes of ocean
siphoning and continental levering, the effects of post-glacial rebound
on sea level are felt globally far from the locations of current and
former ice sheets.
Overview
Changes in the elevation of Lake Superior due to glaciation and post-glacial rebound
During
the last glacial period, much of northern Europe, Asia, North America,
Greenland and Antarctica was covered by ice sheets, which reached up to
three kilometres thick during the glacial maximum about 20,000 years
ago. The enormous weight of this ice caused the surface of the Earth's
crust to deform and warp downward, forcing the viscoelastic mantle
material to flow away from the loaded region. At the end of each glacial
period when the glaciers retreated, the removal of this weight led to
slow (and still ongoing) uplift or rebound of the land and the return
flow of mantle material back under the deglaciated area. Due to the
extreme viscosity of the mantle, it will take many thousands of years
for the land to reach an equilibrium level.
The uplift has taken
place in two distinct stages. The initial uplift following deglaciation
was almost immediate due to the elastic response of the crust as the ice
load was removed. After this elastic phase, uplift proceeded by slow
viscous flow at an exponentially decreasing rate.[citation needed]
Today, typical uplift rates are of the order of 1 cm/year or less. In
northern Europe, this is clearly shown by the GPS data obtained by the
BIFROST GPS network;[3] for example in Finland, the total area of the
country is growing by about seven square kilometers per year.[4][5]
Studies suggest that rebound will continue for at least another 10,000
years. The total uplift from the end of deglaciation depends on the
local ice load and could be several hundred metres near the centre of
rebound.
Recently, the term "post-glacial rebound" is gradually
being replaced by the term "glacial isostatic adjustment". This is in
recognition that the response of the Earth to glacial loading and
unloading is not limited to the upward rebound movement, but also
involves downward land movement, horizontal crustal motion,[3][6]
changes in global sea levels[7] and the Earth's gravity field,[8]
induced earthquakes,[9] and changes in the Earth's rotation.[10] Another
alternate term is "glacial isostasy", because the uplift near the
centre of rebound is due to the tendency towards the restoration of
isostatic equilibrium (as in the case of isostasy of mountains).
Unfortunately, that term gives the wrong impression that isostatic
equilibrium is somehow reached, so by appending "adjustment" at the end,
the motion of restoration is emphasized.
___________________________
Widespread low rates of Antarctic glacial isostatic adjustment revealed by GPS observations
16 November 2011
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011GL049277
___________________________
Glacial isostatic adjustment and post-seismic deformation in Antarctica
10 November 2022
https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/full/10.1144/M56-2022-13
___________________________
Ocean loading effects on the prediction of Antarctic glacial isostatic uplift and gravity rates
12 February 2010
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00190-010-0368-4
___________________________
An investigation of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment over the Amundsen Sea sector, West Antarctica
2012
Highlights
Introduction
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818112001567
___________________________
Glacial Isostatic Adjustment
29 October 2020
Abstract
Viscoelastic deformation of the Earth in response to the loading and unloading of changing ice sheets—a process called Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA)—complicates the link between cryospheric changes and sea-level changes and causes various feedbacks on ice-sheet evolution. This chapter details these interactions and describes the mathematical models used to determine the spatiotemporal pattern of GIA and the associated sea-level changes. Specific topics covered include solid Earth rheology, the GIA calculation in a spherical formulation, eustatic and isostatic factors of sea-level variations, and the inference of past/recent ice sheet changes from sea-level records.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-42584-5_15
___________________________
Time lapse: Watch glaciers rise, fall in thousands of years per second
March 27, 2019
Turn the clock back 122,000 years, place cameras high over the north and south poles, then hit “record,” and it might look something like this.
A new animation from NASA software engineers, based on finely tuned computer models, reveals how massive ice sheets that once sprawled across Canada, Greenland and Antarctica thickened and thinned over time. Their rise and fall keep time with the last great ice age. And they reveal a pattern that continues today: The land surface is still rebounding from the heavy weight of those long-vanished glaciers.
This postglacial rebound – known as glacial isostatic adjustment, or GIA – is a critical factor in estimating sea-level rise over time. Of most concern to humanity are sea levels measured at the shoreline, or relative sea level. But to know how much of that rise is caused by a warming world, scientists must make comparisons with other sea-level drivers. Land areas along the coast can subside, for instance, raising relative sea levels.
And rebounding land rises, pushing these sea levels lower.
So high-precision ice-modeling allows not only a replay of the past, but a more accurate understanding of the present: It helps scientists interpret data from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites, which measure bumps and dips in gravity as they pass over land and water. These correspond to differences in the “weight,” or mass, of features on or near the surface. Think large water bodies. Think glaciers.
“GRACE estimates of ice loss over the past 15 years depend strongly on the post-glacial rebound model,” said Donald F. Argus, co-author on recent papers detailing the latest GIA modeling effort – called the “ICE-6G_D” model.
Modeling reveals multiple 'ice domes'
Without a clear understanding of postglacial rebound, scientists could potentially underestimate rates of sea-level rise caused by melting ice and warming, expanding ocean water. That could throw off estimates of future sea-level rise as well.
The new model was developed by Richard Peltier and Rosemarie Drummond of the University of Toronto and by Argus, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
They made a number of improvements over past versions.
The new model fully accounts for the loss of “grounded” ice – ice anchored to land – in Antarctica’s Ross and Weddell seas, Peltier said.
The difference between the two is critical to sea-level estimates. Melting of grounded ice contributes to sea-level rise, while floating ice does not (it’s why the melting of ice cubes doesn’t cause your ice-water glass to runneth over).
The improved model also scores a few “firsts” – among them, capturing the multiple domes of the gigantic ice sheet that covered so much of North America during the most recent ice age. GIA data from the twin GRACE satellites, and their successors, GRACE Follow-on, helped test the idea of one big dome over the Laurentide ice sheet – that vast expanse of now-vanished ice.
“Previous versions of the model were characterized as having a more mono-domal ice sheet over Canada,” Peltier wrote in an email. “But this possibility has been firmly ruled out by the GRACE observations.”
And the new model also is the first to match up with multiple observation records: readings from GPS sensors on land movement, high-precision remote sensing of surface changes and ice loss, and the tracking of sea-level rise by satellite. These various measurements cover North America, Europe and Antarctica as well as oceans.
Experts at JPL converted the complex new model into a simpler animation, showing the waxing of ice sheets, depressing the land surface, and their waning into the present day, allowing the land to spring back gradually over thousands of years.
We really can turn back the clock.
___________________________
Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017
2018 Jun 13
Abstract
The Antarctic Ice Sheet is an important indicator of climate change and driver of sea-level rise. Here we combine satellite observations of its changing volume, flow and gravitational attraction with modelling of its surface mass balance to show that it lost 2,720 ± 1,390 billion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2017, which corresponds to an increase in mean sea level of 7.6 ± 3.9 millimetres (errors are one standard deviation). Over this period, ocean-driven melting has caused rates of ice loss from West Antarctica to increase from 53 ± 29 billion to 159 ± 26 billion tonnes per year; ice-shelf collapse has increased the rate of ice loss from the Antarctic Peninsula from 7 ± 13 billion to 33 ± 16 billion tonnes per year. We find large variations in and among model estimates of surface mass balance and glacial isostatic adjustment for East Antarctica, with its average rate of mass gain over the period 1992-2017 (5 ± 46 billion tonnes per year) being the least certain.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29899482/
___________________________
A
new glacial isostatic adjustment model for Antarctica: calibrated and
tested using observations of relative sea-level change and present-day
uplift rates
27 June 2012
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-246X.2012.05557.x
___________________________
Glacial isostatic adjustment and post-seismic deformation in Antarctica
February 08, 2023
Abstract
This chapter reviews glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) and post-seismic deformation in Antarctica. It discusses numerical models and their inputs, and observations and inferences that have been made from them. Both processes are controlled by mantle viscosity but their forcings are different. Ongoing GIA induced by the loss of ice since the last glacial maximum (LGM) could have amounted to 5–15 m of global sea-level rise. However, mantle viscosity is so low in parts of West Antarctica (c. 1018 Pa s) that changes in ice thickness over the last centuries and decades have controlled the current uplift rates there. The uplift due to GIA has promoted ice-sheet stability since the LGM, and in West Antarctica GIA is a significant negative feedback on the current decline of the ice sheet. Post-seismic deformation following the 1998 earthquake near the Balleny Islands south of New Zealand has been detected in global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data and compared to model outputs. The best-fitting viscosity for this area is c. 1019 Pa s, similar to GIA-based estimates for the Antarctic Peninsula. Future work should focus on unifying descriptions of viscosity across geodynamic models, and integrating information from seismic, gravity, experimental and geological data.
___________________________
Antarctic glacial isostatic adjustment: a new assessment
18 November 2005
Abstract
The prediction of crustal motions and gravity change driven by glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) in Antarctica is critically dependent on the reconstruction of the configuration and thickness of the ice sheet during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. The collection and analysis of field data to improve the reconstruction has occurred at an accelerated pace during the past decade. At the same time, space-based imaging and altimetry, combined with on-ice velocity measurements using Global Positioning System (GPS) geodesy, has provided better assessments of the present-day mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet. Present-day mass change appears to be dominated by deglaciation that is, in large part, a continuation of late-Holocene evolution. Here a new ice load model is constructed, based on a synthesis of the current constraints on past ice history and present-day mass balance. The load is used to predict GIA crustal motion and geoid change. Compared to existing glacioisostatic models, the new ice history model is significantly improved in four aspects: (i) the timing of volume losses in the region ranging from the Ross Sea sector to the Antarctic Peninsula, (ii) the maximum ice heights in parts of the Ellsworth and Transantarctic Mountains, (iii) maximum grounding line position in Pine Island Bay, the Antarctic Peninsula, and in the Ross Sea, (iv) incorporation of present-day net mass balance estimates. The predicted present-day GIA uplift rates peak at 14–18 mm yr−1 and geoid rates peak at 4–5 mm yr−1 for two contrasting viscosity models. If the asthenosphere underlying West Antarctica has a low viscosity then the predictions could change substantially due to the extreme sensitivity to recent (past two millennia) ice mass variability. Future observations of crustal motion and gravity change will substantially improve the understanding of sub-Antarctic lithospheric and mantle rheology.
___________________________
Glacial-Isostatic Adjustment Models Using Geodynamically Constrained 3D Earth Structures
25 October 2021
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GC009853
___________________________
A
new glacial isostatic adjustment model for Antarctica: calibrated and
tested using observations of relative sea-level change and present-day
uplift rates
01 September 2012
https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/190/3/1464/570434?login=false
___________________________
Feasibility
of a global inversion for spatially resolved glacial isostatic
adjustment and ice sheet mass changes proven in simulation experiments
10 October 2022
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00190-022-01651-8
___________________________
Spatial
and temporal Antarctic Ice Sheet mass trends, glacio-isostatic
adjustment, and surface processes from a joint inversion of satellite
altimeter, gravity, and GPS data
2016 Feb 3
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27134805/
___________________________
Detection of Crustal Uplift Deformation in Response to Glacier Wastage in Southern Patagonia
18 January 2023
Abstract
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/3/584/htm
___________________________
High geothermal heat flow beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica inferred from aeromagnetic data
18 August 2021
Abstract
Geothermal heat flow in the polar regions plays a crucial role in understanding ice-sheet dynamics and predictions of sea level rise. Continental-scale indirect estimates often have a low spatial resolution and yield largest discrepancies in West Antarctica. Here we analyse geophysical data to estimate geothermal heat flow in the Amundsen Sea Sector of West Antarctica. With Curie depth analysis based on a new magnetic anomaly grid compilation, we reveal variations in lithospheric thermal gradients. We show that the rapidly retreating Thwaites and Pope glaciers in particular are underlain by areas of largely elevated geothermal heat flow, which relates to the tectonic and magmatic history of the West Antarctic Rift System in this region. Our results imply that the behavior of this vulnerable sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is strongly coupled to the dynamics of the underlying lithosphere.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00242-3
___________________________
Sea Ice That Slowed the Flow of Antarctic Glaciers Abruptly Shatters in Just 3 Days
https://scitechdaily.com/sea-ice-that-slowed-the-flow-of-antarctic-glaciers-abruptly-shatters-in-just-3-days/
___________________________
List of Antarctic ice shelves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Antarctic_ice_shelves
___________________________
List of Antarctic ice shelves
https://wiki2.org/en/List_of_Antarctic_ice_shelves
___________________________
A Refined Calibration Procedure of Two-Channel Sun Photometers to Measure Atmospheric Precipitable Water at Various Antarctic Sites
01 Feb 2008
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atot/25/2/2007jtecha952_1.xml
___________________________
Subglacial hydrological networks in Antarctica and their impact on ice flow
14 September 2017
Abstract
Deep beneath the thick ice cover of the Antarctic continent there exist subglacial hydrological networks, within which basal meltwater can flow. In this paper, we use surface elevation data from European Remote-sensing Satellite radar altimetry to map these subglacial hydrological networks for the whole continent. We observe a confused pattern of subglacial systems, linking regions where basal melting takes place. In some regions, channels can be followed over some hundreds of kilometres. Some of these meet the ice-sheet margin, suggesting that meltwater can be transported all the way to the ocean. We observe an east–west gradient in the distribution of hydrological networks that could be explained by the geothermal flux pattern.
___________________________
Topographic Steering of Enhanced Ice Flow at the Bottleneck Between East and West Antarctica
04 May 2018
Abstract
Hypothesized drawdown of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the “bottleneck” zone between East and West Antarctica would have significant impacts for a large proportion of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Earth observation satellite orbits and a sparseness of radio echo sounding data have restricted investigations of basal boundary controls on ice flow in this region until now. New airborne radio echo sounding surveys reveal complex topography of high relief beneath the southernmost Weddell/Ross ice divide, with three subglacial troughs connecting interior Antarctica to the Foundation and Patuxent Ice Streams and Siple Coast ice streams. These troughs route enhanced ice flow through the interior of Antarctica but limit potential drawdown of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the bottleneck zone. In a thinning or retreating scenario, these topographically controlled corridors of enhanced flow could however drive ice divide migration and increase mass discharge from interior West Antarctica to the Southern Ocean.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GL077504
___________________________
Bedrock topography and wind erosion sites in East Antarctica: observations from the 2002 US-ITASE traverse
14 September 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/bedrock-topography-and-wind-erosion-sites-in-east-antarctica-observations-from-the-2002-usitase-traverse/B4745439960A058FC86D6585C6B72EF4
___________________________
Antarctic Ice Sheet Elevation Impacts on Water Isotope Records During the Last Interglacial
28 December 2020
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL091412
___________________________
The physiography of modern Antarctic subglacial lakes
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818102001285
___________________________
Evidence of calcium carbonates in coastal (Talos Dome and Ross Sea area) East Antarctica snow and firn: Environmental and climatic implications
2008
___________________________
Reassessment of Net Surface Mass Balance in Antarctica
01 Apr 1999
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/12/4/1520-0442_1999_012_0933_ronsmb_2.0.co_2.xml
___________________________
Iceberg-making submarine aims to tackle global warming by re-freezing the Arctic
27 July 2019
https://www.dezeen.com/2019/07/27/refreezing-the-arctic-geoengineering-design-climate-change/
___________________________
MIT's Self-Assembly Lab proposes new way of growing islands and coastlines
13 May 2019
https://www.dezeen.com/2019/05/13/the-growing-islands-mit-self-assembly-lab/
___________________________
China Wants Ships to Use Faster Arctic Route Opened by Global Warming
April 20, 2016
___________________________
China’s alleged intentions to mine Antarctica spark global debate
January 21, 2015
https://www.mining.com/chinas-alleged-intentions-to-mine-antarctica-spark-global-debate/
___________________________
Russia thwarts plan for Antarctic ocean sanctuary, China on board
October 29, 2015
By Lincoln Feast SYDNEY, Australia - Russia has again thwarted attempts
to create the world’s largest ocean sanctuary in Antarctica, the final
country opposing the protection of a vast swathe of rich waters from
fishing, after a revised international plan won support from China. The
Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
(CCAMLR) ends a 10-day meeting in Hobart, Australia on Friday without
the consensus needed for a deal to conserve and manage the marine
ecosystems in the Southern Ocean. While Russia blocked conservation
proposals for a fifth consecutive time, delegates welcomed China's
support for the revised Marine Protection Area (MPA) in the icy but
fertile Ross Sea put forward by the United States and New Zealand.
"China’s support for a revised MPA is a major step forward in reaching
the consensus required to put workable protections in place for the Ross
Sea," New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said in a statement.
U.S. delegation leader Evan Bloom told Reuters the ongoing opposition by
Russia, which had argued that such a large area closed off to fishing
was unnecessary, was frustrating.
https://news.yahoo.com/russia-thwarts-plan-antarctic-ocean-sanctuary-china-board-045050101.html
___________________________
Russia blocks a proposal for a marine protection area in Antarctica's Ross Sea
29 Oct 2015
Russia has blocked a proposal to protect a unique marine environment in Antarctica at an international meeting in Hobart.
Five
times diplomats from 25 nations have gathered to try to protect the
pristine Antarctic waters of the Ross Sea and they have failed on each
occasion.
The proposal would create an enormous marine sanctuary comprising 1.5 million square kilometres.
Australian scientists say the area supports important ecosystems and contains distinctive deep water flora and fauna.
It is also an important breeding ground for the endangered blue whale.
But
the final day of the 34th meeting of the Commission for Conservation of
Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Hobart the proposal again
fell through...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-30/russia-blocks-ross-sea-marine-protection-area/6899890
___________________________
Antarctica's Fin Whale Population Is Rebounding. Here's Why That's a Big Deal
July 12, 2022
https://www.cnet.com/science/biology/antarcticas-fin-whales-were-nearly-hunted-to-extinction-now-theyre-making-a-comeback/
___________________________
Japan to resume commercial whaling, but not in Antarctic
December 26, 2018
https://apnews.com/article/japan-ap-top-news-international-news-whales-science-92934e9d2e824487ad2da5f38440a1e8
___________________________
Japan kills 333 whales in annual Antarctic hunt
March 31, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-japan-whales-annual-antarctic.html
___________________________
Journey to Antarctica Aboard One of the World's Most Advanced Icebreakers
May 1, 2022
CNET was onboard as the RSV Nuyina made its maiden voyage to the icy kingdom.
https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/features/journey-to-antarctica-aboard-one-of-the-worlds-most-advanced-icebreakers/
___________________________
Victoria Land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Land
___________________________
Dating late Cenozoic erosional surfaces in Victoria Land, Antarctica, with cosmogenic neon in pyroxenes
___________________________
Heroic age geology in Victoria Land, Antarctica
___________________________
Using the Victoria Land coast as a proxy for climate change in Antarctica
___________________________
Uncovered Microbial Diversity in Antarctic Cryptoendolithic Communities Sampling three Representative Locations of the Victoria Land
2020
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32585947/
___________________________
Enhanced moisture delivery into Victoria Land, East Antarctica, during the early Last Interglacial: implications for West Antarctic Ice Sheet stability
2021
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/17/1841/2021/
___________________________
A Multi-Phase Rifting Model for the Victoria Land Basin, Western Ross Sea
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-32934-X_38
___________________________
Antarctic Victoria Land Soil Ecology
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/soil-biology-and-biochemistry/vol/38/issue/10
___________________________
A bryophyte flora for Southern Victoria Land,
Antarctica
17 Mar 2010
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0028825X.1998.9512599
___________________________
Diversity of soil yeasts isolated from South Victoria Land, Antarctica
2008 Feb 6
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18253776/
___________________________
Microbial community composition in soils of Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica
2008
https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:684558
___________________________
Uncovered Microbial Diversity in Antarctic Cryptoendolithic Communities Sampling Three Representative Locations of the Victoria Land
2020
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/8/6/942/htm
___________________________
Late Cenozoic paleoenvironment in southern Victoria Land, Antarctica, based on a polar glaciolacustrine deposit in western Victoria Valley
___________________________
Lake Miers, South Victoria Land, Antarctica
1 May 1967
___________________________
Triassic-Jurassic sediments and multiple volcanic events in North Victoria Land,
Antarctica: A revised stratigraphic model
2007
https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/srp/srp102/of2007-1047srp102.pdf
___________________________
Niveo-Eolian Sediment Deposits in Coastal South Victoria Land, Antarctica: Indicators of Regional Variability in Weather and Climate
2006
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4095931
___________________________
Holocene relative sea-level history of the Southern Victoria Land Coast, Antarctica
2004
___________________________
Late Cenozoic Antarctic paleoclimate reconstructed from volcanic ashes in the Dry Valleys region of southern Victoria Land
February 01, 1996
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-abstract/108/2/181/183113/Late-Cenozoic-Antarctic-paleoclimate-reconstructed
___________________________
Upper mantle seismic anisotropy of South Victoria Land
and the Ross Sea coast, Antarctica from SKS and SKKS
splitting analysis
2009
http://epsc.wustl.edu/seismology/papers/barklage_etal_gji_2009.pdf
___________________________
Mantle xenoliths from Northern Victoria land, Antarctica: evidence for heterogeneous lithospheric metasomatism
2006
https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/mantle-xenoliths-from-northern-victoria-land-antarctica-evidence-
___________________________
Strontium Isotopic Signatures of the Streams and Lakes of Taylor
Valley, Southern Victoria Land, Antarctica: Chemical Weathering inValley, Southern Victoria Land, Antarctica: Chemical Weathering in a Polar Climatea Polar Climate
2002
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1786&context=usgsstaffpub
___________________________
Canada Stream: A Glacial Meltwater Stream in Taylor Valley, South Victoria Land, Antarctica
1997
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/1468224
___________________________
Chemical element concentration of aerosol in the Dry Valleys area, South Victoria Land, Antarctica
Mar 1989
https://doaj.org/article/957c1f76a7e848f2aff5c9f87a6c9280
___________________________
Neogene faulting and volcanism in the Victoria Land Basin of the Ross Sea, Antarctica
2022
http://www.eppcgs.org/en/article/doi/10.26464/epp2022023
___________________________
The geomorphic signature of massive subglacial floods in Victoria Land, Antarctica
2011
https://dro.dur.ac.uk/7482/
___________________________
Nature and evolution of the northern Victoria Land lithospheric mantle (Antarctica) as revealed by ultramafic xenoliths
___________________________
Petrology and Tectonic Evolution of the Bowers Supergroup Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica
Date of Award
Winter 1987
https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet/740/
___________________________
Diagenetic history of Triassic sandstone from the Beacon
Supergroup in central Victoria Land, Antarctica.
2006
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00097126/file/Bernet_and_Gaupp_NZJGG_2005.pdf
___________________________
Terrestrial biological studies in Southern Victoria Land, Antarctica.
1990
https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/8227
___________________________
Triassic and Jurassic strata at Coombs Hills, south Victoria Land: stratigraphy, petrology and cross-cutting breccia pipes
https://www.peeref.com/works/6924032
___________________________
Origin of salts in pond waters of the Ladyrinth in Southern Victoria Land, Antarctica: A study on lithium and boron abundances
Jul 1988
https://doaj.org/article/dcd7b6b72e0c464b86e5bb351991242b
___________________________
Glossopteris flora in the Permian Weller Formation of Allan Hills, South Victoria Land, Antarctica: Implications for paleogeography, paleoclimatology, and biostratigraphic correlation
2015
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X15000490
___________________________
A geochemical study of Lakes Bonney and Vanda, Victoria Land, Antarctica
1963
https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/10718
___________________________
Mineralogical and geochemical features of the Allan
Hills tephra, South Victoria Land: Implications for
mid-Pleistocene volcanic activity in Antarctica
2020
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02995769/document
___________________________
The Pleiades (volcano group)
https://atozwiki.com/Pleiades_(volcano_group)
___________________________
Multiple cosmogenic nuclides document complex Pleistocene exposure history of glacial drifts in Terra Nova Bay (northern Victoria Land, Antarctica)
10 October 2008
http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/160804/
___________________________
Initiation of magmatism during the Cambrian-Ordovician Ross orogeny in southern Victoria Land, Antarctica
2013
https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/13531/
___________________________
Sedimentary cyclicity in CRP drillcore, Victoria Land Basin, Antarctica
2001
https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:58896
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Macrofaunal communities on the continental shelf off Victoria Land (Ross Sea, Antarctica)
22 April 2011
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/194915/
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14C terrestrial ages of meteorites from Victoria Land, Antarctica, and the infall rates of meteorites
1998
Abstract
This paper is part of the special publication Meteorites: flux with time and impact effects (eds M.M. Grady, R. Hutchinson, G.J.H. McCall and D.A. Rothery). The results of 14C measurements of 95 meteorites from the Allan Hills region in Antarctica are reported, and terrestrial residence ages calculated. This includes meteorites from the different icefields at Allan Hills and the adjacent Elephant Moraine meteorite stranding area. We determined that terrestrial ages of these Antarctic meteorites can range from recent falls to >40 ka, which is the practical limit for these 14C measurements. The terrestrial age determinations on meteorites from these sites can vary dramatically; the differences between the ages observed from these sites and some of the factors influencing them are discussed. Weathering products found on these meteorites show 14C ages younger than the terrestrial age of the meteorites studied. Calculation of infall rates based on meteorites recovered and their age distributions suggests a minimum infall rate of 40-60 meteorites (>10 g) per 10 6 km 2 per year, in reasonable agreement with the infall rates estimated by Halliday's group based on meteoroid fluxes.
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GRANITOIDS OF NORTHERN VICTORIA LAND, ANTARCTICA: IMPLICATIONS OF CHEMICAL AND ISOTOPIC VARIATIONS TO REGIONAL CRUSTAL STRUCTURE AND TECTONICS.
1987
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Four decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance from 1979–2017
January 14, 2019
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1812883116
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The Ross Sea
https://www.heritage-expeditions.com/destinations/antarctica-travel/ross-sea/
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Diversity and distribution of tardigrades in soils of Edmonson
Point (Northern Victoria Land, continental Antarctica)
2012
https://www.sci.muni.cz/CPR/4cislo/Smykla-web.pdf
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The drivers of inter-annual outlet glacier terminus change in Victoria Land, Oates Land and George V Land, East Antarctica (1972-2013)
2016
http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11561/
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Magnetobiostratigraphic chronology of the Eocene–Oligocene transition in the CIROS-1 core, Victoria Land margin, Antarctica: Implications for Antarctic glacial history
January 1998
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/66113/
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Large arm of the southern Pacific indenting the coast of Antarctica east of Victoria Land and west of the Edward VII Peninsula
www.danword.com/crossword/Large_arm_of_the_southern_Pacific_indenting_the_coast
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Tectonic history of mid-Miocene to present southern Victoria Land Basin, inferred from seismic stratigraphy in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
2006
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/84453
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A new Eemian record of Antarctic tephra layers retrieved from the Talos Dome ice core (Northern Victoria Land)
2016
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01351730
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Uncovered Microbial Diversity in Antarctic Cryptoendolithic Communities Sampling Three Representative Locations of the Victoria Land
2020
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6jr1n4j7
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The aqueous chemistry of weathering solutions in dolerite of the Allan Hills, Victoria Land, Antarctica
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6918641-aqueous-chemistry-weathering-solutions-dolerite-allan-hills-victoria-land-antarctica
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Tylosis formation and fungal interactions in an Early Jurassic conifer from northern Victoria Land, Antarctica
2012
http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/96266
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Supplemental material: Dating of volcanism and sedimentation in the Skelton Group, Transantarctic Mountains: Implications for the Rodinia-Gondwana transition in southern Victoria Land, Antarctica
2009
Downhole distributed acoustic seismic profiling at Skytrain Ice Rise, West Antarctica
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/3443/2021/
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Wilkes Land crater
Map of Antarctica showing Wilkes Land, with the crater conjectured by von Frese et al. marked in red
EGM2008 gravity anomaly map
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkes_Land_crater
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Wilkes Land
https://www.westarctica.wiki/index.php/Wilkes_Land
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A marine geophysical study of the Wilkes Land rifted continental margin, Antarctica
https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/177/2/430/2020983?login=false
___________________________
Satellite magnetic anomalies of the Antarctic Wilkes Land impact basin inferred from regional gravity and terrain data
Highlights
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040195112005677
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Wilkes Land crater: The giant hole in East Antarctica's gravitational field likely caused by a meteorite
April 11, 2025
Because it is buried beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, the Wilkes Land crater can only be seen through gravity and other forms of mapping. In this map, the crater is located in the bottom right corner and forms a light-colored U-shape surrounded by darker areas. (Image credit: Klokočník, Kostelecký & Bezděk. Earth Planets Space (2018). Reshared under the terms of Creative Commons
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On the detection of the Wilkes Land impact crater
17 August 2018
Abstract
The definitive existence of a giant impact crater, two times larger than the Chixulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula, from an extraterrestrial origin, 1.6 km beneath Wilkes Land, East Antarctica, remain controversial. Here, we use the latest high-resolution gravito-topographic geopotential (SatGravRET 2014) model over Antarctica to offer a plausible confirmation of its existence. SatGravRET 2014 has a spatial resolution between 1 and 10 km at most places and included contemporary space gravimetry and gradiometry data from GRACE and GOCE, and other data including Bedmap 2 bedrock topography. We computed the gravity disturbances, the Marussi tensor of the second derivatives of the disturbing potential, the gravity invariants and their specific ratio, the strike angles and the virtual deformations to quantify the detailed geophysical features for the Wilkes Land anomaly. This set of the gravitational parameters revealed enhanced and more detailed geophysical features on the Wilkes Land Crater than previously possible only with the traditional gravity anomalies. Our findings support prior studies stating that in the Wilkes Land there is a huge impact crater/basin with detectable gravity mascon which is mostly consistent with the characteristics of an impact crater.
https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-018-0904-7
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Recent high-resolution Antarctic ice velocity maps reveal increased mass loss in Wilkes Land, East Antarctica
2018
Abstract
We constructed Antarctic ice velocity maps from Landsat 8 images for the years 2014 and 2015 at a high spatial resolution (100 m). These maps were assembled from 10,690 scenes of displacement vectors inferred from more than 10,000 optical images acquired from December 2013 through March 2016. We estimated the mass discharge of the Antarctic ice sheet in 2008, 2014, and 2015 using the Landsat ice velocity maps, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR)-derived ice velocity maps (~2008) available from prior studies, and ice thickness data. An increased mass discharge (53 ± 14 Gt yr-1) was found in the East Indian Ocean sector since 2008 due to unexpected widespread glacial acceleration in Wilkes Land, East Antarctica, while the other five oceanic sectors did not exhibit significant changes. However, present-day increased mass loss was found by previous studies predominantly in west Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula. The newly discovered increased mass loss in Wilkes Land suggests that the ocean heat flux may already be influencing ice dynamics in the marine-based sector of the East Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS). The marine-based sector could be adversely impacted by ongoing warming in the Southern Ocean, and this process may be conducive to destabilization.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29540750/
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Composition and age of the East Antarctic Shield in eastern Wilkes Land determined by proxy from Oligocene-Pleistocene glaciomarine sediment and Beacon Supergroup sandstones, Antarctica
July 01, 2010
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-abstract/122/7-8/1135/125558/Composition-and-age-of-the-East-Antarctic-Shield
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Ancient mountains recorded in Antarctic sandstones reveal potential links to global events
August 5, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-ancient-mountains-antarctic-sandstones-reveal.html
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Tectonic development of passive continental margins of the southern and central Red Sea with a comparison to Wilkes Land, Antarctica
January 1, 1991
The continental margins of the southern and central Red Sea and most of Wilkes Land, Antarctica have bulk crustal configurations and detailed structures that are best explained by a prolonged history of magmatic expansion that followed a brief, but intense period of mechanical extension. Extension on the Red Sea margins was spatially confined to a rift that was 20-30 km in width. The rifting phase along the Arabian margin of the central and southern Red Sea occurred 25-32 Ma ago, primarily by detachment faulting at upper crustal levels and ductile uniform stretching at depth. Rifting was followed by an early magmatic phase during which the margin was invaded by dikes and plutons, primarily of gabbro and diorite, at 20-24 Ma, after the crust was mechanically thinned from 40 km to ??? 20 km. We infer continued spreading after that in which broad shelves were formed by a process of magmatic expansion, because the offshore crust is only 8-15 km thick, including sediment, and seismic reflection data do not depict horst and graben or half graben structures from which mechanical extension might be inferred. The Wilkes Land margin is similar to the Arabian example. The margin is about 150 km in width, the amount of upper crustal extension is too low to explain the change in sub-sediment crustal thickness from ??? 35 km on the mainland to < 10 km beneath the margin and reflectors in the deepest seismic sequence are nearly flat lying. Our model requires large volumes of melt in the early stages of continental rifting. The voluminous melt might be partly a product of nearby hot spots, such as Afar and partly the result of an initial period of partial fusion in the deep continental lithosphere under lower temperatures than ordinarily required by dry solidus conditions. ?? 1991.
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Wilkes Land-krateret
https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkes_Land-krateret
___________________________
Wilkes Land
https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/East+Antarctic+Wilkes+Land
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Wilkes Land, East Antarctica: Using subglacial geology as a
key test for ice sheet stability
Nov 2017
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Multichannel Seismic Reflection Data, SCAR - Wilkes Land 1982, SDLS, CD-ROM 15
https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/multichannel-seismic-reflection-data-scar-wilkes-land-1982-sdls-cd-rom-151
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Fingerprinting Proterozoic Bedrock in Interior Wilkes Land, East Antarctica.
2019
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/31308422
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Pliocene sedimentary processes off the East Antarctic Ice Sheet margin of Wilkes Land, Antarctica
December 2011
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMPP33B1925P/abstract
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Researchers discover giant asteroid impact crater in Antarctica
June 3, 2006
Researchers have found a giant asteroid impact crater under the Wilkes Land ice sheet of Antarctica and it may have been responsible for creating the conditions in which dinosaurs evolved, but may also have been the cause of a mass extinction.
"This Wilkes Land impact is much bigger than the impact that killed the dinosaurs, and probably would have caused catastrophic damage at the time," said Ohio State University Professor of geological sciences, Ralph von Fres.
"All the environmental changes that would have resulted from the impact would have created a highly caustic environment that was really hard to endure. So it makes sense that a lot of life went extinct at that time," added von Fres.
The crater is over 300 miles wide and was made about 250 million years ago by an asteroid nearly 30 miles wide. Researchers say that it may have caused an Earth-wide Extinction Level Event (ELE), but also may have created the conditions under which dinosaurs evolved. The species that benefited include the archosaurs, the immediate ancestors of the dinosaurs.
It is thought that nearly 96% of Earth's ocean life and at least 70% of animals on land were made extinct. The impact itself may also have caused the supercontinent Gondwana to break, ultimately forming Australia.
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Researchers_discover_giant_asteroid_impact_crater_in_Antarctica
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Gondwana
Gondwana (/ɡɒndˈwɑːnə/ gond-WAHN-ə;[1] Sanskrit: [goːɳɖɐʋɐnɐ]) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealandia, Arabia, and the Indian subcontinent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana
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Iceberg C-37 Broke Free from Bowman Island in the Wilkes Land Region
March 08, 2022
https://usicecenter.gov/PressRelease/IcebergC37
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Monitoring of a southern giant petrel Macronectes giganteus population on the Frazier Islands, Wilkes Land, Antarctica
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Seabed core reveals how lush Antarctica changed to icy desert
May 2016
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Seismic-reflection signature of cretaceous continental breakup on the Wilkes Land margin, Antarctica
1985
https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70012810
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Production of antibiotics and enzymes by soil microorganisms from the windmill islands region, Wilkes Land, East Antarctica
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Classification and Ordination of Cryptogamic Communities in Wilkes Land, Continental Antarctica
1988
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20038330
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Current controlled deposition on the Wilkes Land continental rise, Antarctica
2002
https://mem.lyellcollection.org/content/22/1/373
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PERIDOTITES FROM THE SEAMOUNT OFF WILKES LAND, ANTARCTICA
31 August 1995
https://core.ac.uk/display/51482242
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Pliocene-Pleistocene Orbital Cyclostratigraphy and Glacial Evolution of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet from Continental Rise IODP Site U1361, Wilkes Land Margin, East Antarctica
2012
https://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/2594
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Orbital forcing of the East Antarctic ice sheet during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene
26 October 2014
Abstract
The Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, between 5.3 and 0.8 million years ago, span a transition from a global climate state that was 2–3 °C warmer than present with limited ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere to one that was characterized by continental-scale glaciations at both poles. Growth and decay of these ice sheets was paced by variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. However, the nature of the influence of orbital forcing on the ice sheets is unclear, particularly in light of the absence of a strong 20,000-year precession signal in geologic records of global ice volume and sea level. Here we present a record of the rate of accumulation of iceberg-rafted debris offshore from the East Antarctic ice sheet, adjacent to the Wilkes Subglacial Basin, between 4.3 and 2.2 million years ago. We infer that maximum iceberg debris accumulation is associated with the enhanced calving of icebergs during ice-sheet margin retreat. In the warmer part of the record, between 4.3 and 3.5 million years ago, spectral analyses show a dominant periodicity of about 40,000 years. Subsequently, the powers of the 100,000-year and 20,000-year signals strengthen. We suggest that, as the Southern Ocean cooled between 3.5 and 2.5 million years ago, the development of a perennial sea-ice field limited the oceanic forcing of the ice sheet. After this threshold was crossed, substantial retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet occurred only during austral summer insolation maxima, as controlled by the precession cycle.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2273
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Low Antarctic continental climate sensitivity due to high ice sheet orography
08 October 2020
Abstract
The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. In this paper, we investigate whether the high orography of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) has helped delay warming over the continent. To that end, we contrast the Antarctic climate response to CO2-doubling with present-day orography to the response with a flattened AIS. To corroborate our findings, we perform this exercise with two different climate models. We find that, with a flattened AIS, CO2-doubling induces more latent heat transport toward the Antarctic continent, greater moisture convergence over the continent and, as a result, more surface-amplified condensational heating. Greater moisture convergence over the continent is made possible by flattening of moist isentropic surfaces, which decreases humidity gradients along the trajectories on which extratropical poleward moisture transport predominantly occurs, thereby enabling more moisture to reach the pole. Furthermore, the polar meridional cell disappears when the AIS is flattened, permitting greater CO2-forced warm temperature advection toward the Antarctic continent. Our results suggest that the high elevation of the present AIS plays a significant role in decreasing the susceptibility of the Antarctic continent to CO2-forced warming.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-00143-w
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Paleoceanography and ice sheet variability offshore Wilkes Land,
Antarctica - Part 1: Insights from late Oligocene astronomically paced
contourite sedimentation
2018
https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/366652
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Fingerprinting Proterozoic bedrock in interior Wilkes Land, East Antarctica
2019
Wilkes Land in East Antarctica remains one of the last geological
exploration frontiers on Earth. Hidden beneath kilometres of ice, its
bedrock preserves a poorly-understood tectonic history that mirrors that
of southern Australia and holds critical insights into past
supercontinent cycles.
https://openpolar.no/Record/ftunivtasmania:oai:eprints.utas.edu.au:30920
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Arctic Terns Sterna paradisaea from the Netherlands Migrate Record Distances Across Three Oceans to Wilkes Land, East Antarctica
1 May 2013
https://bioone.org/journals/ardea/volume-101/issue-1/078.101.0102/Arctic-Terns-Sterna-paradisaea-from-the-Netherlands-Migrate-Record-Distances/10.5253/078.101.0102.full
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Paleoceanography and ice sheet variability offshore Wilkes Land, Antarctica - Part 1: Insights from late Oligocene astronomically paced contourite sedimentation
9 July 2018
https://core.ac.uk/display/186545078
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The triggers of the disaggregation of Voyeykov Ice Shelf (2007), Wilkes Land, East Antarctica, and its subsequent evolution
May 5, 2021
Abstract
The weakening and/or removal of floating ice shelves in Antarctica can induce inland ice flow acceleration. Numerical modelling suggests these processes will play an important role in Antarctica's future sea-level contribution, but our understanding of the mechanisms that lead to ice tongue/shelf collapse is incomplete and largely based on observations from the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica. Here, we use remote sensing of structural glaciology and ice velocity from 2001 to 2020 and analyse potential ocean-climate forcings to identify mechanisms that triggered the rapid disintegration of ~2445 km2 of ice mélange and part of the Voyeykov Ice Shelf in Wilkes Land, East Antarctica between 27 March and 28 May 2007. Results show disaggregation was pre-conditioned by weakening of the ice tongue's structural integrity and was triggered by mélange removal driven by a regional atmospheric circulation anomaly and a less extensive latent-heat polynya. Disaggregation did not induce inland ice flow acceleration, but our observations highlight an important mechanism through which floating termini can be removed, whereby the break-out of mélange and multiyear landfast sea ice triggers disaggregation of a structurally-weak ice shelf. These observations highlight the need for numerical ice-sheet models to account for interactions between sea-ice, mélange and ice shelves.
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Glacio-isostasy and glacial ice load at Law Dome, Wilkes Land, East Antarctica
2000
Description :
This paper investigates the glacio-isostatic contribution of
increased ice extent and thickness on the Law Dome, an ice cap that
forms a dome within the margin of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS),
and around the coastal slope of the Wilkes Land sector of East
Antarctica during the last glacial maximum (LGM). The ice flow on the
Law Dome is independent of EAIS flow. The investigation focuses on the
evidence for Holocene relative sea-level lowering around the Law Dome,
on the reconstruction of former glacial-age ice loads, and on the
deglaciation chronology required to force the amount and timing of
relative sea-level lowering.
http://geoprodig.cnrs.fr/items/show/53009
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Middle Miocene marine and continental climate and environments at the Wilkes Land margin, Antarctica (IODP 318)
Dec 2011
Abstract
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Holocene glacier and deep water dynamics, Adélie Land region, East Antarctica
2008
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379109000031
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Radiocarbon evidence for a possible abyssal front near 3.1 km in the glacial equatorial Pacific Ocean
2015
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X15003210
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Sediment delivery and depositional patterns off Adélie Land (East Antarctica) in relation to late Quaternary climatic cycles
2011
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025322711000752
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Holocene long- and short-term climate changes off Adélie Land, East Antarctica
30 November 2007
Abstract
[1] Diatom data from a marine sediment core give insight on Holocene changes in sea-surface conditions and climate at high southern latitudes off Adélie Land, East Antarctica. The early to mid-Holocene was warmer than the late Holocene with a transition at ∼4000 calendar years B. P. Sea ice was less present and spring-summer growing season was greater during the warm period relative to the cold one, thus limiting sea ice diatom production and favoring more open ocean diatom to develop. The long-term Holocene climatic evolution in East Antarctica is explained by a combination of a delayed response to local seasonal insolation changes coupled to the long memory of the Southern Ocean. Abrupt variations of the diatom relative abundances, indicating rapid climate changes, are superimposed to the Holocene long-term trends. Spectral analyses calculate robust frequencies at ∼1600 a (where “a” is years), ∼1250 a, ∼1050 a, ∼570 a, ∼310 a, ∼230 a, ∼150–125 a, ∼110 a, ∼90 a, and ∼66 a. Such periods are very close to solar activity cyclicities, except for the periods at ∼310 a and ∼1250 a, which are close to internal climate variability cyclicities. Wavelet analyses estimate the same periods but indicate nonstationary cyclicities. Rapid climate changes at high southern latitudes may therefore be explained by a combination of external (solar) and internal (thermohaline circulation) forcings.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2007GC001718
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Seasonal and subseasonal climate changes recorded in laminated diatom ooze sediments, Adélie Land, East Antarctica
December 2006
Abstract
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0959683606069414?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.3
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The katabatic wind regime at Adelie Land, Antarctica
January/February 1991
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.3370110108
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Ancient wind patterns reveal future climate risks
March 11, 2025
A new study has revealed significant changes in the strength and position of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds over the past 11,000 years.
Researchers, including those from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), found that these winds were stronger and more mobile in the past than they are today, which could have major implications for ice shelves, ocean circulation, and global carbon dioxide levels in the future. The study is published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
Using sediment samples from a remote lake perched on a promontory at Cape Horn—the southernmost lake in the Americas—scientists reconstructed past changes in salt spray, a key indicator of wind activity.
Their analysis shows that up until 10,000 years ago, the westerly winds were positioned closer to Antarctica. However, between 10,000 and 7,500 years ago, these winds shifted northward and intensified directly over Cape Horn, reaching their strongest recorded levels before gradually weakening northward to their present position.
Future climate models suggest that with continued global warming, these winds will likely shift further south. However, the extent of this movement remains uncertain. The findings from Cape Horn provide new evidence that the 'wind belt' has been highly dynamic in the past, with potentially significant consequences for climate and sea levels worldwide.
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-ancient-patterns-reveal-future-climate.html
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What sea salt in Antarctic snowfall reveals about bushfires worse than the Black Summer
June 13, 2024
Australia has a long history of bushfires. The 2019-2020 Black Summer was the worst in recorded history. But was that the worst it could get?
Our new research has reconstructed the past 2,000 years of southeast Australia's bushfire weather, drawing on evidence of past climates laid down in changing patterns in deep ice in East Antarctica. The high and low pressure weather systems south of Australia are so large they connect the two continents, even though they are more than 3,000 km apart.
These historic weather patterns are recorded in the ice. Not with ash which might first come to mind, but in sea-salt spray from the Southern Ocean. When southeast Australia experiences extreme bushfire weather over summer, there is less wind around Antarctica, which means less sea-salt spray is laid down at the ice core site.
Buried in the ice is a warning. At least seven times over the last two millennia, our new research shows bushfire-prone southeast Australia has endured bushfire weather as bad or worse than what was experienced during the devastating Black Summer bushfires. The Black Summer bushfires burned through about 1.5 million hectares, or more than six times the size of the Australian Capital Territory.
This means natural climate variability can toss up more severe bushfire weather than we have yet seen. Given that human-caused climate change is also loading the dice for worse and worse bushfire weather, it suggests we are underestimating how bad bushfires can be in Australia.
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-sea-salt-antarctic-snowfall-reveals.html
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Meteorological features in Adélie Land during the austral summer season
January 1990
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00876922
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Holocene productivity changes off Adélie Land (East Antarctica)
2009
https://www.academia.edu/25464097/Holocene_productivity_changes_off_Ad%C3%A9lie_Land_East_Antarctica_
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3.6 Million More Penguins Live in Antarctica Than Thought
2017
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/adelie-penguin-population-antarctica
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No, 150,000 Antarctic penguins did not die because of global warming
February 22, 2016
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Persistent organic pollutants in benthic and pelagic organisms off Adélie Land, Antarctica
2013
https://www.academia.edu/12483859/Persistent_organic_pollutants_in_benthic_and_pelagic_organisms_off_Ad%C3%A9lie_Land_Antarctica
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Psychrobacter salsus sp. nov. and Psychrobacter adeliensis sp. nov. isolated from fast ice from Adelie Land, Antarctica
2004
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15612619/
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A drifting snow data set (2010-2018) from coastal Adelie Land, Eastern Antarctica
January 29, 2020
https://zenodo.org/record/3630497#.YssDI4TMI2w
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Holocene deglaciation in Adelie Land from 10Be cosmogenic dating
https://institut-polaire.fr/en/programmes_soutenus/holocene-deglaciation-in-adelie-land-from-10be-cosmogenic-dating/
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Late Pleistocene to Holocene fluctuations of the East Antarctic Ice
Sheet in Adélie Land using cosmogenic nuclides: combining in situ
10Be/26Al on glacial landforms with meteoric 10Be in marine
sediments
13 May 2025
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/EGU25-1662.html?pdf
___________________________
Finding Meteorite Hotspots in Antarctica
February 2, 2022
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149554/finding-meteorite-hotspots-in-antarctica
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Researchers Find Extraterrestrial Amino Acids in Antarctic Meteorite
Aug 31, 2020
A
team of astrobiologists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the
Carnegie Institution for Science has found a wide diversity of amino
acids in Asuka 12236, a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite recovered from
the Nansen Ice Field in Antarctica by Belgium and Japan researchers in
2012...
http://www.sci-news.com/space/extraterrestrial-amino-acids-antarctic-meteorite-08796.html
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Melted micrometeorites from Antarctic ice with evidence for the separation of immiscible Fe-Ni-S liquids during entry heating
1998
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1945-5100.1998.tb01647.x
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Antarctic erosion history reconstructed by Terre Adélie moraine geochronology
08 July 2020
Abstract
We report apatite fission-track and 10Be terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) dating of 14 moraine boulders originating from inland Terre Adélie, East Antarctica. These data show cooling of the Proterozoic Terre Adélie craton at < ~120°C between 350 and 300 Ma, suggesting > 4 km temperate glacial erosion during the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age, followed by nearly null Mesozoic erosion and low glacial erosion (< 2 km) in the Cenozoic. Based on glacial flux maps, the origin of the boulders may be located ~400 km upstream. Preliminary TCN (10Be) datings of moraine boulders cluster within the last 30 ka. Cosmogenic ages from the Lacroix Nunatak suggest a main deglaciation after the Younger Dryas at c. 10 ka, while those of Cap Prud'homme mostly cluster at 0.6 ka, in agreement with an exhumation of boulders during the Little Ice Age.
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Beryllium isotope variations recorded in the Adélie Basin, East Antarctica reflect Holocene changes in ice dynamics, productivity, and scavenging efficiency
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666033422000077
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Measurements of the Atmospheric Turbidity
at D47, Adelie Land, Antarctica
1988
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/28223/1/Polarforsch1988_1_4.pdf
___________________________
Holocene sediment transport and climate variability of offshore Adélie Land, East Antarctica
2021
https://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/6171
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[Pathology in antarctic polar expedition; observations of the 1st Expedition to Adélie Land (1948-51)]
1956
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/13335904/
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Ancient Adélie penguin colony revealed by snowmelt at Cape Irizar, Ross Sea, Antarctica
2021
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/49/2/145/590932/Ancient-Adelie-penguin-colony-revealed-by-snowmelt
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Giant iceberg could wipe out Adélie penguin colony at Cape Denison, Antarctica
February 12, 2016
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There are millions more Adelie penguins in Antarctica than we thought
March 16, 2017
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2017/03/there-are-millions-more-adelie-penguins-in-antarctica-than-we-thought/
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Adélie penguins contribute to a better understanding of Marine Protected Areas in Antarctica
25 May 2020
https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/news/adelie-penguins-contribute-to-a-better-understanding-of-marine-protected-areas-in-antarctica/
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The human impact converts the penguins into biotransporters of polluting substances towards the Antarctic soil
2017
https://www.uv.es/uvweb/college/en/news-release/human-impact-converts-penguins-biotransporters-polluting-substances-antarctic-soil-1285846070123/Noticia.html?id=1286015754852
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Ancient DNA Enables Timing of the Pleistocene Origin and Holocene Expansion of Two Adélie Penguin Lineages in Antarctica
01 February 2004
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/21/2/240/1187856?login=false
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Holocene sea ice-ocean-climate variability from Adélie Land, East Antarctica
30 March 2016
https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/41566/
___________________________
Variability in krill biomass links harvesting and climate
warming to penguin population changes in Antarctica
2011
https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1016560108
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10 Incredible Animals That Live in Antarctica
April 03, 2022
https://www.treehugger.com/animals-that-live-in-antarctica-5094364
___________________________
Antarctic Animals - Endangered or Vulnerable to Becoming Endangered in the Future
https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wildlife/endangered_antarctic_animals.php
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AUSTRALASIAN ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION 1911-14 - SCIENTIFIC REPORTS - SERIES B, VOL. VI - METEOROLOGY: Discussions of Observations at Adélie Land, Queen Mary Land and Macquarie Island
1946
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/first-edition/AUSTRALASIAN-ANTARCTIC-EXPEDITION-1911-14-SCIENTIFIC-REPORTS/17362121465/bd
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The radiogenic isotope fingerprint of Wilkes Land-Adelie Coast Bottom Water in the Circum-Antarctic Ocean
August 2006
https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/faces/ViewItemOverviewPage.jsp?itemId=item_1830070
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Chemical composition of falling snow at Dumont d'Urville, Antarctica
13 May 2004
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00115220
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Dumont d'Urville Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumont_d%27Urville_Station
___________________________
Measurements of precipitation in Dumont d'Urville, Adélie Land, East Antarctica
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/11/1797/2017/
___________________________
Systematic stratospheric observations on the Antarctic continent at Dumont d'Urville
https://www.academia.edu/79542800/Systematic_stratospheric_observations_on_the_Antarctic_continent_at_Dumont_dUrville
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Distribution of euphausiid larvae along the coast of East Antarctica in the Dumont d'Urville Sea (139–145°E) during summer 2004
16 December 2008
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/distribution-of-euphausiid-larvae-along-the-coast-of-east-antarctica-in-the-dumont-durville-sea-139145e-during-summer-2004/7B04957EB4C9AFAE48985FB0E0FAE418
___________________________
Demersal ichthyofaunal shelf communities from the Dumont d’Urville Sea (East Antarctica)
2011
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873965211000259
___________________________
Accumulation distribution in terre adélie, antarctica: effect of meteorological parameters
20 January 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-glaciology/article/accumulation-distribution-in-terre-adelie-antarctica-effect-of-meteorological-parameters/5285E3F79A962DADF0EEE2A5ECC3BD24
___________________________
Patterns in the distribution and abundance of sea anemones off Dumont d'Urville Station, Antarctica
2023
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/126152
___________________________
Bioaccumulation of Per and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Antarctic Breeding South Polar Skuas (Catharacta maccormicki) and Their Prey
2022
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.819525/full
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The atmospheric HCHO budget at Dumont d'Urville (East Antarctica): Contribution of photochemical gas‐phase production versus snow emissions
Apr 16, 2014
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/the-atmospheric-hcho-budget-at-dumont-d-urville-east-antarctica-5xJlHfNzVB
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Stratosphere over Dumont d’Urville, Antarctica, in
winter 1992
2020
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03087788/file/98JD00689.pdf
___________________________
Radiosonde stratospheric temperatures at Dumont d'Urville (Antarctica): trends and link with polar stratospheric clouds
2010
Temperature profiles measurements are performed daily (00:00 UT) in Dumont d'Urville (66°40' S, 140°01' E) by Météo-France, using standard radiosondes, since the International Geophysical Year in 1957. Yet, due to a 16 years data gap between 1963 and 1978, the entire dataset is only used for a qualitative overview. Only the most recent series, between 1979 and 2008, is used to investigate the inter-annual stratospheric temperatures variability. Over Dumont d'Urville, at the edge of the vortex, the annual mean temperature cooling of about 1 K/decade at 20 km is the result of the cooling trends between 0.5 and 1.4 K/decade, in summer and autumn and a warming of about 1.1 K/decade in spring. These values are consistent with values obtained using data from inner vortex stations, but with smaller amplitude. No statistically significant trend is detected in winter. We propose here the first attempt to link stratospheric temperature trends to Polar Stratospheric Cloud (PSC) trends in Antarctica based on the only continuous 20 years database of PSC lidar detection. Despite the absence of mean temperature trend during winter, the occurrence of temperatures below the NAT threshold between 1989 and 2008 reveals a significant trend of about +6%/decade. The PSCs occurrences frequency exhibits a concomitant trend of about +3%/decade, although not statistically significant. Yet, this is consistent with results obtained in the Northern Hemisphere. Such a possible positive trend in PSC occurrence has to be further explored to be confirmed or invalidated. If confirmed, this PSC trend is likely to have strong impacts, both on ozone recovery and climate evolution in Antarctica. The study also reveals the importance of trends on extreme temperatures, and not only on mean temperatures.
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00438205
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Measurements of OH and RO2 radicals at the coastal
Antarctic site of Dumont d’Urville (East Antarctica) in
summer 2010-2011
2012
Measurements of OH and total peroxy RO 2 (HO 2 plus organic peroxy) radicals were
conducted in December 2010/January 2011 at the coastal East Antarctic site of Dumont
d’Urville (DDU, 6640′S 14001′E) as part of the Oxidant Production over Antarctic Land
and its Export (OPALE) project. Compared to measurements carried out at the West
Antarctic coast, relatively high concentrations of radicals were found with 24 h average
values of 2.1 106 and 3.3 108 molecule cm3 for OH and peroxy radicals,
respectively. On the basis of the steady state calculations, the observed high concentration
of peroxy radicals is in good agreement with the observed levels of O 3 and HCHO
representing via their photolysis the major primary radical sources. The observed OH
levels at DDU could be explained only assuming some RO2 to OH conversion mechanism
equivalent to the presence of NO in the range of 10 to 50 pptv. As neither NO nor halogen
oxides were measured at DDU the mechanism of this recycling could not be explicitly
identified. However, an examination of variability of radical levels as a function of the
origin (oceanic versus continental) of sampled air masses suggests a more important OH
production from RO 2 recycling in continental air masses.
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Multi-year record of atmospheric mercury at Dumont d'Urville, East Antarctic coast: continental outflow and oceanic influences
Jul 2016
Under the framework of the Global Mercury Observation System (GMOS)
project, a 3.5-year record of atmospheric gaseous elemental mercury
(Hg(0)) has been gathered at Dumont d'Urville (DDU, 66°40′ S, 140°01′ E,
43 m above sea level) on the East Antarctic coast. Additionally,
surface snow samples were collected in February 2009 during a traverse
between Concordia Station located on the East Antarctic plateau and DDU.
The record of atmospheric Hg(0) at DDU reveals particularities that are
not seen at other coastal sites: a gradual decrease of concentrations
over the course of winter, and a daily maximum concentration around
midday in summer. Additionally, total mercury concentrations in surface
snow samples were particularly elevated near DDU (up to 194.4 ng L−1) as
compared to measurements at other coastal Antarctic sites. These
differences can be explained by the more frequent arrival of inland air
masses at DDU than at other coastal sites. This confirms the influence
of processes observed on the Antarctic plateau on the cycle of
atmospheric mercury at a continental scale, especially in areas subject
to recurrent katabatic winds. DDU is also influenced by oceanic air
masses and our data suggest that the ocean plays a dual role on Hg(0)
concentrations. The open ocean may represent a source of atmospheric
Hg(0) in summer whereas the sea-ice surface may provide reactive
halogens in spring that can oxidize Hg(0). This paper also discusses
implications for coastal Antarctic ecosystems and for the cycle of
atmospheric mercury in high southern latitudes.
https://doaj.org/article/4d6a2b7a544a43c8af5c0e36b8dd126e
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Year-round records of gas and particulate formic and acetic acids in the boundary layer at Dumont d'Urville, coastal Antarctica
27 March 2004
Multiple year-round levels of acetate and formate in gas and aerosol phases were investigated at Dumont d'Urville (DDU, a coastal Antarctic site) by using mist chamber and aerosol filter sampling. Formate and acetate aerosol levels range from <0.5 ppt in winter to 3 ppt in summer. With corresponding gas phase levels of more than a hundred of pptv, formic and acetic acids are mainly (99%) present in the gas phase, representing the 2 major acidic gases before inorganic species (HCl, HNO3 and SO2) there. Mixing ratios of formic acid are minimal from May to August (70 pptv) and increase regularly toward November–February months when levels reach ∼200 pptv. Mixing ratios of acetic acid exhibit a more well-marked seasonal cycle with values remaining close to 70 pptv from April to October and strongly increase during November–February months (mean value of 400 pptv). These seasonal changes suggest that the 2 carboxylic acids mainly originate from biogenic emissions of the Antarctic ocean whose variations follow the annual cycle of sea ice extent and solar radiation via photochemical production of alkenes from dissolved organic carbon released by phytoplankton. In summer, acetic acid levels show daily variations with maxima at noon and minima at night whereas formic acid levels peaks later in the afternoon. These dial variations in summer suggest that carboxylic acids are rapidly produced during the day and lost at night due to dry deposition on wet surface. It is suggested that the reactions of peroxy acetyl radical produced from propene with HO2 and CH3O2 in these poor NOx environments represent in summer the dominant chemical mechanisms producing acetic acid whereas ozone-alkene reactions remain of minor importance at that season. Neither ozone-alkene reactions nor aqueous phase HCHO oxidation can explain the summer levels of formic acid. In winter the long range transport of alkenes emitted at more temperate oceanic regions and reactions with ozone could account for the observed level of formic acid and possibly of acetic acid.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Year-round-records-of-gas-and-particulate-formic-in-Legrand-Preunkert/ab8fc9f810e3285d51714282e27cd8e598cdf994
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Casey Station
Current research
Since 2008, scientists based at Casey have contributed to research into study of the Law Dome, the bedrock geology and structure of the East Antarctic ice sheet and its glaciological processes. In more recent years, Casey has served as a base for marine biologists to examine changes to polar seafloor communities exposed to different carbon dioxide concentrations. Adélie penguin research is conducted at Casey. Scientists are also studying the influence of climate change and human impact on extensive and well developed moss beds that grow at and near Casey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Station
___________________________
Research stations in Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_stations_in_Antarctica
___________________________
Living Aboard South Pole's Polar Research Ship | Antarctica: Journey Into The White Desert | Spark
Oct 27, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upgQp2AX_k8
____________________________
How To Get a Job in Antarctica | How to Work in Antarctica
Jan 1, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WZuSVlX9Xo
___________________________
Casey Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Islands
___________________________
Antarctica climate data and climate graphs Casey and Mawson Stations (Australia)
https://coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/antarctica%20environment/casey_mawson.php
___________________________
Scientists record first reported heatwave at Antarctica's Casey research station
March 31, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-03-scientists-heatwave-antarctica-casey-station.html
___________________________
Record-smashing heatwaves are hitting Antarctica and the Arctic simultaneously. Here’s what’s driving them, and how they’ll impact wildlife
March 22, 2022
https://theconversation.com/record-smashing-heatwaves-are-hitting-antarctica-and-the-arctic-simultaneously-heres-whats-driving-them-and-how-theyll-impact-wildlife-179659
___________________________
Cost-efficient methods for marine pollution monitoring at Casey Station, East Antarctica: the choice of sieve mesh-size and taxonomic resolution
2003
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12586119/
___________________________
Management and remediation of contaminated sites at Casey Station, Antarctica
27 October 2009
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/polar-record/article/management-and-remediation-of-contaminated-sites-at-casey-station-antarctica/29157DF4BA83D5A48A3994262253487B
___________________________
Effects of temperature on growth rates of fungi from subantarctic Macquarie Island and Casey, Antarctica
February 1990
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00238428
___________________________
Antarctica’s ‘moss forests’ are drying and dying
September 25, 2018
The lush moss beds that grow near East Antarctica’s coast are among the only plants that can withstand life on the frozen continent. But our new research shows that these slow-growing plants are changing at a far faster rate than anticipated.
We began monitoring plant ecosystems 18 years ago, near Australia’s Casey Station in the Windmill Islands, East Antarctica.
As we report in Nature Climate Change today, within just 13 years we observed significant changes in the composition and health of these moss beds, due to the drying effects of weather changes prompted by damage to the ozone layer.
Living on the edge
Visitors to Antarctica expect to see a stark landscape of white and blue: ice, water, and sky. But in some places summer brings a surprisingly verdant green, as lush mosses emerge from under their winter snow blanket.
Because it contains the best moss beds on continental Antarctica, Casey Station is dubbed the Daintree of the Antarctic. Individual plants have been growing here for at least 100 years; fertilised by ancient penguin poo.
Antarctic mosses are extremophiles, the only plants that can survive the continent’s frigid winters. They live in a frozen desert where life-sustaining water is mostly locked up as ice, and they grow at a glacial pace – typically just 1 mm a year.
These mosses are home to tardigrades and other organisms, all of which survive harsh conditions by drying out and becoming dormant. When meltwater is available, mosses soak it up like a sponge and spring back to life.
The short summer growing season runs from December to March. Day temperatures finally rise above freezing, providing water from melting snow. Overnight temperatures drop below zero and mosses refreeze. Harsh, drying winds reach speeds of 200 km per hour. This is life on the edge...
Moss beds, with moss in the foreground showing signs of stress.
https://theconversation.com/antarcticas-moss-forests-are-drying-and-dying-103751
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Removal of Metal Contaminants from Saline Waters at Low Temperature by an Iminodiacetic Acid Ion‐Exchange Resin, Thala Valley Tip, Casey Station, Antarctica
March 2005
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237748705_Removal_of_Metal_Contaminants_from_Saline_Waters_at_Low_Temperature_by_an_Iminodiacetic_Acid_Ion-Exchange_Resin_Thala_Valley_Tip_Casey_Station_Antarctica
___________________________
Identification and assessment of contaminated sites at Casey Station, Wilkes Land, Antarctica
27 October 2009
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/polar-record/article/abs/identification-and-assessment-of-contaminated-sites-at-casey-station-wilkes-land-antarctica/97CAC4547A5B5FB5792278C893CF3FA0
___________________________
Antarctic sea anemone distribution, abundance and relationships with habitat composition, community structure and anthropogenic disturbance
13 February 2020
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/antarctic-sea-anemone-distribution-abundance-and-relationships-with-habitat-composition-community-structure-and-anthropogenic-disturbance/04E652DAC0467EE9AB0B47471CC058D7
___________________________
An analysis of strong wind events simulated in a GCM near Casey in the Antarctic
___________________________
A permeable reactive barrier (PRB) media sequence for the remediation of heavy metal and hydrocarbon contaminated water: A field assessment at Casey Station, Antarctica
2015
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653515305877
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DGGE fingerprinting of bacteria in soils from eight ecologically different sites around Casey Station, Antarctica
18 February 2009
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-009-0585-6
___________________________
Biosurfactant production by halotolerant Rhodococcus fascians from Casey Station, Wilkes Land, Antarctica
2016
Abstract
Isolate A-3 from Antarctic soil in Casey Station, Wilkes Land, was characterized for growth on hydrocarbons. Use of glucose or kerosene as a sole carbon source in the culture medium favoured biosynthesis of surfactant which, by thin-layer chromatography, indicated the formation of a rhamnose-containing glycolipid. This compound lowered the surface tension at the air/water interface to 27 mN/m as well as inhibited the growth of B. subtilis ATCC 6633 and exhibited hemolytic activity. A highly hydrophobic surface of the cells suggests that uptake occurs via a direct cell-hydrocarbon substrate contact. Strain A-3 is Gram-positive, halotolerant, catalase positive, urease negative and has rod-coccus shape. Its cell walls contained meso-diaminopimelic acid. Phylogenetic analysis based on comparative analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain A-3 is closely related to Rhodococcus fascians with which it shares 100% sequence similarity. This is the first report on rhamnose-containing biosurfactant production by Rhodococcus fascians isolated from Antarctic soil.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20135319/
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Environmental conditions and microbiological properties from soils and lichens from Antarctica (Casey Station, Wilkes Land)
March 1992
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00237953
___________________________
Management and remediation of contaminated sites
at Casey Station, Antarctica
___________________________
Polyhydroxyalkanoate production by antarctic soil bacteria isolated from Casey Station and Signy Island
2011
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0944501311000796
___________________________
The distribution and abundance of soft-sediment macrobenthos around Casey Station, East Antarctica
November 2000
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s003000000162
___________________________
Multiple Pb sources in marine sediments near the Australian Antarctic Station, Casey
2007
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969707010005
___________________________
The use of Pb isotope ratios determined by magnetic sectorICP-MS for tracing Pb pollution in marine sediments near Casey Station, East Antarctica
2002
Abstract
Magnetic sector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-SMS) was used to measure lead concentrations and isotope ratios in marine sediments and other samples collected from near the Australian Antarctic Station Casey. Precisions obtained from the repetitive analysis of a standard Broken Hill Pb sample at a concentration of ∼40 ng g−1 in solution were <±0.2% for ratios involving 204Pb, and <±0.1% for those referenced to 206Pb or 207Pb (n = 12 replicates over 2 days, values as 1s). Ratios were accurate to within ∼±0.1% for the analysis of this standard sample. Comparative measurements between ICP-SMS and TIMS had typical differences in values of <0.4% for contaminated samples, irrespective of ratio. For marine sediment samples with Pb concentrations in the sample digest of >10 ng g−1, instrumental capability was characterised by isotopic precisions ranging from 0.1-0.5% (1s) for ratios involving 204Pb, and <0.25% (1s) for ratios with 206Pb or 207Pb as the basis (typically found from triplicate analyses). For sediments of low Pb concentration (<10 ng g−1 in the sample digest), isotope ratios to 204Pb were found to be limited by instrument counting statistics when using standard ICP-SMS. To help overcome this problem, Pb isotope ratios for these samples were measured with a capacitive decoupling Pt guard electrode employed, offering considerable signal enhancement (5–10×). These natural background sediments were found to display typical Pb isotope ratios of 40.5, 15.5, 18.6 and 1.19 for 208Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb, 206Pb/204Pb and 206Pb/207Pb. For comparison, the most contaminated samples had Pb isotope ratios of approximately 36.2, 15.4, 16.4 and 1.06 for 208Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb, 206Pb/204Pb and 206Pb/207Pb, respectively. Evidence of simple two component mixing between anthropogenic and natural geogenic Pb was found near Casey Station. Runoff from the Thala Valley tip site, adjacent to the bay, was identified as a clear source of Pb pollution, with impacted sediments displaying an isotopic signature approaching that of abandoned lead batteries collected from the tip. These batteries possessed Pb isotope ratios identical to Australian Broken Hill lead. In this study, the use of Pb isotope data has proved to be a sensitive method of assessing contamination levels in the Antarctic marine environment adjacent to a waste disposal site. Lead isotope ratios have proved superior to simple elemental concentration determinations when distinguishing between impacted and non-impacted samples. ICP-SMS has been shown to offer relatively fast, accurate and cost effective Pb isotope ratios, with precisions suitable for many environmental applications.
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2002/ja/b203449m#!
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Remediation of metal-contaminated soil in polar environments: Phosphate fixation at Casey Station, East Antarctica
2014
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0883292714002042
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Environmental DNA metabarcoding for monitoring metazoan biodiversity in Antarctic nearshore ecosystems
2021
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34820189/
___________________________
Polyhydroxyalkanoate production by antarctic soil bacteria isolated from Casey Station and Signy Island
2011 Sep 25
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21945102/
___________________________
Polyhydroxyalkanoate production by antarctic soil bacteria isolated from Casey Station and Signy Island
2011
https://www.academia.edu/3296037/Polyhydroxyalkanoate_production_by_antarctic_soil_bacteria_isolated_from_Casey_Station_and_Signy_Island
___________________________
Mirny Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirny_Station
___________________________
Seabirds of human settlements in Antarctica: A case study of the Mirny Station
2021
https://journals.muni.cz/CPR/article/view/15420
___________________________
The surface ozone concentration at the Molodezhnaya and Mirny Antarctic stations based on measurements conducted in spring 1987 through Fall 1988
January 1992
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281100103_The_surface_ozone_concentration_at_the_Molodezhnaya_and_Mirny_Antarctic_stations_based_on_measurements_conducted_in_spring_1987_through_Fall_1988
___________________________
Long-term Variability of Integral and Spectral Transparency of the Atmosphere at Mirny Observatory, Antarctica
20 March 2020
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S1068373920020028
___________________________
Content of Trace Elements in Soils of Eastern Antarctica: Variability Across Landscapes
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00244-021-00808-4
___________________________
Trace element contamination in Antarctic ecosystems.
2000
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/10868077
___________________________
A wind effect of neutron component of cosmic rays at Antarctic station Mirny
2015
https://pos.sissa.it/236/352/pdf
___________________________
Lake Vostok – The Largest Lake in Antarctica
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/lake-vostok-the-largest-lake-in-antarctica.html
___________________________
Lake Vostok
An artist's cross-section of Lake Vostok's drilling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok
___________________________
Experts fear Russian Antarctica dig could contaminate lake
Feb 7, 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmuSQr1CGls
___________________________
Here's What The People Currently At Vostok Station In Antarctica Are Up To
May 26, 2020
https://www.thetravel.com/what-is-vostok/
___________________________
Ecology of Subglacial Lake Vostok (Antarctica), Based on Metagenomic/Metatranscriptomic Analyses of Accretion Ice
2013
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960894/
___________________________
Russia finds 'new bacteria' in Antarctic lake
March 7, 2013
Russian
scientists believe they have found a wholly new type of bacteria in the
mysterious subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica, the RIA Novosti news
agency reported on Thursday.
https://phys.org/news/2013-03-russia-bacteria-antarctic-lake.html
___________________________
Russian Scientists Breach Antarctica's Lake Vostok—Confirmed
2012
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/120208-russians-lake-vostok-antarctica-drilling-science
___________________________
It’s 70 degrees warmer than normal in eastern Antarctica. Scientists are flabbergasted.
March 18, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/03/18/antarctica-heat-wave-climate-change/
___________________________
Temperatures in eastern Antarctica are 70 degrees warmer than usual
03/18/22
___________________________
Extraordinary Antarctica heatwave, 70 degrees above normal, would likely set a world record
March 28, 2022
Scientists were shocked this month when a research station in Antarctica reported extraordinarily warm weather.
The temperature at Concordia Research station atop Dome C on the Antarctic Plateau – typically known as the coldest place on Earth – surged to an astounding 11.3 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-11.5 Celsius) on March 18.
The normal high temperature for the day is around minus-56 Fahrenheit (minus-49 Celsius), which puts the March 18 reading at close to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (around 38 Celsius) warmer than normal.
___________________________
Record low surface air temperature at Vostok station, Antarctica
16 December 2009
Abstract
[1] The lowest recorded air temperature at the surface of the Earth was a measurement of −89.2°C made at Vostok station, Antarctica, at 0245 UT on 21 July 1983. Here we present the first detailed analysis of this event using meteorological reanalysis fields, in situ observations and satellite imagery. Surface temperatures at Vostok station in winter are highly variable on daily to interannual timescales as a result of the great sensitivity to intrusions of maritime air masses as Rossby wave activity changes around the continent. The record low temperature was measured following a near-linear cooling of over 30 K over a 10 day period from close to mean July temperatures. The event occurred because of five specific conditions that arose: (1) the temperature at the core of the midtropospheric vortex was at a near-record low value; (2) the center of the vortex moved close to the station; (3) an almost circular flow regime persisted around the station for a week resulting in very little warm air advection from lower latitudes; (4) surface wind speeds were low for the location; and (5) no cloud or diamond dust was reported above the station for a week, promoting the loss of heat to space via the emission of longwave radiation. We estimate that should a longer period of isolation occur the surface temperature at Vostok could drop to around −96°C. The higher site of Dome Argus is typically 5–6 K colder than Vostok so has the potential to record an even lower temperature.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009JD012104
___________________________
Diamonds found in Antarctic meteorite
1981
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/diamonds-found-in-antarctic-meteorite-e7KOzHq0bL
___________________________
Metatranscriptomic and Metagenomic Analysis of Biological Diversity in Subglacial Lake Vostok (Antarctica)
2020
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32188079/
___________________________
Bacteria May Thrive in Antarctica's Buried Lake Vostok
December 9, 2003
https://beta.nsf.gov/news/bacteria-may-thrive-antarcticas-buried-lake-vostok
___________________________
Ecology of subglacial lake vostok (antarctica), based on metagenomic/metatranscriptomic analyses of accretion ice
2013
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24832801/
___________________________
Scientists Identify Thousands of Species in Samples from Lake Vostok
Jul 8, 2013
http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-bacteria-lake-vostok-antarctica-01202.html
___________________________
'New' bacteria in Antarctic lake actually just contamination, say scientists
March 12, 2013
Last
week, a Russian news outlet reported the discovery of a new type of
microbe discovered in Antarctica's Lake Vostok. But now scientists say
that the bacteria is just contamination.
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0312/New-bacteria-in-Antarctic-lake-actually-just-contamination-say-scientists
___________________________
Rare Bacteria Known to Survive Solely on Air in Antarctica, Now Found Elsewhere
Aug 21, 2020
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/26976/20200821/rare-bacteria-found-antarctica-breathes-eats-air-present-elsewhere.htm
___________________________
Limnological conditions in subglacial Lake Vostok, Antarctica
2006
https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/handle/1/13287
___________________________
Aeolian dust in East Antarctica (EPICA-Dome C and Vostok): Provenance during glacial ages over the last 800 kyr
2008
https://www.academia.edu/12224293/Aeolian_dust_in_East_Antarctica_EPICA_Dome_C_and_Vostok_Provenance_during_glacial_ages_over_the_last_800_kyr
___________________________
Molecular analysis of bacterial diversity in kerosene-based drilling fluid from the deep ice borehole at Vostok, East Antarctica
01 February 2007
https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/59/2/289/550114?login=false
___________________________
Russian Drill Ready to Reach Untouched Lake Vostok Beneath Antarctica
Jan 7, 2011
https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/russian-drill-ready-to-reach-untouched-lake-vostok-beneath-antarctica
___________________________
Geophysical models for the tectonic framework of the Lake Vostok region, East Antarctica
2003
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X0300548X
___________________________
Adélie Land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad%C3%A9lie_Land
___________________________
Ancient Sea Ice Core – Extracted From Adélie Land in Antarctica – Sheds Light on Modern Climate Change
A 170 m (560 ft) record of marine sediment cores extracted from Adélie Land in Antarctica by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme is yielding new insights into the complicated relationship between sea ice and climate change.
In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, researchers at the University of Birmingham, have collaborated in an international project to identify how fluctuations in sea ice levels have interconnected with both algae blooms and weather events linked to El Nino over the past 12,000 years.
They found that Antarctic winds strongly affect the break-out and melting of sea ice, which in turn affects the levels of algae that can grow rapidly in surface waters when sea ice is reduced. Changes in the levels of algae growth in the waters surrounding the Antarctic are important enough to affect the global carbon cycle.
The researchers used techniques such as CT scan (computed tomography) imaging and analysis of microfossils and organic biomarkers, to examine the relationship between sea ice and large algae growth “bloom” events at annual timescales. The findings, produced in partnership with research institutes in New Zealand, Japan, France, Spain, and the USA, span the entire Holocene period and have yielded a highly detailed picture of these relationships that can help predict future sea ice, climate, and biological interactions.
The researchers found that algal bloom events occurred nearly every year before 4,500 years ago. However, a baseline shift to less frequent algal blooms and the type of algal production after 4.5 thousand years ago, saw bloom events responding to the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and other climate cycles as sea-ice levels rapidly increased. Recent work by many of the same team links the expansion of sea ice at this time to glacial retreat and the development of the Ross Ice Shelf, which acts to cool Antarctic surface waters to create a “sea-ice factory.”
Dr. James Bendle, of the University of Birmingham’s School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science, is a co-author on the paper. He said: “While there’s a clear relationship between temperatures rising in the Arctic over recent decades and sea ice melting, the picture is more complex in the Antarctic. That’s because some areas of the Antarctic are warming, but in some areas, sea ice has been increasing. Since sea ice reflects incoming sunlight, not only is the warming effect slowed down, but algae are unable to photosynthesize as easily. Climate models currently struggle to predict observed changes in sea ice for the Antarctic, and our findings will help climate researchers build more robust and detailed models.”
He added: “The relationship we have observed with these changing conditions and the ENSO wind fields is particularly significant. We know that El Nino amplifies the effects of climate change in some regions, so any insights linking this with Antarctic sea ice is fascinating and has implications for how future long-term loss of sea ice may affect food webs in Antarctic waters, as well as carbon cycling processes within this globally important region.”
Dr. Katelyn Johnson, of GNS Science, in New Zealand, is the lead author on the paper. She said: “While sea ice that persists from year to year can prevent these large algal blooms from occurring, sea ice that breaks out and melts creates a favorable environment for these algae to grow. These large algae ‘bloom events’ occur around the continent, form the base of the food webs, and act as a carbon sink.”
“Unlike the Arctic where rising temperatures have led to reduced sea ice, the relationship in the Antarctic is less clear, as is the subsequent impact on primary productivity. Our new record provides a longer-term view of how sea ice and climate modes like ENSO impact the frequency of these bloom events, allowing climate modelers to build more robust models.”
___________________________
French Southern and Antarctic Lands
May 07, 2025
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/french-southern-and-antarctic-lands/
___________________________
Hidden Penguin Mega-Colonies Discovered in Antarctica
2018
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/adelie-penguins-colonies-discovered-antarctica-environment
___________________________
The influence of large-scale forcing on the katabatic wind regime at Adélie Land, Antarctica
1993
Summary
The Adélie Land coastal section of East Antarctica is known for strong katabatic winds. Although the primary forcing of these persistent drainage flows has been attributed to the radiative cooling of the sloping ice topography, effects of ambient horizontal pressure gradients can play a central role in shaping the Antarctic surface wind regime as well. Oberrvations of the katabatic wind at the near-coastal Adélie Land station D-10 have been sorted into strong and weak wind classes. Concurrent radiosonde ascents at nearby Dumont D'Urville have been used to depict the timeaveraged large scale conditions accompanying the katabatic wind classes. Results suggest that strong katabatic wind cases are associated with low pressure over the coastal margin and easterly upper level motions. Numerical simulations have been conducted to examine the effect of prescribed large scale forcing on the evolution of the katabatic wind. The model runs indicate that the ambient environment plays a key role in the development and intensity of the katabatic wind regime.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01030492
___________________________
Halomonas glaciei sp. nov. isolated from fast ice of Adelie Land, Antarctica
2003
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12579380/
___________________________
Adelie Land meteorite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelie_Land_meteorite
___________________________
Douglas Mawson's tragic Antarctic trek
https://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/2013/dec/04/douglas-mawson-antarctic-trek
___________________________
Queen Mary Land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mary_Land
___________________________
Princess Elizabeth Land
Although Australia claims the entirety of Princess Elizabeth Land, it is home to Russian stations including Vostok Station (the coldest place on Earth) and Mirny Station which supplies it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Elizabeth_Land
___________________________
Princess Elisabeth Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Elisabeth_Antarctica
___________________________
Decreasing trend of temperature in Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica in the past 150 years
September 2002
Abstract
A 50-m firn core drilled in Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica, during the 1996/1997 Chinese First Antarctic Inland Expedition, has been measured for δ18O and major ions. Based on the high quality of the seasonal variations of major ions, the firn core was dated with errors within ±3 years. The features of the temperature change in the past 150 years in the investigated region have first been studied based on the oxygen isotope in the upper 32.93 m of the firn core. Results show that the temperature decreased nearly by 2°C in Princess Elizabeth Land in the past 150 years. On the background of the global, especially the Southern Hemispheric warming in the past 150 years, a temperature decline of 2°C in Princess Elizabeth Land likely reflects the impacts of the unique Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation, the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave (ACW) and the special terrain (such as the large drainage basins) on the coastal regions of Antarctica.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1360/02tb9325
___________________________
Bed topography of Princess Elizabeth Land in East Antarctica
2020
https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2020-126/essd-2020-126-manuscript-version4.pdf
___________________________
Climatic variability in Princess Elizabeth Land (East Antarctica) over the last 350 years
2017
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/13/61/2017/cp-13-61-2017.pdf
___________________________
List of mountains of Princess Elizabeth Land
The mountains of Princess Elizabeth Land are located in the region Princess Elizabeth Land, East Antarctica, between 73° E and 87° 55' 20" E. This region is claimed by Australia as part of the Australian Antarctic Territory.
The area is highly glaciated. The availability of reliable data for
this region is limited, making the list incomplete and inaccurate. The
highest peaks, including nunataks and ice domes, are listed below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountains_of_Princess_Elizabeth_Land
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Snow surface height variations on the Antarctic ice sheet in Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica: 1 year of data from an automatic weather station
14 September 2017
___________________________
A newly discovered subglacial lake in East Antarctica likely hosts a valuable sedimentary record of ice and climate change
2022
Abstract
The Princess Elizabeth Land sector of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is a significant reservoir of grounded ice and is adjacent to regions that experienced great change during Quaternary glacial cycles and Pliocene warm episodes. The existence of an extensive subglacial water system in Princess Elizabeth Land (to date only inferred from satellite imagery) bears the potential to significantly impact the thermal and kinematic conditions of the overlying ice sheet. We confirm the existence of a major subglacial lake, herein referred to as Lake Snow Eagle (LSE), for the first time using recently acquired aerogeophysical data. We systematically investigated LSE's geological characteristics and bathymetry from two-dimensional geophysical inversion models. The inversion results suggest that LSE is located along a compressional geologic boundary, which provides reference for future characterization of the geologic and tectonic context of this region. We estimate LSE to be ~42 km in length and 370 km2 in area, making it one of the largest subglacial lakes in Antarctica. Additionally, the airborne ice-penetrating radar observations and geophysical inversions reveal a layer of unconsolidated water-saturated sediment around and at the bottom of LSE, which—given the ultralow rates of sedimentation expected in such environments—may archive valuable records of paleoenvironmental changes and the early history of East Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution in Princess Elizabeth Land.
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G50009.1/613548/A-newly-discovered-subglacial-lake-in-East
___________________________
Environmental impacts of station development in the Larsemann Hills, Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica
1992
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479708800035
___________________________
The Home of the Blizzard
by Sir Douglas Mawson (1915)
Chapter 22: The Western Base — Linking up with Kaiser Wilhelm II Land
___________________________
Covariation of Sea ice and methanesulphonic acid in Wilhelm II Land, East Antarctica
14 September 2017
Abstract
Sea ice plays an important role in ocean–atmosphere heat exchange, global albedo and the marine ecosystem. Knowledge of variation in Sea-ice extent is essential in order to understand past climates, and to model possible future climate Scenarios. This paper presents results from a Short firn core Spanning 15 years collected from near Mount Brown, Wilhelm II Land, East Antarctica. Variations of methanesulphonic acid (MSA) at Mount Brown were positively correlated with Sea-ice extent from the coastal region Surrounding Mount Brown (60–120˚ E) and from around the entire Antarctic coast (0–360˚ E). Previous results from Law Dome identified this MSA–sea-ice relationship and proposed it as an Antarctic Sea-ice proxy (Curran and others, 2003), with the Strongest results found for the local Law Dome region. Our data provide Supporting evidence for the Law Dome proxy (at another Site in East Antarctica), but a deeper Mount Brown ice core is required to confirm the Sea-ice decline Suggested by Curran and others (2003). Results also indicate that this deeper record may also provide a more circum-Antarctic Sea-ice proxy.
___________________________
Mac. Robertson Land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac._Robertson_Land
___________________________
The Australian Antarctic Expedition to Mac-Robertson Land, 1954
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1791058
___________________________
Exposure ages from mountain dipsticks in Mac. Robertson Land, East Antarctica, indicate little change in ice-sheet thickness since the Last Glacial Maximum
June 01, 2007
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/35/6/551/129911/Exposure-ages-from-mountain-dipsticks-in-Mac
___________________________
Microfungi of Mac.Robertson and Enderby Lands, Antarctica
1 April 1985
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Microfungi-of-Mac.Robertson-and-Enderby-Lands%2C-Fletcher-Kerry/bc9265bc4cf5a58b312143e071da9dc549e4dd27
___________________________
Holocene Deglaciation of Mac.Robertson Land, East Antarctica
December 2005
Abstract
___________________________
New records of three moss species (Ptychostomum pseudotriquetrum, Schistidium antarctici, and Coscinodon lawianus) from the southern Prince Charles Mountains, Mac.Robertson Land, Antarctica
02 April 2012
Stable isotope and hydrogeochemical studies of Beaver Lake and Radok Lake, MacRobertson Land, East Antarctica
2011 Nov 17
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22092172/
___________________________
Retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet during the last glacial termination
16 January 2011
Abstract
The retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet at the end of the last glacial period has been attributed to both sea-level rise and warming of the ocean at the margin of the ice sheet, but it has been challenging to test these hypotheses. Given the lack of constraints on the timing of retreat, it has been difficult to evaluate whether the East Antarctic ice sheet contributed to meltwater pulse 1a, an abrupt sea-level rise of approximately 20 m that occurred about 14,700 years ago. Here we use terrestrial exposure ages and marine sedimentological analyses to show that ice retreat in Mac. Robertson Land, East Antarctica, initiated about 14,000 years ago, became widespread about 12,000 years ago, and was completed by about 7,000 years ago. We use two models of different complexities to assess the forcing of the retreat. Our simulations suggest that, although the initial stage of retreat may have been forced by sea-level rise, the majority of the ice loss resulted from ocean warming at the onset of the Holocene epoch. In light of our age model we conclude that the East Antarctic ice sheet is unlikely to have been the source of meltwater pulse 1a, and, on the basis of our simulations, suggest that Antarctic ice sheets made an insignificant contribution to eustatic sea-level rise at this time.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1061
___________________________
Geomorphology and sedimentology of the continental shelf adjacent to Mac. Robertson Land, East Antarctica: A scalped shelf
1996
___________________________
Contrasting P–T–t paths for Neoproterozoic metamorphism in MacRobertson and Kemp Lands, east Antarctica
21 July 2007
Abstract
Mineral equilibria modelling and electron microprobe chemical dating of monazite in granulite facies metapelitic assemblages from the MacRobertson Land coastline, Rayner Complex, east Antarctica, are consistent with an ‘anticlockwise’ Neoproterozoic P–T–t path. Metamorphism occurred at c. 990–970 Ma, achieving peak conditions of 850 °C and 5.6–6.2 kbar at Cape Bruce, and 900 °C and 5.4–6.2 kbar at the Forbes Glacier ∼50 km to the east. These peak metamorphic conditions preceded the emplacement of regionally extensive syntectonic charnockite. High temperature conditions are likely to have been sustained for 80 Myr by lithospheric thinning and repeated pluton emplacement; advection was accompanied by crustal thickening to maximum pressures of 6–7 kbar, followed by near-isobaric cooling. This P–T–t path is distinct from that of rocks in adjacent Kemp Land, ∼50 km to the west, where a ‘clockwise’P–T–t path from higher-P conditions at c. 940 Ma may reflect the response of a cratonic margin displaced from the main magma flux. In this scenario, crustal shortening was initially accommodated in younger, fertile crust (MacRobertson Land) involving metasediments and felsic plutons with the transfer of strain to adjacent older crust (Kemp Land) subsequent to charnockite emplacement.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1525-1314.2007.00723.x
___________________________
Prospect Point (Antarctica)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_Point_(Antarctica)
___________________________
Progress Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Station
___________________________
RI1ANZ Progress Station Antarctica
2019
https://dxnews.com/ri1anz-progress-antarctica/
___________________________
Progress in modelling and observing Antarctic glacial isostatic adjustment
https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article/54/4/4.33/181897?login=false
___________________________
Davis Sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_Sea
___________________________
The environmental impact of sewage and wastewater outfalls in Antarctica: An example from Davis station, East Antarctica
2016 Sep 18
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27693972/
___________________________
Movements of southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) from Davis Base, Antarctica: combining population genetics and tracking data
25 June 2022
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-022-03058-9
___________________________
Scientists study levels of toxic mercury in Antarctic seals, whales
February 6, 2024
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-scientists-toxic-mercury-antarctic-whales.html
___________________________
Application of a quantitative histological health index for Antarctic rock cod (Trematomus bernacchii) from Davis Station, East Antarctica
2015 Jun 3
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26070020/
___________________________
First polar mesosphere summer echoes observed at Davis, Antarctica (68.6°S)
2004
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230899657_First_polar_mesosphere_summer_echoes_observed_at_Davis_Antarctica_686S
___________________________
Planetary waves and intraseasonal oscillations at Davis, Antarctica, from undersampled time series
2007
https://www.academia.edu/26493342/Planetary_waves_and_intraseasonal_oscillations_at_Davis_Antarctica_from_undersampled_time_series
___________________________
Viral antibodies in south polar skuas around Davis Station, Antarctica
16 May 2008
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/viral-antibodies-in-south-polar-skuas-around-davis-station-antarctica/9A6D698EEAF75319EA0D312FC34B3478
___________________________
Observations of seasonal changes in diatoms at inshore localities near Davis Station, East Antarctica
1986
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00770237
___________________________
Hydrocarbons and sterols in marine sediments and soils at Davis Station, Antarctica: a survey for human-derived contaminants
12 May 2004
___________________________
Aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in surface sediments in Admiralty Bay, King George Island, Antarctica
03 June 2004
___________________________
Results from a 15-year study on hydrocarbon concentrations in water and sediment from Admiralty Bay, King George Island, Antarctica
18 February 2009
___________________________
Sterols and linear alkylbenzenes in marine sediments from Admiralty Bay, King George Island, South Shetland Islands
17 February 2003
___________________________
Understanding Environmental Pollution
2020
___________________________
Impacts of local human activities on the Antarctic environment
23 December 2008
___________________________
Novel use of faecal sterols to assess human faecal contamination in Antarctica: a likelihood assessment matrix for environmental monitoring
2014
___________________________
'A real bad precedent': Australia criticised for Antarctica airport plan
Multibillion-dollar project is unnecessary and damaging to wildlife, say scientists
___________________________
Kemp Land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemp_Land
___________________________
Eoarchean crust in East Antarctica: Extension from Enderby Land into Kemp Land
2020
Abstract
Pb
dates between 3860 and 3700 Ma, which can be attributed to magmatic and
possibly metamorphic activity. Concurrent analysis of 207Pb/206Pb ratios and LuHf isotopes in the trondhjemitic sample by laser ablation ICPMS provide initial εHf(t) estimates for this age range that are slightly sub-chondritic (ca 0 to −2). This can be attributed to the incorporation of older crust into the magmatic protoliths of the gneisses, although there is no requirement that this crustal source be older than Eoarchean. Much scatter in the UPb
dataset is attributable to isotopic disturbance of Pb during
high-temperature metamorphism at 2.5 Ga, and if not corrected for, can
lead to overestimation of model crust formation ages, a critical problem
in the search for evidence of Hadean crust in Eoarchean rocks, and for
estimating the timing and rate of ancient continental growth.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X21000514
___________________________
Accumulation variation in eastern Kemp Land, Antarctica
1994
The spatial pattern of accumulation rate for eastern Kemp Land in the elevation range 1850-2700 m is presented together with observations of the physical parameters of snow temperature, average microwave emissivity (19 GHz, H polarization), distribution of depth hoar and firn-crystal diameter. The broad accumulation pattern in the region was found to be significantly low when compared to other coastal areas of East Antarctica such as Wilkes Land. The low accumulation regime is attributed to low atmospheric moisture transport and low penetration of synoptic cyclonic systems on to the coastal slopes. In the absence of high coastal precipitation, the accumulation rate is determined predominantly by surface snow redistribution processes. Attempts to determine accumulation-rate time series using visible layer, δ18O isotope and electrical conductivity stratigraphies were unsuccessful due to the relatively low coastal accumulation rates (less than 280 kg m-2a-1) and the complex modification of precipitation by redistribution processes.δ18O variations of seemingly cyclic nature observed throughout the cores were interpreted as a product of the snow-dune building and erosion processes, together with general redistribution of snows by the surface wind field, under the influence of mesoscale topographic roughness
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Accumulation-variation-in-eastern-Kemp-Land%2C-Goodwin-Higham/805113b29a142674aa582764616e84e32fbf7ee2
___________________________
A two-stage evolution of the Neoproterozoic Rayner Structural Episode: new U–Pb sensitive high resolution ion microprobe constraints from the Oygarden Group, Kemp Land, East Antarctica
2002
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301926802000281
___________________________
Seismic reflection ice thickness and elevation data: Kemp Land 1957-1959
https://researchdata.edu.au/seismic-reflection-ice-1957-1959/701199
___________________________
Accumulation variation in eastern Kemp Land, Antarctica
20 January 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/accumulation-variation-in-eastern-kemp-land-antarctica/CC4D6C0138DC4CCF94BE7DB550889491
___________________________
Karm Island (Antarctica)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karm_Island_(Antarctica)
___________________________
Orcadas Base
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcadas_Base
___________________________
Changes in Climate at High Southern Latitudes
2010
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26189615
___________________________
Orcadas-Station
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcadas-Station
___________________________
South Orkney Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Orkney_Islands
___________________________
Katsutada Kaminuma’s research while affiliated with National Institute of Polar Research and other places
https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Kaminuma-2224055506
___________________________
Human change and adaptation in Antarctica: Psychological research on Antarctic wintering-over at Syowa station
2021
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7901687/
___________________________
Seasonal features and origins of carbonaceous aerosols at Syowa Station, coastal Antarctica
2019
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/19/7817/2019/
___________________________
Showa Station (Antarctica)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showa_Station_%28Antarctica%29
___________________________
Program of the Antarctic Syowa MST/IS radar
1 October 2014
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Program-of-the-Antarctic-Syowa-MST%2FIS-radar-Sato-Tsutsumi/c9841dcd8c0cf63afa46c0111bb50264621a46d1
___________________________
Human change and adaptation in Antarctica: Psychological research on Antarctic wintering-over at Syowa station
2021
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33617415/
___________________________
Relationship between total ozone amounts and stratospheric temperature at Syowa, Antarctica
20 February 1993
Using statistical methods, the relationship has been studied between total ozone and 100-mbar temperatures at Syowa Station, Antarctica (69[degrees]S, 40[degrees]E), based on data obtained in 1961-1981 and 1982-1988, the time of ozone depletion in Antarctica. Results indicate a strong, positive correlation between total ozone and 100-mbar stratospheric temperatures during September-March for all years, but lower ozone values at 100-mbar stratospheric temperatures colder than about [minus]60[degrees]C during the 1982-1988 period. Ozone destruction by heterogeneous photochemical processes is the main cause of ozone depletion over Syowa during the 1980's, with a lesser contribution from a change in air dynamics (heat, ozone, and momentum transport to Antarctica during the austral spring) that increased polar vortex stability, thereby promoting photochemical ozone depression within the vortex.
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/7064957-relationship-between-total-ozone-amounts-stratospheric-temperature-syowa-antarctica
___________________________
Identifying Snowfall Clouds at Syowa Station, Antarctica via a Convolutional Neural Network
23 July 2021
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-73113-7_7
___________________________
Evaluation of Seasonal Sea Level Variation at Syowa Station, Antarctica, Using GPS Observations
01 June 2002
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1021269416767
___________________________
Upper mesosphere summer echoes detected with the Antarctic Syowa HF radar
13 April 2002
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2001GL014094
___________________________
Measurement of black carbon at Syowa station, Antarctica: seasonal variation, transport processes and pathways
2008
https://www.academia.edu/51132505/Measurement_of_black_carbon_at_Syowa_station_Antarctica_seasonal_variation_transport_processes_and_pathways
___________________________
Meteorological observations at Syowa Station, Antarctica, 2008 by the 49th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition
2013
https://kyushu-u.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/meteorological-observations-at-syowa-station-antarctica-2008-by-t
___________________________
Gravitational separation of the stratospheric air over Syowa, Antarctica and its connection with meteorological fields
25 September 2018
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asl.857
___________________________
Abundance and diversity of functional genes involved in the degradation of aromatic hydrocarbons in Antarctic soils and sediments around Syowa Station
2014 Oct 22
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25335763/
___________________________
Molodyozhnaya Station (Antarctica)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molodyozhnaya_Station_(Antarctica)
___________________________
Precambrian basement at Molodezhnaya Station, East Antarctica
June 01, 1978
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-abstract/89/6/801/202296/Precambrian-basement-at-Molodezhnaya-Station-East
___________________________
Life under ice in the perennial ice‐covered Lake Glubokoe in Summer (East Antarctica)
June 2015
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279969520_Life_under_ice_in_the_perennial_ice-covered_Lake_Glubokoe_in_Summer_East_Antarctica
___________________________
Total-ozone and nitrogen-dioxide measurements at the Molodezhnaya and Mirnyi Antarctic stations during spring 1987-autumn 1988
September 1991
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991OpAt....4.1006E/abstract
___________________________
Enderby Land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enderby_Land
___________________________
Geology of Enderby Land
May 2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Enderby_Land
___________________________
Soils of Enderby Land
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299043159_Soils_of_Enderby_Land
___________________________
Osumilite-sapphirine-quartz granulites from Enderby Land Antarctica — Mineral assemblages and reactions
April 1980
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00399473
___________________________
Archean Rocks in Antarctica: 2.5-Billion-Year Uranium-Lead Ages of Pegmatites in Enderby Land
Abstract
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.206.4417.443
___________________________
Xes-Xen thermochronology of the Rayner metamorphic complex, Enderby Land (East Antarctica, Molodezhnaya Station Area)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0869591114050051
___________________________
Fluoride toxicity to aquatic organisms: a review
2002
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653502004988
___________________________
Determination of Fluoride Concentration in Antarctic Krill (Euphausia superba) using Dielectric Spectroscopy
22 May 2015
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bkcs.10295
___________________________
Fluoride content of Antarctic marine animals caught off Elephant Island
October 1982
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00263809
___________________________
Fluoride content of salmonids fed on Antarctic krill
1981
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0044848681900569
___________________________
Reduction of the bioavailability of fluoride from Antarctic krill by calcium
2009
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10719576/
___________________________
Effect
of dietary fluoride derived from Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba)
meal on growth of yellowtail (Seriola quinqueradiata)
2011 Nov 21
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22113059/
___________________________
Composition and content analysis of fluoride in inorganic salts of the integument of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba)
2019 May 27
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6536536/
___________________________
Fluoride in Antarctic marine crustaceans
December 1998
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225738396_Fluoride_in_Antarctic_marine_crustaceans
___________________________
Bone Response to Fluoride Exposure Is Influenced by Genetics
December 11, 2014
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0114343
___________________________
Effect of irradiance on the emission of short-lived halocarbons from three common tropical marine microalgae
April 19, 2019
https://peerj.com/articles/6758/
___________________________
Ozone Depletion by Nitrogen Fertilizer Should be Tackled Soon
21st September, 2021
https://www.daily-sun.com/post/577883/Ozone-Depletion-by-Nitrogen-Fertilizer-Should-be-Tackled-Soon
___________________________
Large Diversity in Nitrogen- and Sulfur-Containing Compatible Solute Profiles in Polar and Temperate Diatoms
22 September 2020
https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/60/6/1401/5909998?login=false
___________________________
Lichens and nitrogen cycling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichens_and_nitrogen_cycling
___________________________
Concentrations and ratios of particulate organic carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in the global ocean
2014 Dec 9
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4421931/
___________________________
Carbon and Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Microbial Communities in Antarctic Soils
April 2016
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1813353P/abstract
___________________________
Purple Bacteria Fix Nitrogen in Proterozoic-Analogue Lake
28 September 2021
A new study challenges the assumption that cyanobacteria were the only major nitrogen fixers in the Proterozoic eon.
https://eos.org/articles/purple-bacteria-fix-nitrogen-in-proterozoic-analogue-lake
___________________________
Cave-Dwelling "Slime Curtains" Cycle Nitrogen and Iron
4 November 2015
In
a cave accessible only by daredevil divers, extraordinary microbial
colonies metabolize nitrogen and iron nutrients and possibly remove
pollutants from water.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986JGR....9110771C/abstract
___________________________
Carbon and nitrogen dynamics in a maritime Antarctic stream
1993
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/carbon-and-nitrogen-dynamics-in-a-maritime-antarctic-stream-1dr98rM9I0
___________________________
Soil nitrogen transformations on a subantarctic island
13 May 2004
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/soil-nitrogen-transformations-on-a-subantarctic-island/DF9D6A51922F92A5E52855E9517B3054
___________________________
Nitrogen Inputs by Marine Vertebrates Drive Abundance and Richness in Antarctic Terrestrial Ecosystems
May 09, 2019
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30436-1
___________________________
Stable isotopic biogeochemistry of carbon and nitrogen in a perennially ice-covered Antarctic lake
1993
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11539299/
___________________________
Microbial Nitrogen Cycling in Antarctic Soils
21 September 2020
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/8/9/1442
___________________________
Nitrogen Inputs by Marine Vertebrates Drive Abundance and Richness in Antarctic Terrestrial Ecosystems
2019
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982219304361
___________________________
Nitrogen isotopic evidence for a poleward decrease in surface nitrate within the ice age Antarctic
2008
Abstract
Surface sediment diatom-bound δ15N along a
latitudinal transect of 170°W shows a previously unobserved increase to
the South of the Antarctic Polar Front. The southward δ15N
increase is best explained by the combination of two changes toward the
South, a decrease in the isotope effect of nitrate assimilation (ε)
and an increase in the degree of nitrate consumption, both associated
with shoaling of the mixed layer into the seasonal ice zone (SIZ). New
downcore records show high amplitude changes in diatom-bound δ15N during the last ice age, with intervals of higher δ15N,
including the last glacial maximum, the transition between marine
isotope stages 5 and 4, and marine isotope stage 6, while other
intervals are similar in δ15N to interglacial
sediments. Variation in the range of 0–3‰, as seen in previously
published records, may be entirely due to changes in ε.
However, the observed magnitude of the change of 4–10‰ in the three new
records and the locations of these records relative to the modern
meridional gradient in mixed layer depth appear to require increased
nitrate consumption to explain the high-δ15N
intervals. The new sites are near the modern Southern Antarctic
Circumpolar Current Front (SACCF), and one of the sites has been shown
to be associated with sporadic summer sea ice during the LGM. As with
other Antarctic sites, the available proxy data suggest that they were
characterized by lower export production. Based on these and other
observations, we propose that the weak southward nitrate decrease in the
modern Antarctic surface was a fully developed “nutrient front” in the
glacial Antarctic, associated with the SACCF. Both modern ocean and
paleoceanographic work is needed to test this hypothesis, which would
have major implications for atmospheric CO2.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379108000474
___________________________
Upper ocean nitrogen fluxes in the Polar Antarctic Zone: Constraints from the nitrogen and oxygen isotopes of nitrate
26 November 2009
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009GC002468
___________________________
Algae: Nitrogen Fixation by Antarctic Species
15 Mar 1963
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.139.3559.1059
___________________________
Nitrogen-Fixing Microbes Found in Antarctic Sea
Oct 28, 2020
The discovery puts a nail in the coffin of a long-held assumption about the limits of where the essential process can occur.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/nitrogen-fixing-microbes-found-in-antarctic-sea-68099
___________________________
Biological nitrogen fixation detected under Antarctic sea ice
26 October 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-020-00651-7
___________________________
External nutrient inputs into terrestrial ecosystems of the Falkland Islands and the Maritime Antarctic region
04 May 2007
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-007-0292-0
___________________________
Nitrogen dynamics in two antarctic streams
March 1989
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00031612
___________________________
CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF BELARUSIAN ANTARCTIC RESEARCH STATION AT MOUNT VECHERNYAYA, ENDERBY LAND
2015
https://documents.ats.aq/ATCM38/att/ATCM38_att085_e.pdf
___________________________
New South Greenland
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Greenland
___________________________
50 amazing facts about Antarctica
There are buried mountains
A lake is hidden under ice
A rift could rival the Grand Canyon
A rift that could rival the Grand Canyon was discovered beneath the Antarctic ice during an expedition conducted during 2009-2010. It is roughly 6 miles (10 km) across and at least 62 miles (100 km) long, possibly far longer if it extends into the sea. It extends nearly a mile down (1.5 km) at its deepest.
There's a great divide
Antarctica's lake is salty
https://www.livescience.com/43881-amazing-antarctica-facts.html
___________________________
History of Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Antarctica
___________________________
Exploring Antarctica with Google Street View
2014
https://twistedsifter.com/2014/02/exploring-antarctica-with-google-street-view/
___________________________
Geoscientists to study structure and properties of Antarctic lithosphere
June 24, 2022
https://source.wustl.edu/2022/06/geoscientists-to-study-structure-and-properties-of-antarctic-lithosphere/
___________________________
Preliminary Measurements of Growth of Nonsorted Polygons, Victoria Land, Antarctica
01 January 1966
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/AR008p0061
___________________________
Modern Horizontal Crustal Motions in Victoria Land, Antarctica: Influence of Heterogeneous Earth Structure on Solid Earth Deformation
Dec 2012
https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2008.01593.x
___________________________
PBDEs and PCBs in terrestrial ecosystems of the Victoria Land, Antarctica
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31129404/
___________________________
Catalog of Meteorites from Victoria Land, Antarctica, 1978-1980
1982
https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/832
___________________________
Ordinary Chondrite Falls and Congeners from Victoria Land, Antarctic: Derivation from Different Parent Regions
February 1985
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234339693_Ordinary_Chondrite_Falls_and_Congeners_from_Victoria_Land_Antarctic_Derivation_from_Different_Parent_Regions
___________________________
Recent regional climate cooling on the Antarctic Peninsula and associated impacts on the cryosphere
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969716327152
___________________________
Does polar amplification exist in Antarctic surface during the recent four decades?
27 October 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11629-021-6912-2
___________________________
Polar Amplification: Stronger Warming in the Arctic and Antarctic
October 18, 2022
https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2022.703805
___________________________
Assessment of future Antarctic amplification of surface temperature change under different Scenarios from CMIP6
18 April 2023
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11629-022-7646-5
___________________________
Polar amplification comparison among Earth’s three poles under different socioeconomic scenarios from CMIP6 surface air temperature
___________________________
On the meridional extent and fronts of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current
1995
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/096706379500021W
___________________________
Latitudinal distribution of OCPs in the open ocean atmosphere between the Argentinian coast and Antarctic Peninsula
26 February 2018
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-018-1572-7
___________________________
20th-Century doubling in dust archived in an Antarctic Peninsula ice core parallels climate change and desertification in South America
2007
https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.0607657104
___________________________
Signatures of the Antarctic ozone hole in Southern Hemisphere surface climate change
23 October 2011
Abstract
Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have driven and will continue to drive widespread climate change at the Earth's surface. But surface climate change is not limited to the effects of increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Anthropogenic emissions of ozone-depleting gases also lead to marked changes in surface climate, through the radiative and dynamical effects of the Antarctic ozone hole. The influence of the Antarctic ozone hole on surface climate is most pronounced during the austral summer season and strongly resembles the most prominent pattern of large-scale Southern Hemisphere climate variability, the Southern Annular Mode. The influence of the ozone hole on the Southern Annular Mode has led to a range of significant summertime surface climate changes not only over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, but also over New Zealand, Patagonia and southern regions of Australia. Surface climate change as far equatorward as the subtropical Southern Hemisphere may have also been affected by the ozone hole. Over the next few decades, recovery of the ozone hole and increases in greenhouse gases are expected to have significant but opposing effects on the Southern Annular Mode and its attendant climate impacts during summer.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1296/
___________________________
The Antarctic ozone hole is healing, thanks to global reduction of CFCs
March 5, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-antarctic-ozone-hole-global-reduction.html
___________________________
Antarctic ozone hole getting deeper in mid-spring, research suggests
November 25, 2023
The hole in the Antarctic ozone layer has been getting deeper in
mid-spring over the last two decades, despite a global ban on chemicals
that deplete Earth's shield from deadly solar radiation, new research
suggested Tuesday...
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-antarctic-ozone-hole-deeper-mid-spring.html
___________________________
Antimicrobial resistance in Antarctica: is it still a pristine environment?
2022
https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s40168-022-01250-x.pdf
___________________________
Kaiser Wilhelm II Land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_II_Land
___________________________
The Race for the Last White Spot on the Map: The First German South Polar Expedition (1901–1903)
04 February 2021
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-40924-1_1
___________________________
Second German Antarctic Expedition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_German_Antarctic_Expedition
___________________________
Changes in Antarctic coastline between 1997 and 2016 using RADARSAT and MODIS data
September 2019
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335905708_Changes_in_Antarctic_coastline_between_1997_and_2016_using_RADARSAT_and_MODIS_data
___________________________
Late Holocene dust provenance at Siple Dome, Antarctica
December 2021
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021QSRv..27407271K/abstract
___________________________
Snow chemistry across Antarctica
14 September 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/snow-chemistry-across-antarctica/21D1905871B81C925E37BC62B94957DB
___________________________
Past, Present and Future Climate of Antarctica
January 2013
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276031189_Past_Present_and_Future_Climate_of_Antarctica
___________________________
Grand Duchy of Gaussland
Gaussland, officially the Grand Duchy of Guassland (Portuguese: Grão-Ducado de Gaussland), is a micronation in Antarctica, and it is a vassal state of the Kingdom of Ruthenia, ruled by personal union since 30 June 2015 and recognised by Antarctic Micronational Union in 30 July 2015. It consists of the Kaiser Wilhelm II Land and adjacences and lies a claim over the territory between USLSSR and St.Charlie and is the sixteenth micronation to join the Antarctic Micronational Union.
https://micronations.wiki/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Gaussland
___________________________
Kingdom of Ruthenia
Ruthenia, officially the Kingdom of Ruthenia (Portuguese: Reino da Rutênia), is a confederate constitutional monarchy located in South America, Europe and Eastern Antarctica. Claiming approximately three kilometers of territory, its capital is Persenburg-Götzödorf, having previously been Alto da Solidão.
A constitutional monarchy since 6 February 2015,[1] state power is divided between the King, currently Oscar I, the Council of State, and the General Assembly. From the creation of the Kingdom until February 2015, Ruthenia was governed under an absolute monarchy, and for one week between January and February 2015, the King exercised a royal dictatorship.[2] After this, the Ruthenian democracy has become stable and has been perpetuated ever since.
Although founded in 2014 by the current King, the roots of Ruthenia date back a century, with great power exercised by the Royal Family in the Land of St. Stephen and Land of St. Peter and St. Paul, regions giving rise to the kingdom as it is known today. Ruthenia's territory has changed over time. In Brazil, virtually all land is owned by and under the direct rule of the King, with a flagrant tendency to expand. Overseas, the kingdom controls swathes of territory in Europe[3][4] and the Eastern portion of Antarctica.
https://micronations.wiki/wiki/Kingdom_of_Ruthenia
___________________________
Diversity gradients of rotifer species richness in Antarctica
26 March 2015
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10750-015-2258-5
___________________________
Snow chemistry across Antarctica
June 2005
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229041077_Snow_chemistry_across_Antarctica
___________________________
Antarctica - A Frozen History
May 21, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SxXjN7WT90
___________________________
The University of Michigan Collections of Antarctic Rocks and Minerals
1934
https://www.jstor.org/stable/984798
___________________________
Australian Antarctic Territory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Antarctic_Territory
___________________________
Australia: A Land Filled with Super Volcanoes
2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbiTIR8N4Hc
___________________________
The Secret History of the Supernova at the Bottom of the Sea
How a star explosion may have shaped life on Earth.
___________________________
The Burckle Crater Mega Tsunami & Global Flood (THE FULL DOCUMENTARY)
Apr 29, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-dlEz8gNkI
___________________________
Articles in Antarctica
https://latitude.to/articles-by-country/aq/antarctica/page/7
___________________________
Last millennium climate changes over the Antarctic Peninsula and southern Patagonia in CESM-LME simulations: Differences between Medieval Climate Anomaly and present-day temperatures
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379121004807
___________________________
A Look Into the International Research Stations of Antarctica
https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/blog/a-look-into-the-international-research-stations-of-antarctica
___________________________
Reliability of Antarctic air temperature changes from Polar WRF: A comparison with observations and MAR outputs
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169809521005238
___________________________
Late Holocene dust provenance at Siple Dome, Antarctica
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379121004789
___________________________
Chapter 6 - The Antarctic Continent in Gondwana: a perspective from the Ross Embayment and Potential Research Targets for Future Investigations
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128191095000049
___________________________
A new species of Pareledone (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) from Antarctic Peninsula Waters
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-006-0248-9
___________________________
A real-time cosmic ray monitoring at the Antarctic station Mirny
2009
https://galprop.stanford.edu/elibrary/icrc/2009/preliminary/pdf/icrc1070.pdf
___________________________
Plastic occurrence, sources, and impacts in Antarctic environment and biota
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772735122000488
___________________________
The potential for mineral exploration and extraction in Antarctica
2011
https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/14152/Broughton%20-The%20potential%20for%20mineral%20exploration%20and%20extraction%20in%20Antarctica.pdf?sequence=1
___________________________
Age distribution of Antarctic Bottom Water off Cape Darnley, East Antarctica, estimated using chlorofluorocarbon and sulfur hexafluoride
Jun 2022
https://paperity.org/p/289476930/age-distribution-of-antarctic-bottom-water-off-cape-darnley-east-antarctica-estimated
___________________________
Pan–ice-sheet glacier terminus change in East Antarctica reveals sensitivity of Wilkes Land to sea-ice changes
Abstract
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1501350
___________________________
The glacial geomorphology of the Antarctic ice sheet bed
2014
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0954102014000212
___________________________
Biodiversity, distribution and community structure of benthic hydroids from Point Géologie Archipelago (Dumont d’Urville Sea, Adélie Land, Antarctica)
03 February 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-021-02802-x
___________________________
Scientists Just Made A Terrifying Discovery In The Mariana Trench After A Deep Sea Probe Found This
Jul 26, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kt-kDxWMyI
___________________________
Ice wedge
An ice wedge is a crack in the ground formed by a narrow or thin piece of ice that measures up to 3–4 meters in length at ground level and extends downwards into the ground up to several meters. During the winter months, the water in the ground freezes and expands.
Ice wedges in Sprengisandur, Iceland
Lakes in the Mackenzie delta. In the foreground, a drained lake shows large, low-centered ice-wedge polygons
Peninsula at the coast of the Arctic Ocean in the Mackenzie Delta area showing well developed ice-wedge polygons. A Caribou herd is grazing on it.
A melting pingo with surrounding ice wedge polygons near Tuktoyaktuk, Canada
Ice wedge exposed by erosion along the Beaufort Sea coast, Canada. The wedge formed by thermal contraction of the ground which opened a crack in winter. The crack filled with meltwater in the spring which then froze in the permafrost, causing the thin vertical lines of ice and sediment that form the wedge itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_wedge
___________________________
Warm ocean water attacking edges of Antarctica's ice shelves
October 9, 2019
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-ocean-edges-antarctica-ice-shelves.html
___________________________
In the dark, freezing ocean under Antarctica's largest ice shelf, we discovered a thriving microbial jungle
March 11, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-dark-ocean-antarctica-largest-ice.html
___________________________
The real ice sheets of Antarctica
February 8, 2016
https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-climate/2396/the-real-ice-sheets-of-antarctica/
___________________________
Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Just Lost Enough Ice to Cover Manhattan 5 Times Over
October 30, 2018
At 115 square miles (300 square kilometers), the enormous amount of ice that calved off the glacier's ice shelf is even larger than the mass that broke off last year, Lhermitte said.
However, the newborn iceberg didn't stay in one piece for long. Within a day, it had splintered into smaller pieces, with the largest piece measuring a substantial 87 square miles (226 square km) before it later broke apart even more, Lhermitte said.
The biggest iceberg was large enough to receive a name, but it's not yet clear whether this will happen, given that it existed for such a short time. But, if it does get a moniker, it will likely be called B-46 by the U.S. National Ice Center, Lhermitte said.
Lhermitte first noticed the crack that led to this giant calving event while looking at an Oct. 3 satellite image. Lhermitte said he gets a satellite image of the Pine Island Glacier in his inbox every day, "and all of a sudden I saw something I didn't see the day before," he told Live Science at the time.
But, after going back and looking at images from Sentinel-1, a satellite run by the European Space Agency, Lhermitte found that the crack actually appeared the last week of September, between Sept. 25 and 30. By compiling satellite images together, Lhermitte made a GIF showing how rapidly the iceberg cracked off from the ice shelf.
The newest iceberg to break off of Pine Island Glacier is large enough to cover Manhattan with ice five times over
Even more dramatic is a time-lapse from 1972 to 2018, showing how the ice shelf has retreated over the years. It's natural for ice sheets to grow and shrink over time, as this time-lapse shows. But in 2015, the ice sheet dramatically retreated, and then continued to retreat until present day without showing any growth, Lhermitte said.
For years, the ice sheet was hitting a shallow point on the ocean floor, called a pinning point, which might have kept it from regressing too far back, Lhermitte said. "After 2015, it lost the connection with this pinning point, which could explain the retreat in 2015 and 2017," Lhermitte said. "And now this [ice shelf break] is about 5 kilometers [3.1 miles] farther inland."
Moreover, Pine Island Glacier appears to be calving icebergs more frequently than it used to. In early 2000, the glacier birthed icebergs about once every six years, with calving events happening in 2001, 2007 and 2013. But since 2013, there were four of them: in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2018, Lhermitte said.
"The retreat we see now is outside of what we have observed [in modern times]," Lhermitte said. And that's concerning because ice shelves are key structural elements for glaciers; they slow the flow of ice into the ocean, much like dirt in a clogged drain impedes the flow of water, he said.
https://www.livescience.com/63974-pine-island-iceberg-calves-2018.html
___________________________
Early to middle Miocene ice sheet dynamics in the westernmost Ross Sea (Antarctica): Regional correlations
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818122001588
___________________________
Maitri (research station)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitri_(research_station)
___________________________
Physical properties of aerosols at Maitri, Antarctica
March 2004
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02701995
___________________________
Triggered chorus emissions recorded at Indian antarctic station, maitri, antarctica
https://www.journalcra.com/article/triggered-chorus-emissions-recorded-indian-antarctic-station-maitri-antarctica-l-45
___________________________
Surface ozone characterization at Larsemann Hills and Maitri, Antarctica
2017 Jan 30
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28153404/
___________________________
The ozone hole measurements at the Indian station Maitri in Antarctica
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873965221000785
___________________________
The ion–aerosol interactions from the ion mobility and aerosol particle size distribution measurements on January 17 and February 18, 2005 at Maitri, Antarctica – A case study
2011
https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jess/120/04/0735-0754
___________________________
Impact of the harsh Antarctic environment on mucosal immunity
08 September 2021
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/impact-of-the-harsh-antarctic-environment-on-mucosal-immunity/26F574E55BBB193BE4ADC349E43E27EB
___________________________
Fair-weather atmospheric electricity study at Maitri (Antarctica)
December 2013
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EP%26S...65.1541S/abstract
___________________________
Occurrence characteristics of electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves at sub-auroral Antarctic station Maitri during solar cycle 24
2020
https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-020-01157-7
___________________________
Novolazarevskaya Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novolazarevskaya_Station
___________________________
Bacterial diversity of the rock-water interface in an East Antarctic freshwater ecosystem, Lake Tawani(P)†
2013
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3740781/
___________________________
Marine pelagic ecosystems: the west Antarctic Peninsula
2007
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17405208/
___________________________
Largest fish nursery discovered beneath Weddell Sea in Antarctica
They found 60 million icefish nests
Researchers in the Weddell Sea were surprised to find 60 million icefish nests, each guarded by an adult and each holding an average of 1,700 eggs
https://www.livescience.com/largest-icefish-breeding-colony-discovered-antarctica
___________________________
Sea-ice thickness in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica: a comparison of model and upward-looking sonar data
14 September 2017
Abstract
Sea-ice thickness is a key parameter for estimates of salt fluxes to the ocean and the contribution to global thermohaline circulation. Observations of sea-ice thickness in the Southern Ocean are sparse and difficult to collect. An exception to this data gap is time-series data from upward-looking sonars (ULS) which sample the drifting sea ice continuously. In this study we use ULS data from ten different locations over periods ranging from 9 to 25 months to compare with model data. Although these data are limited in space and time, they provide a qualitative indication of the ability of global climate models (GCMs) to adequately represent Southern Ocean sea ice. We compare the ULS data to output from four different GCMs (BCCR-BCM2.0, ECHAM5/MPI-OM, UKMO-HadCM3 and NCAR CCSM3) which were used for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They simulate the ice thickness reasonably well, but in most cases average model ice thickness is less than thicknesses derived from ULS data. The seasonal cycle produced by the models correlates well with the ULS except for locations near Maud Rise, where in summer the ULS find a low concentration of thick ice floes. This overly thin ice will have implications for both the salt flux to the central Weddell Sea during the growth season and the freshwater flux during the melt season. Using satellite-derived ice-drift data to calculate transports in the Weddell Sea, we find that the underestimation of ice thickness results in underestimated salt fluxes.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/seaice-thickness-in-the-weddell-sea-antarctica-a-comparison-of-model-and-upwardlooking-sonar-data/E10A58A633C01F2F33EF492036444568
___________________________
Seasonal sea-ice variability and its trend in the Weddell Sea sector of West Antarctica
February 2021
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348577673_Seasonal_sea-ice_variability_and_its_trend_in_the_Weddell_Sea_sector_of_West_Antarctica
___________________________
Chemical defenses of tunicates of the genus Aplidium from the Weddell Sea (Antarctica)
2010
https://www.academia.edu/82507915/Chemical_defenses_of_tunicates_of_the_genus_Aplidium_from_the_Weddell_Sea_Antarctica_
___________________________
Iceberg drift and ocean circulation in the northwestern Weddell Sea, Antarctica
2018
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967064517302485
___________________________
Seismostratigraphic Analysis and Glacial History of the Weddell Sea Region, Antarctica
01 January 2015
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-13865-7_22
___________________________
No detectable Weddell Sea Antarctic Bottom Water export during the Last and Penultimate Glacial Maximum
2020
Abstract
Weddell Sea-derived Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is one of the most important deep water masses in the Southern Hemisphere occupying large portions of the deep Southern Ocean (SO) today. While substantial changes in SO-overturning circulation were previously suggested, the state of Weddell Sea AABW export during glacial climates remains poorly understood. Here we report seawater-derived Nd and Pb isotope records that provide evidence for the absence of Weddell Sea-derived AABW in the Atlantic sector of the SO during the last two glacial maxima. Increasing delivery of Antarctic Pb to regions outside the Weddell Sea traced SO frontal displacements during both glacial terminations. The export of Weddell Sea-derived AABW resumed late during glacial terminations, coinciding with the last major atmospheric CO2 rise in the transition to the Holocene and the Eemian. Our new records lend strong support for a previously inferred AABW overturning stagnation event during the peak Eemian interglacial.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31969564/
___________________________
Deglacial history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the Weddell Sea embayment: Constraints on past ice volume change
May 01, 2010
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/38/5/411/130202/Deglacial-history-of-the-West-Antarctic-Ice-Sheet?redirectedFrom=fulltext
___________________________
Microplastics in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica): A Forensic Approach for Discrimination between Environmental and Vessel-Induced Microplastics
November 2021
https://theoceancleanup.com/scientific-publications/microplastics-in-the-weddell-sea-antarctica-a-forensic-approach-for-discrimination-between-environmental-and-vessel-induced-microplastics/
___________________________
Distribution and abundance of the Weddell seal in the western Ross Sea, Antarctica
1968
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00288330.1969.9515288
___________________________
Giant hole the size of Maine reopens in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea
11 Oct 2017
A giant hole as large as the state of Maine has opened up in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea for the second year in a row, confusing scientists due to its unusual characteristics. Known by the Russian word polynya, the area surrounded by solid sea ice is hundreds of kilometers from the ice edge and researchers based at Princeton University were able to identify it thanks to satellite images.
Polynyas usually form in Antarctica’s coastal and scientists are trying to figure out why this one is so “deep in the ice pack,” as atmospheric physicist Kent Moore told Motherboard. A professor at the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus, he warned it was too soon to attribute the mysterious hole to global warming.
The strange hole measured 80,000 km at its peak, and it will have a significant impact on the oceans by driving convection. When the sea ice melts back, it leads to a sharp contrast between the atmosphere and the sea, Moore explained. He added that the polynya could stay open as the colder water reaches the bottom of the ocean and pushes warmer water to the surface.
___________________________
Scientific background document in support of the development of a CCAMLR MPA in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica)–Version 2014
https://www.academia.edu/es/18800550/Scientific_background_document_in_support_of_the_development_of_a_CCAMLR_MPA_in_the_Weddell_Sea_Antarctica_Version_2014
___________________________
Sea cucumbers (Echinodermata, Holothuroidea) from the JR275 expedition to the eastern Weddell Sea, Antarctica
August 2021
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353696028_Sea_cucumbers_Echinodermata_Holothuroidea_from_the_JR275_expedition_to_the_eastern_Weddell_Sea_Antarctica
___________________________
Meso- and macro-zooplankton community structure of the Amundsen Sea Polynya, Antarctica (Summer 2010–2011)
2015
https://www.academia.edu/12676736/Meso_and_macro_zooplankton_community_structure_of_the_Amundsen_Sea_Polynya_Antarctica_Summer_2010_2011_
___________________________
Light availability rather than Fe controls the magnitude of massive phytoplankton bloom in the Amundsen Sea polynyas, Antarctica
21 April 2017
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/lno.10565
___________________________
Halocarbon emissions from marine phytoplankton and climate change
09 January 2017
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-016-1219-5
___________________________
Amplified Arctic warming by phytoplankton under greenhouse warming
April 20, 2015
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1416884112
___________________________
Antarctic meltwater-induced dynamical changes in phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean
10 February 2022
Abstract
It has been suggested that the freshwater flux due to the recent melting of the Antarctic ice-sheet/shelf will suppress ventilation in the Southern Ocean (SO). In this study, we performed idealized earth-system simulations to examine the impacts of Antarctic meltwater on the biomass of surface phytoplankton in the Antarctic Ocean. The enhanced stratification due to the meltwater leads to a decrease in surface nitrate concentration, but an increase in the surface concentration of dissolved iron. These changes are associated with the reduced upwelling of nitrate-rich deep water and the trapped iron exported from terrestrial sediment. Because of the limited iron availability in the SO, the trapped iron in surface water enhances the chlorophyll concentration in the open ocean. However, in the marginal sea along the Antarctic coastline where the iron is relatively sufficient, a nitrate reduction induces a chlorophyll decrease, indicating a regime shift from iron-limited to nitrate-limited conditions.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac444e
___________________________
Phytoplankton growth rates in the Amundsen Sea (Antarctica) during summer: The role of light
2021 Oct 4
Abstract
In the Amundsen Sea, significant global warming accelerates ice melt, and is consequently altering many ocean properties such as sea ice concentration, surface freshening, water column stratification, and underwater light properties. To examine the influence of light, which is one of the fundamental factors for phytoplankton growth, incubation experiments and field surveys were performed during the austral summer of 2016. In the incubation experiments, phytoplankton abundance and carbon biomass significantly increased with increasing light levels, probably indicating light limitation. Growth rates of the small pennates (mean 0.42 d-1) increased most rapidly with an increase in light, followed by those of Phaeocystis antarctica (0.31 d-1), and the large diatoms (0.16 d-1). A short-term study during the field survey showed that phytoplankton distribution in the surface layer was likely controlled by different responses to light and the sinking rate of each species. These results suggest that the approach adopted by previous studies of explaining phytoplankton ecology as a characteristic of two major taxa, namely diatoms and P. antarctica, in the coastal Antarctic waters might cause errors owing to oversimplification and misunderstanding, since diatoms comprise several species that have different ecophysiological characteristics.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34619128/
___________________________
Hydrography and Phytoplankton Distribution in the Amundsen and Ross Seas
2009
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539617887/
___________________________
Response
of the Arctic Marine Inorganic Carbon System to Ice Algae and Under-Ice
Phytoplankton Blooms: A Case Study Along the Fast-Ice Edge of Baffin
Bay
15 January 2019
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JC013899
___________________________
Benthos in the Antarctic Weddell Sea in Decline
08 May 2020
Over the past quarter-century, changes in Antarctic sea-ice cover have had profound impacts on life on the ocean floor. As biologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute report in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, between 1988 and 2014, total benthic biomass on the continental shelf of the northeast Weddell Sea declined by two thirds. In addition, the composition of the benthos changed drastically, and the ecosystem’s productivity suffered. This period coincides with a significant increase in sea-ice cover in the region, a trend that peaked in 2014.
The Antarctic is home to a unique variety of benthic fauna, with an extraordinarily diverse range of species, and many groups of organisms that are rarely if ever found in other marine regions. Predators like large crabs are nowhere to be seen; as a result, sponges and gorgonians (soft corals), which normally have to hide in the sediment to avoid predators, can grow in denser clumps. In fact, in some areas of the Antarctic continental shelf these species cover the ocean floor like a carpet. They have adapted to conditions of extreme cold and scarce food, and grow slowly, which allows them to reach unusual sizes and ages. “Due to their slow growth, changes in the structure and composition of benthic communities in the Antarctic are extremely difficult to detect,” explains Prof. Claudio Richter, a biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). “Consequently, to date it’s been impossible to predict how benthic communities in the Antarctic would react to climate-based changes in their environment,” says the co-author, who is a Professor of Marine Animal Ecology at the University of Bremen.
In the current issue of the journal Nature Communications, the AWI biologists show that, over a 26-year-long timeframe, benthic biomass on the continental shelf of the Antarctic Weddell Sea steadily declined. The team began their work back in the 1980s, collecting samples from the seafloor when the research icebreakerPolarstern first visited the region. One of the study’s authors, Dieter Gerdes, was among the pioneers, and developed a sample-gathering device specifically for this type of research: the two-metric-ton multibox corer, which can simultaneously collect nine seafloor samples every time it is deployed. From 1988 to 2014, the behemoth was used 59 times in the Kapp Norvegia/Auståsen research area, located 81 miles southwest of Germany’s Neumayer research station. In the course of eight Polarstern expeditions, the experts gathered more than 300 seafloor samples, sifted through 45 metric tons of sediment, and sorted and counted tens of thousands of marine organisms. “The side effects of our study were aching limbs and ending up covered in mud from head to toe on the freezing working deck, not to mention a good deal of eye strain from too much time behind the microscope,” reports Claudio Richter, offering a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the demanding working conditions on the Antarctic expeditions.
https://www.enn.com/articles/63499-benthos-in-the-antarctic-weddell-sea-in-decline
___________________________
Antarctica's Weddell Sea 'deserves protected status'
23 January 2018
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42795208
___________________________
King Haakon VII Sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Haakon_VII_Sea
___________________________
A .second survey of seals in the King Haakon VII Sea, Antarctica
1975
___________________________
Results of the fourth seal survey in the King Haakon VII Sea, Antarctica
1977
https://alp.lib.sun.ac.za/bitstream/handle/123456789/7552/results_of_the_fourth_seal_survey_in_the_king_haakon_vii_sea_antarctica.pdf
___________________________
On some aspects of the biology of the Ross seal Ommatophoca rossii from King Haakon VII Sea, Antarctica
1994
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00239051
___________________________
Influence of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga leonina, on the Coastal Moulting Areas at Marion Island
1984
https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA00382353_4532
___________________________
Southern Ocean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ocean
___________________________
10 Important Facts About The Southern Ocean
The Southern Ocean near the Antarctic Peninsula.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-important-facts-you-must-remember-about-the-southern-ocean.html
___________________________
Antarctica: Southern Ocean floor mapped in greatest ever detail
7 June 2022
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61723806
___________________________
Impact of Winds and Southern Ocean SSTs on Antarctic Sea Ice Trends and Variability
1 February 2020
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10226098
___________________________
Antarctica and the Southern Ocean
August 2021
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354139270_Antarctica_and_the_Southern_Ocean
___________________________
Coupling of Southern Ocean and Antarctica during a past greenhouse
September 1, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-coupling-southern-ocean-antarctica-greenhouse.html
___________________________
Formation of marine secondary aerosols in the Southern Ocean, Antarctica
August 2021
Abstract
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353885225_Formation_of_marine_secondary_aerosols_in_the_Southern_Ocean_Antarctica
___________________________
Effect of sea ice retreat on marine aerosol emissions in the Southern Ocean, Antarctica
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720342972
___________________________
Seven snail species hidden in one: Biogeographic diversity in an apparently widespread periwinkle in the Southern Ocean
06 July 2022
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jbi.14453?af=R
___________________________
Description of Thalassospira lohafexi sp. nov., isolated from Southern Ocean, Antarctica
2015
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25702315/
___________________________
Tectonic shift in Southern Ocean caused dramatic ancient cooling event
November 23, 2021
New research has shed light on a sudden cooling event 34 million years ago, which contributed to formation of the Antarctic ice sheets.
High-resolution simulations of ocean circulations show that the
tectonic opening of Southern Ocean seaways caused a fundamental
reorganisation of ocean currents, heat transport and initiated a strong
Antarctic surface water cooling of up to 5°C.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211123162721.htm
___________________________
Antarctic climate, Southern Ocean circulation patterns, and deep water formation during the Eocene
11 June 2017
Abstract
We assess early-to-middle Eocene seawater neodymium (Nd) isotope records from seven Southern Ocean deep-sea drill sites to evaluate the role of Southern Ocean circulation in long-term Cenozoic climate change. Our study sites are strategically located on either side of the Tasman Gateway and are positioned at a range of shallow (<500 m) to intermediate/deep (~1000–2500 m) paleowater depths. Unradiogenic seawater Nd isotopic compositions, reconstructed from fish teeth at intermediate/deep Indian Ocean pelagic sites (Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Sites 738 and 757 and Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Site 264), indicate a dominant Southern Ocean-sourced contribution to regional deep waters (εNd(t) = −9.3 ± 1.5). IODP Site U1356 off the coast of Adélie Land, a locus of modern-day Antarctic Bottom Water production, is identified as a site of persistent deep water formation from the early Eocene to the Oligocene. East of the Tasman Gateway an additional local source of intermediate/deep water formation is inferred at ODP Site 277 in the SW Pacific Ocean (εNd(t) = −8.7 ± 1.5). Antarctic-proximal shelf sites (ODP Site 1171 and Site U1356) reveal a pronounced erosional event between 49 and 48 Ma, manifested by ~2 εNd unit negative excursions in seawater chemistry toward the composition of bulk sediments at these sites. This erosional event coincides with the termination of peak global warmth following the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum and is associated with documented cooling across the study region and increased export of Antarctic deep waters, highlighting the complexity and importance of Southern Ocean circulation in the greenhouse climate of the Eocene.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017PA003135
___________________________
The New Fifth Ocean
The Southern Ocean
May 12, 2025
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-new-fifth-ocean-1435095
___________________________
Antarctic sea-ice expansion in a warming climate
April 22, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-antarctic-sea-ice-expansion-climate.html
___________________________
Southern Ocean is warming quickly, threatening ice in Antarctic
January 21, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/21/southern-ocean-warming-antarctica/
___________________________
Havre Seamount
Havre Seamount is an active volcanic seamount lying within the Kermadec Islands group of New Zealand, in the south-west Pacific Ocean, on the Tonga-Kermadec Ridge.[1] Its most recent eruption took place in July 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havre_Seamount
___________________________
Havre Seamount: The Source of Kermadec Island Pumice Raft?
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/source-of-kermadec-island-pumice-raft-eruption-identified/
___________________________
The largest deep-ocean silicic volcanic eruption of the past century
10 Jan 2018
Abstract
RESULTS
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1701121
___________________________
Little-known 2012 volcanic eruption was actually the largest in over a century, new data shows
January 10, 2018
In July 2012, geologists noted the eruption of a previously little-known volcanic area called Havre Seamount, located off the coast of New Zealand. Now, after analyzing the data more thoroughly, they say it was one of the largest eruptions in modern history — we just didn’t realize it because it took place underwater...
The eruption was also more complex — it’s not just one volcano cone
that erupted. It consisted of lava from 14 volcanic vent sites between
900 and 1220 meters (3000 and 4000 feet) below the surface. The sheer
size of the eruption was also impressive: 1.5 times larger than the 1980
eruption of Mount St. Helens. But unlike that eruption, this one didn’t
produce an explosive tower due to water pressure. The water pushing
down on the lava suppressed most of the explosivity we would have seen
if the eruption had taken place on land. However, rather interestingly,
lava flows look exactly like how they would if they were on land; but
unlike a land eruption, 75 percent of the lava floated to the surface
and drifted away with the currents.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/geology/little-known-2012-volcanic-eruption-actually-largest-century-new-data-shows/
___________________________
Protecting Antarctica's Southern Ocean
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/projects/protecting-antarcticas-southern-ocean
___________________________
Glacial history of sub-Antarctic South Georgia based on the submarine geomorphology of its fjords
2013
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379113004782
___________________________
Bryozoans of the Weddell Sea continental shelf, slope and abyss: did marine life colonize the Antarctic shelf from deep water, outlying islands or in situ refugia following glaciations?
16 August 2010
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2010.02320.x
___________________________
Sea ice can control Antarctic ice sheet stability, new research finds
13 May 2022
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/sea-ice-controls-ice-sheet-stability
___________________________
The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the "Fram", 1910-1912, Volumes 1-2
2001
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_South_Pole.html?id=FaCqL5GlCD4C
___________________________
Scientists Discover a New Year-Round Ozone Hole — What Could It Mean for Life on Earth?
July 6 2022
https://www.greenmatters.com/p/new-ozone-hole
___________________________
See how the huge ozone hole over Antarctica has grown in 2021 in this NASA video
November 12, 2021
https://www.livescience.com/antarctica-ozone-hole-2021-video
___________________________
Giant ozone hole discovered over tropics, seven times bigger than Antarctica
06.07.2022
https://www.b92.net/eng/news/world.php?nav_id=114062
___________________________
Comet sinkholes generate jets
1 July 2015
A number of the dust jets emerging from Rosetta’s comet can be traced back to active pits that were likely formed by a sudden collapse of the surface. These ‘sinkholes’ are providing a glimpse at the chaotic and diverse interior of the comet.
Rosetta has been monitoring Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko’s activity for over a year, watching how its halo of dust and gas grows as the comet moves closer to the Sun along its orbit.
https://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/01/comet-sinkholes-generate-jets/
___________________________
South Shetland Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Shetland_Islands
___________________________
South Shetland Islands
https://www.wildlifeworldwide.com/locations/south-shetland-islands
___________________________
Seismicity and tectonics of the South Shetland Islands and Bransfield Strait from a regional broadband seismograph deployment
09 October 2003
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2003JB002416
___________________________
Collembola fauna of the South Shetland Islands revisited
26 January 2010
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/collembola-fauna-of-the-south-shetland-islands-revisited/98C57EEC3CF238922E2DE85B31733144
___________________________
Lithostratigraphy, age and distribution of Eocene volcanic sequences on eastern King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica
25 June 2021
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/lithostratigraphy-age-and-distribution-of-eocene-volcanic-sequences-on-eastern-king-george-island-south-shetland-islands-antarctica/6F1A40A81EEFC56FCFA5F78EB672861F
___________________________
Why Shetland's empty islands were abandoned
10 November 2020
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-54810450
___________________________
Periglacial processes and landforms in the South Shetland Islands (northern Antarctic Peninsula region)
2011
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169555X11006313
___________________________
Nakamurella antarctica sp. nov., isolated from Antarctica South Shetland Islands soil
2019
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31665101/
___________________________
Southern elephant seals breeding at Nelson Island, South Shetland Islands
January 2003
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237296935_Southern_elephant_seals_breeding_at_Nelson_Island_South_Shetland_Islands
___________________________
A mesoscale study of phytoplankton assemblages around the South Shetland Islands (Antarctica)
10 May 2013
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-013-1333-5
___________________________
Paleomagnetism and tectonics of the South Shetland Islands and the northern Antarctic Peninsula
2010
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X10007818
___________________________
The Antarctic Mosses: With Special Reference to the South Shetland Islands
2001
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Antarctic_Mosses.html?id=fS3udPTALCYC
___________________________
Deinococcus psychrotolerans sp. nov., isolated from soil on the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica
2019
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31647398/
___________________________
Habitat use of hourglass dolphins near the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica
December 3, 2011
https://zenodo.org/record/1232673#.Ys4dhITMI2w
___________________________
Reaction of a polar gravel-spit system to atmospheric warming and glacier retreat as reflected by morphology and internal sediment geometries (South Shetland Islands, Antarctica)
15 December 2018
Abstract
Sedimentary architecture and morphogenetic evolution of a polar bay-mouth gravel-spit system are revealed based on topographic mapping, sedimentological data, radiocarbon dating and ground-penetrating radar investigations. Data document variable rates of spit progradation in reaction to atmospheric warming synchronous to the termination of the last glacial re-advance (LGR, 0.45–0.25 ka BP), the southern hemisphere equivalent of the Little Ice Age cooling period. Results show an interruption of spit progradation that coincides with the proposed onset of accelerated isostatic rebound in reaction to glacier retreat. Spit growth resumed in the late 19th century after the rate of isostatic rebound decreased, and continues until today. The direction of modern spit progradation, however, is rotated northwards compared with the growth axis of the early post-LGR spit. This is interpreted to reflect the shift and strengthening in the regional wind field during the last century. A new concept for the interplay of polar gravel-spit progradation and glacio-isostatic adjustment is presented, allowing for the prediction of future coastal evolution in comparable polar settings.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.4565
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Deception Island
Deception Island is in the South Shetland Islands close to the Antarctic Peninsula with a large and usually "safe" natural harbour, which is occasionally affected by the underlying active volcano.[1][better source needed] This island is the caldera of an active volcano, which seriously damaged local scientific stations in 1967 and 1969. The island previously held a whaling station. It is now a tourist destination with over 15,000 visitors per year.[citation needed] Two research stations are operated by Argentina and Spain during the summer season.[2] While various countries have asserted sovereignty, it is still administered under the Antarctic Treaty System, meaning it is under no control.
Satellite image of the island by Sentinel-2 (March 2023)
Remains of the whaling station's boilers
The destroyed British base
Hot spring at Port Foster, with the MS Explorer in the background
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception_Island
___________________________
Consumption of marine resources by seabirds and seals at Heard Island and the McDonald Islands
November 1992
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00236989
___________________________
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
The Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands[3][4] (HIMI[5]) is an Australian external territory comprising a volcanic group of mostly barren Antarctic islands, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica. The group's overall land area is 372 km2 (144 sq mi) and it has 101.9 km (63 mi) of coastline. Discovered in the mid-19th century, the islands lie on the Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean and have been an Australian territory since 1947.
A southwesterly view of Heard Island in 2009.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heard_Island_and_McDonald_Islands
___________________________
7 Facts about the cold & isolated Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Aug 1, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVKK1jgI-TE
___________________________
Heard Island
Sep 19, 2008
Heard Island is a subantarctic island located in the Southern Ocean, about 4,000 kilometres south west of mainland Australia.
The island and surrounding waters teem with wildlife and other natural wonders that make Heard Island a special place.
Because Heard Island is so far away, and because of the extreme ocean and weather conditions, it is not an easy place to visit.
For more information on Heard Island and McDonald Islands, please visit http://www.heardisland.aq/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUWSVRmyIzE
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Kerguelen Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Islands
___________________________
The Kerguelen Islands, A volcanic origin archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean
February 9, 2022
https://thejerker.com/the-kerguelen-islands-a-volcanic-origin-archipelago-in-the-southern-indian-ocean-geotourism/
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The foolish dream of Kerguelen Islands
https://acadie.cheminsdelafrancophonie.org/en/capsules/le-reve-fou-des-iles-kerguelen-2/
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Southern elephant seals from Kerguelen Islands confronted by Antarctic Sea ice. Changes in movements and in diving behaviour
2006
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S096706450700015X
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Successful foraging zones of southern elephant seals from the Kerguelen Islands in relation to oceanographic conditions
2007
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2442861/
___________________________
Do non-native plants affect terrestrial arthropods in the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands?
01 February 2022
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-022-03010-x
___________________________
The significance of the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands for the assessment of the vulnerability of native communities to climate change, alien insect invasions and plant viruses
January 2012
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225936424_The_significance_of_the_sub-Antarctic_Kerguelen_Islands_for_the_assessment_of_the_vulnerability_of_native_communities_to_climate_change_alien_insect_invasions_and_plant_viruses
___________________________
Plant Life in Antarctica
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/native-plants-of-antarctica.html
___________________________
The significance of the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands for the assessment of the vulnerability of native communities to climate change, alien insect invasions and plant viruses
18 February 2011
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-011-9946-5
___________________________
History of the Kerguelen Islands
https://conworld.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_the_Kerguelen_Islands
___________________________
Effects of elevational range shift on the morphology and physiology of a carabid beetle invading the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands
27 January 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-57868-0
___________________________
Distribution of Barley yellow dwarf virus-PAV in the Sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands and Characterization of Two New Luteovirus Species
2013
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23825645/
___________________________
The marine vegetation of the Kerguelen Islands: history of Scientific Campaigns, Investory of the Flora and First Analysis of its Biogeographical Affinities
2021
https://sciencepress.mnhn.fr/sites/default/files/articles/pdf/algologie2021v42a12.pdf
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Southern Ocean kelp particle trajectories from Kerguelen, Macquarie Island and South Georgia
December 12, 2021
https://zenodo.org/record/5768791#.Ys4VYoTMI2w
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Comparing otolith shape of Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) between the Kerguelen Islands and the Crozet Islands, East Antarctic
2021
https://meetings.ccamlr.org/en/wg-fsa-2021/54
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Afnic hails the inscription of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands on the World Heritage List
07/18/2019
https://www.afnic.fr/en/observatory-and-resources/news/afnic-hails-the-inscription-of-the-french-southern-and-antarctic-lands-on-the-world-heritage-list/
___________________________
Old maps of French Southern and Antarctic Lands
https://www.oldmapsonline.org/en/French_Southern_and_Antarctic_Lands
___________________________
French Southern and Antarctic Land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Southern_and_Antarctic_Lands
___________________________
Highly bioavailable dust-borne iron delivered to the Southern Ocean during glacial periods
Oct 2018
___________________________
Continental and Sea Ice Iron Sources Fertilize the Southern Ocean in Synergy
16 November 2021
Abstract
Iron release from melting continental and sea ice is deemed important for phytoplankton, the growth of which is iron-limited in the Southern Ocean. Both sources are generally considered separately, yet their effects on the biological carbon pump could interact. Using a global ocean-sea-ice-biogeochemical model with a representation of both continental and sea ice iron sources, we find them to have an overall additive effect on phytoplankton activity, increasing carbon export by +13.9% of the Southern Ocean total, with continental ice contributing +4.5% and sea ice +8.0%. The +1.4% residual is due to a coupled fertilization effect: When the iron source from continental ice is activated, iron in sea ice increases by 16%, so does iron transport toward low production areas. Overall, this increases phytoplankton activity: Fertilization is more efficient where sea ice melts than at locations of initial iron release by continental ice.
Key Points
-
Stronger and more realistic Southern Ocean phytoplankton activity by modeling iron release from melting continental and sea ice
-
Continental and sea ice iron sources have an overall additive effect on the biological carbon pump strength
-
The fertilization effects of the sea-ice iron source are larger when the continental-ice iron source is activated
Plain Language Summary
Phytoplankton refers to micro-algae growing and drifting within seawater. Most living organisms in the ocean ultimately depend on phytoplankton. When sinking, organic matter produced by phytoplankton sequesters large amounts of carbon in the deep ocean. The Southern Ocean is a key area for these processes. There, the iron dissolved in seawater, available in tiny amounts, exerts a strong constraint on phytoplankton growth. Melting ice in the Southern Ocean is a key iron source to surface waters, which fosters phytoplankton growth, yet how much and how efficiently is the subject of ongoing research. Here we present numerical simulations of ocean physics, ice, and marine plankton, representing iron release from melting ice. We find more plankton and stronger carbon sequestration in the ocean where ice releases more iron. These locations also correspond to where phytoplankton are seen from space. A unique aspect of our simulations is the accounting for ice of two different origins (continental and sea ice). We find that both ice forms tend to release iron at similar locations. We also find their fertilization effects to reinforce each other. Indeed, sea ice stores iron released by continental ice and moves it where it is more efficiently assimilated by phytoplankton.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021GL094761
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The underappreciated role of anthropogenic sources in atmospheric soluble iron flux to the Southern Ocean
Abstract
The atmospheric deposition of soluble (bioaccessible) iron enhances ocean primary productivity and subsequent atmospheric CO2 sequestration in iron-limited ocean basins, especially the Southern Ocean. While anthropogenic sources have been recently suggested to be important in some northern hemisphere oceans, the role in the Southern Ocean remains ambiguous. By comparing multiple model simulations with the new aircraft observations for anthropogenic iron, we show that anthropogenic soluble iron deposition flux to the Southern Ocean could be underestimated by more than a factor of ten in previous modeling estimates. Our improved estimate for the anthropogenic iron budget enhances its contribution on the soluble iron deposition in the Southern Ocean from about 10% to 60%, implying a dominant role of anthropogenic sources. We predict that anthropogenic soluble iron deposition in the Southern Ocean is reduced substantially (30‒90%) by the year 2100*, and plays a major role in the future evolution of atmospheric soluble iron inputs to the Southern Ocean.
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Iron partitioning during LOHAFEX: Copepod grazing as a major driver for iron recycling in the Southern Ocean
2017
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304420317301305
___________________________
One-third of Southern Ocean productivity is supported by dust deposition
15 May 2024
Abstract
Natural iron fertilization of the Southern Ocean by windblown dust has been suggested to enhance biological productivity and modulate the climate1,2,3. Yet, this process has never been quantified across the Southern Ocean and at annual timescales4,5. Here we combined 11 years of nitrate observations from autonomous biogeochemical ocean profiling floats with a Southern Hemisphere dust simulation to empirically derive the relationship between dust-iron deposition and annual net community production (ANCP) in the iron-limited Southern Ocean. Using this relationship, we determined the biological response to dust-iron in the pelagic perennially ice-free Southern Ocean at present and during the last glacial maximum (LGM). We estimate that dust-iron now supports 33% ± 15% of Southern Ocean ANCP. During the LGM, when dust deposition was 5–40-fold higher than today, the contribution of dust to Southern Ocean ANCP was much greater, estimated at 64% ± 13%. We provide quantitative evidence of basin-wide dust-iron fertilization of the Southern Ocean and the potential magnitude of its impact on glacial–interglacial timescales, supporting the idea of the important role of dust in the global carbon cycle and climate6,7,8.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07366-4
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Biological response to millennial variability of dust and nutrient supply in the Subantarctic South Atlantic Ocean
2014
___________________________
Acceleration of climate warming and plant dynamics in Antarctica
2022 Feb 14
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35167803/
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Early Last Interglacial ocean warming drove substantial ice mass loss from Antarctica
February 11, 2020
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1902469117
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Antarctica, Greenland and Gulf of Alaska land-ice evolution from an iterated GRACE global mascon solution
10 July 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-glaciology/article/antarctica-greenland-and-gulf-of-alaska-landice-evolution-from-an-iterated-grace-global-mascon-solution/46DA425AEBC3FF772352585D7F439CD8
___________________________
Why Antarctic Sea Ice Is Growing in a Warmer World
2010
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/100816-global-warming-antarctica-sea-ice-paradox-science-environment
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Externally forced symmetric warming in the Arctic and Antarctic during the second half of the twentieth century
December 2022
Abstract
___________________________
Western half of Antarctica warming faster than eastern half, new study shows why
For the last few decades, the effects of global warming have been especially pronounced in West Antarctica.
Now, researchers in South Korea have developed an explanation for why the western half of the icy continent is warming faster than the eastern half.
Their analysis -- published this month in the journal Science Advances -- showed a strong link between the asymmetric warming and divergent temperatures in the Bellingshausen, Antarctic and Amundsen seas.
Scientists used what's called an empirical orthogonal function, a sophisticated math model, to identify different sources of climate variability across Antarctica.
They deployed the model to decipher climate observations recorded from 1958 to 2012, operating under the assumption that the asymmetric warming was caused by natural climate variability.
"The most important natural factor in driving such west warming and east cooling is the warming over the Southern Ocean in the sector of West Antarctica," study co-author Seong-Joong Kim, professor at the Korea Polar Research Institute, told UPI in an email.
The analysis also revealed surface air temperature fluctuation patterns across multiple decades, most likely influenced by climate patterns in the tropics. Researchers hypothesized that warming sea surface temperatures in the Southern Ocean off the coast of West Antarctica have produced a positive feedback with atmospheric conditions over the western half of the continent...
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Despite Global Warming, Parts Of Antarctica Ice Shelf Have Grown In Last 20 Years
As of now, it is not certain how sea ice around Antarctica would evolve due to climate change and its impact on sea level rise. Some models forecast wholescale sea ice loss in the Southern Ocean while some predict ice gain. However, breaking of icebergs in 2020 could be hinting the start of change in atmospheric patterns as well as return to losses, according to the research.
https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/science-and-future/despite-global-warming-parts-of-antarctica-ice-shelf-have-grown-in-last-20-years-569793.html
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Scientists explore Thwaites, Antarctica’s ‘doomsday’ glacier
January 6, 2022
https://apnews.com/article/science-glaciers-antarctica-e9687077d7295e8218ba7cbcb9246ca3
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What is black carbon? The latest way humans are causing changes in Antarctica
February 22, 2022
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/world/antarctica-human-pollution-causing-more-snow-melt-climate/index.html
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Tracking Southern Hemisphere black carbon to Antarctic snow
April 8, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-04-tracking-southern-hemisphere-black-carbon.html
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New Modeling of Ancient Antarctic Ice Sheets Helps Us See the Future of Global Warming
https://scitechdaily.com/new-modelling-of-ancient-antarctic-ice-sheets-helps-us-see-the-future-of-global-warming/
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Ancient penguin bones reveal unprecedented shrinkage in key Antarctic glaciers
2022
Thwaites Glacier is losing ice more quickly than at any other time in the last 5,500 years
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/antarctic-glaciers-antarctica-pine-island-melting-climate-change-global-warming
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Antarctic Warming Trends
January 23, 2009
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/36736/antarctic-warming-trends
___________________________
Climate change in Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Antarctica#Temperature_and_weather_changes
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Warming Temperatures Are Turning Antarctica Green
February 18, 2022
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/warming-temperatures-are-turning-antarctica-green-180979599/
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The Ross Sea, Antarctica: A highly protected MPA in international waters
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X21004061
___________________________
A history of the exploitation of the Ross Sea, Antarctica
02 September 2009
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/polar-record/article/abs/history-of-the-exploitation-of-the-ross-sea-antarctica/1285A37615CE57949F7DA15749DDA2BC
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Early to middle Miocene ice sheet dynamics in the westernmost Ross Sea (Antarctica): Regional correlations
July 2022
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361883485_Early_to_middle_Miocene_ice_sheet_dynamics_in_the_westernmost_Ross_Sea_Antarctica_Regional_correlations
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Microplastic in the surface waters of the Ross Sea (Antarctica): Occurrence, distribution and characterization by FTIR
2017 Feb 7
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28236709/
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Ross Sea region MPA serves as a valuable model for others in region
October 6th 2021
https://en.mercopress.com/2021/10/06/ross-sea-region-mpa-serves-as-a-valuable-model-for-others-in-region
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Ross Ice Shelf
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica (as of 2013, an area of roughly 500,809 square kilometres (193,363 sq mi)[1] and about 800 kilometres (500 mi) across: about the size of France).[2] It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than 600 kilometres (370 mi) long, and between 15 and 50 metres (50 and 160 ft) high above the water surface.[3] Ninety percent of the floating ice, however, is below the water surface.
Most of the Ross Ice Shelf is in the Ross Dependency claimed by New Zealand. It floats in, and covers, a large southern portion of the Ross Sea and the entire Roosevelt Island located in the east of the Ross Sea.
The ice shelf is named after Sir James Clark Ross, who discovered it on 28 January 1841. It was originally called "The Barrier", with various adjectives including "Great Ice Barrier", as it prevented sailing further south. Ross mapped the ice front eastward to 160° W. In 1947, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names applied the name "Ross Shelf Ice" to this feature and published it in the original U.S. Antarctic Gazetteer. In January 1953, the name was changed to "Ross Ice Shelf"; that name was published in 1956.
See also
- Cape Huinga
- Eady Ice Piedmont
- Howard-Williams Point
- Iceberg B-17B
- List of Antarctic ice shelves
- Nimrod Expedition
- Retreat of glaciers since 1850
- Ross Embayment
- Ross Gyre
- Steershead Crevasses
- West Antarctic Rift System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ice_Shelf
___________________________
Rapid and early export of Phaeocystis antarctica blooms in the Ross Sea, Antarctica
06 April 2000
https://www.nature.com/articles/35007061
___________________________
Ross Sea West Antarctic Ice Sheet History
2019-08-10
https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10224876-ross-sea-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-history
___________________________
Temperate Oligocene surface ocean conditions offshore of Cape Adare, Ross Sea, Antarctica
02 Jul 2021
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/17/1423/2021/
___________________________
Ice Volume Variations and Provenance Trends in the Oligocene-Early Miocene Glaciomarine Sediments of the Central Ross Sea, Antarctica
18 Jun 2022
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4140259
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Problems and Possible Solutions Concerning Radiocarbon Dating of Surface Marine Sediments, Ross Sea, Antarctica
20 January 2017
Abstract
Radiocarbon accelerator mass spectrometric (AMS) dates on the acid-insoluble fraction from 38 core tops from the western Ross Sea, Antarctica, are used to address these questions: (1) What are the apparent ages of sediments at or close to the present sediment/water interface? (2) Is there a statistically significant pattern to the spatial distribution of core top ages? and (3) Is there a “correction factor” that can be applied to these age determinations to obtain the best possible Holocene (downcore) chronologies? Ages of core top sediments range from 2000 to 21,000 14C yr B.P. Some “old” core top dates are from piston cores and probably represent the loss of sediment during the coring process, but some core top samples >6000 14C yr B.P. may represent little or no Holocene deposition. Four possible sources of variability in dates ≤6000 14C yr B.P. (n = 28) are associated with (1) different sample preparation methods, (2) different sediment recovery systems, (3) different geographic regions, and (4) within-sample lateral age variability. Statistical analysis on an a posteriori design indicates that geographic area is the major cause of variability; there is a difference in mean surface sediment age of nearly 2000 yr between sites in the western Ross Sea and sites east of Ross Bank in south-central Ross Sea. The systematic variability in surface age between areas may be attributed to: (a) variable sediment accumulation rates (SAR) (surface age is inversely related to SAR), (b) differences in the percentage of reworked (dead) carbon between each area, and/or (c) differences in the CO2 exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/quaternary-research/article/abs/problems-and-possible-solutions-concerning-radiocarbon-dating-of-surface-marine-sediments-ross-sea-antarctica/7CB15E400272E07BA78FDF599CE30BE4
___________________________
Increase in penguin populations during the Little Ice Age in the Ross Sea, Antarctica
22 August 2013
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep02472
___________________________
Characterizing physical properties and ocean currents in the eastern Ross Sea, Antarctica
2012-05-03
https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/154445
___________________________
Observations of sea‐level variability in Ross Sea, Antarctica
1 June 2003
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Observations-of-sea%E2%80%90level-variability-in-Ross-Sea%2C-Goring-Pyne/708b7d30fb968c76eca2e36edbefb8edf69895c8
___________________________
Structure of the central Terror Rift, western Ross Sea, Antarctica
2007
https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/srp/srp108/of2007-1047srp108.pdf
___________________________
Fishes of the eastern Ross Sea, Antarctica
16 June 2004
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-004-0632-2
___________________________
Phytoplankton blooms during austral summer in the Ross Sea, Antarctica: Driving factors and trophic implications
April 21, 2017
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176033
___________________________
Stable isotope composition of dissolved inorganic carbon and particulate organic carbon in sea ice from the Ross Sea, Antarctica
04 September 2010
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009JC005661
___________________________
Reaching consensus for conserving the global commons: The case of the Ross Sea, Antarctica
September 2019
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335947788_Reaching_consensus_for_conserving_the_global_commons_The_case_of_the_Ross_Sea_Antarctica
___________________________
Carbon 13 Carbon 12 ratios of sedimentary organic matter from the Ross Sea, Antarctica: A record of phytoplankton bloom dynamics
2000
https://ccoc.stanford.edu/publications/carbon-13-carbon-12-ratios-sedimentary-organic-matter-ross-sea-antarctica-record
___________________________
Frazil ice growth and ice production during katabatic wind events in Ross Sea polynyas, Antarcticain Ross Sea polynyas, Antarctica
2019
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2413&context=theses
___________________________
Variability in the Mass Flux of the Ross Sea Ice Streams, Antarctica, over the last Millennium
1-1-2012
https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/geology_fac/27/
___________________________
Ancient Adelie penguin colony revealed by snowmelt at Cape Irizar, Ross Sea, Antarctica
September 28, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-ancient-adelie-penguin-colony-revealed.html
___________________________
Trophic cascades in the western Ross Sea, Antarctica: revisited
2015
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1535&context=vimsarticles
___________________________
Record-low Antarctic Sea Ice in
Antarctic sea ice reached new record-low in February 2022.
15/04/2022
A minimum Antarctic sea-ice extent for 2022 was reached on February 18 with an ice coverage of 2.17 million km², making this a new all-time record-low sea-ice extent since the start of the satellite observations. It is more than 3% lower than the previous record-low in 2017 (2.24 mill km²).
After having reached some of the highest values in July and August 2021, the Antarctic sea-ice extent has been tracking low values after November. Beginning of 2022, the extent continued being low, and since mid-February, the extent dropped below the lowest daily extent values. The table shows the top 5 lowest and 5 highest minima of sea-ice extent recorded in the Antarctic, and at what day they occurred.
Despite the new significant record-low of the Antarctic sea ice it is still difficult to conclude anything about its long-term- and future trend. Before 2015, the Antarctic sea ice exhibited a slightly increasing trend over decades and reached record-high coverage in 2014 (or 2015 depending on the months considered). Thereafter, an abrupt change led to record-low values in 2017 and hereby resulted in some of the largest inter-annual variability observed in the sea-ice cover. Large inter-annual variabilities have continued since then and no clear trend has been observed.
In terms of monthly averaged values, February 2022 becomes the second-lowest on record, after 2017. The long-term trend for February is for the first time slightly negative (not statistically significant), see figure below. The daily sea-ice extent values from the previous and current year (black), plus the reference curves for 2014 and 2017, which were the two years with the highest and lowest ice extents ever recorded with satellite monitoring in the Antarctic. Note, that the present year 2022 combines a black and a red line which represents the slightly different retrieval methods behind the data. The black covers the Interim Climate Data Record data, and the red is the supplementing near-real-time data...
https://osi-saf.eumetsat.int/community/stories/record-low-antarctic-sea-ice-february-2022
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Hidden river once flowed under Antarctica
August 25, 2017
What Antarctic scientists call ice streams are not liquid, flowing water. Instead, an ice stream is a wide corridor of noticeably fast flow within an ice sheet,
that is, a wider mass of glacial ice. Antarctic ice streams flow at
different rates, but surface observations show that a typical rate of
flow might be hundreds of meters per year. The new study – led by Rice
postdoctoral researcher Lauren Simkins – focuses on what might be happening under the ice streams. Simkins explained:
We … know that ice, by itself, is only capable of flowing at velocities of no more than tens of meters per year. That means the ice is being helped along. It’s sliding on water or mud or both.
Now there’s evidence for this idea, in these researchers’ discovery of a fossilized river system beneath the Ross Sea. The finding appeared online on August 21 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience...
https://earthsky.org/earth/hidden-river-ross-sea-antarctica-ice-streams/
___________________________
‘Ghost fleas' bring toxic mercury up from the depths of prairie lakes
1 Jul 2020
https://www.science.org/content/article/ghost-fleas-bring-toxic-mercury-depths-prairie-lakes
___________________________
The Disastrous Australasian Antarctic Expedition [Short Documentary]
Aug 18, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3VgS1Nd2_s
___________________________
How this tiny Fish is Cooling our Planet
Sep 17, 2020
Lanternfish might look unremarkable at first but they are one of the most important fish in the ocean – and for more than just one reason. Here's why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8KpuydjfJI
___________________________
Sediment cores from ocean floor could contain 23-million-year-old climate change clues
February 17, 2022
"We saw that a methane release occurred during a peak glaciation about 23 million years ago," Zhang said.
Glaciation is the formation, movement and recession of glaciers, and the process mostly commonly occurs in Antarctica and Greenland. When large ice sheets form, they draw in a tremendous amount of water that could lower the sea-level by tens to hundreds of feet.
Zhang added that the methane gas release and its after-effects led to ocean acidification and hypoxia (a lack of oxygen in the water), something that has been observed after the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010, when large amounts of methane were released in the Gulf of Mexico.
"One implication of our study is that if gas hydrates start to decompose in the future due to ocean warming, places like the Gulf of Mexico could suffer severely from ocean acidification and expansion of the low oxygen 'dead zones'," Kim said.
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-sediment-cores-ocean-floor-million-year-old.html
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European floating microplastics may accumulate in Arctic Ocean
March 17, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-european-microplastics-accumulate-arctic-ocean.html
___________________________
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘On thin ice: Rising tensions in the Arctic
Jul 8, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXI_EzOBnOs
___________________________
Detecting Black Carbon in the Arctic Atmosphere
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/detecting-black-carbon-in-the-arctic-atmosphere
___________________________
Strange Natural Phenomena That Happened On Earth
Sep 10, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d3dbBqYKAw
___________________________
Incredible Recent Discoveries in Antarctica!
2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMytqAazDeo
___________________________
Ancient Aliens: Crystal City Discovered Under Antarctica (Season 18) (Controversial)
Sep 28, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFEmYxB7LPM
___________________________
Scientist Creepy Discovery Under The Ice Of Antartica Shocked The World!
Sep 9, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0v2c8Y1MVI
___________________________
10 Most Mysterious Discoveries Found In Antarctica!
2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61YFiAx0m6c
___________________________
Previously unsuspected volcanic activity confirmed under West Antarctic Ice Sheet at Pine Island Glacier
June 27, 2018
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=295861&org=NSF
___________________________
Scientists found 91 volcanoes under Antarctica. Here’s what they might do
Aug 25, 2017
Scottish
scientists have detected 91 volcanoes under a massive ice sheet in west
Antarctica, potentially revealing one of the largest volcanic regions
on Earth.
The volcanoes are located in the West Antarctic Rift
System, a 2,200-mile valley created by separating tectonic plates. The
discovery brings the total number of volcanoes in the area to 138. The
heights of the volcanoes range from 300 feet to 12,600 feet, with the
tallest as high as Mount Fuji in Japan.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/scientists-found-91-volcanoes-under-antarctica
___________________________
List of volcanoes in Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_Antarctica
___________________________
What forms when iron rich minerals in cooling lava align with the direction of Earth’s magnetic field?
April 16, 2022
___________________________
Scientists Find Nitrogen Emissions Cool the Climate – Could This Really Help Solve Climate Change?
___________________________
Nitrogen emissions have a net cooling effect: But researchers warn against a climate solution
July 25, 2024
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/07/240725154823.htm
___________________________
Ozone formation and destruction in the stratosphere
2004
Polar stratospheric clouds and ozone depletion
1991
http://whatis.vhfdental.com/which-refrigerant-does-not-damage-the-ozone-layer
___________________________
Hole in Antarctic ozone layer may be adding to global warming
___________________________
Antarctic ice sheets could be at greater risk of melting than previously thought
December 2, 2019
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191202124624.htm
___________________________
Colossal Antarctic ice-shelf collapse followed last ice age
February 18, 2016
https://phys.org/news/2016-02-colossal-antarctic-ice-shelf-collapse-ice.html
___________________________
Deep, old water explains why Antarctic Ocean hasn't warmed
May 30, 2016
The waters surrounding Antarctica may be one of the last places to
experience human-driven climate change. New research from the University
of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds that
ocean currents explain why the seawater has stayed at roughly the same
temperature while most of the rest of the planet has warmed...
https://phys.org/news/2016-05-deep-antarctic-ocean-hasnt.html
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Antarctic bottom waters freshening at unexpected rate
January 25, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-antarctic-bottom-freshening-unexpected.html
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Russia Just Announced The TERRIFYING Truth About Antarctica
Feb 24, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTGn8cmfwxo
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Denman Glacier is retreating into Antarctica's deepest valley. 5 feet ...
Mar 23, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/03/23/denman-glacier-climate-change/
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NASA Just Announced The Moon Shifted And Its Going To Cause Record Flooding On Earth
Feb 20, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z61oJp6grS4
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Salty Aquifer Discovered Under Antarctic Surface
May, 11, 2015
https://www.geoengineer.org/news/salty-aquifer-discovered-under-antarctic-surface
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A new glacial isostatic adjustment model of the Innuitian Ice Sheet, Arctic Canada
2015
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379115001493
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Post-Glacial Isostatic Adjustment and Global Warming in Subarctic Canada: Implications for Islands of the James Bay Region
2009
https://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic62-4-458.pdf
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Glacial isostatic adjustment as a control on coastal processes: An example from the Siberian Arctic
1 August 2007
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Glacial-isostatic-adjustment-as-a-control-on-An-the-Whitehouse-Allen/4587714a89773ffc89176e73057b6175ae168b74
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Workshop on Glacial Isostatic Adjustment, Ice Sheets, and Sea-level Change
2019
https://www.arcus.org/events/arctic-calendar/29197
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Evaluating Greenland glacial isostatic adjustment corrections using GRACE, altimetry and surface mass balance data
15 January 2014
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/1/014004
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Total isostatic response to the complete unloading of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets
06 July 2022
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15440-y
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Constraint of glacial isostatic adjustment in the North Sea with geological relative sea level and GNSS vertical land motion data
07 July 2021
https://academic.oup.com/gji/article-abstract/227/2/1168/6316780?login=false
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Glacial isostatic adjustment directed incision of the Channeled Scabland by Ice Age megafloods
December 15, 2021
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2109502119
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On Some Properties of the Glacial Isostatic Adjustment Fingerprints
5 September 2019
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/11/9/1844
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What is glacial isostatic adjustment?
Glacial isostatic adjustment is the ongoing movement of land once burdened by ice-age glaciers.
Earth is always on the move, constantly, if slowly, changing. Temperatures rise and fall in cycles over millions of years. The last ice age occurred just 16,000 years ago, when great sheets of ice, two miles thick, covered much of Earth's Northern Hemisphere. Though the ice melted long ago, the land once under and around the ice is still rising and falling in reaction to its ice-age burden.
This ongoing movement of land is called glacial isostatic adjustment. Here's how it works: Imagine lying down on a soft mattress and then getting up from the same spot. You see an indentation in the mattress where your body had been, and a puffed-up area around the indentation where the mattress rose. Once you get up, the mattress takes a little time before it relaxes back to its original shape.
Even the strongest materials (including the Earth's crust) move, or deform, when enough pressure is applied. So when ice by the megaton settled on parts of the Earth for several thousand years, the ice bore down on the land beneath it, and the land rose up beyond the ice's perimeter—just like the mattress did when you lay down on and then got up off of it.
That's what happened over large portions of the Northern Hemisphere during the last ice age, when ice covered the Midwest and Northeast United States as well as much of Canada. Even though the ice retreated long ago, North America is still rising where the massive layers of ice pushed it down. The U.S. East Coast and Great Lakes regions—once on the bulging edges, or forebulge, of those ancient ice layers—are still slowly sinking from forebulge collapse.
Forbulge collapse is one of the larger causes of ground movement in the United States. Many places in the Eastern U.S. have been sinking for thousands of years and will continue to sink for thousands more. In fact, estimates say land around the Chesapeake Bay will sink as much as half a foot over the next 100 years because of the forebulge collapse. Other big contributors to ground movement in the U.S. include earthquakes and subsidence. Subsidence is when the ground sinks, either due to natural causes or when resources like water, gas, and oil are pumped out of the ground.
The last ice age occurred just 16,000 years ago, when great sheets of
ice covered much of Earth's Northern Hemisphere. Though the ice melted
long ago, the land once under and around the ice is still rising and
falling in reaction to its ice-age burden. This ongoing movement of land
is called glacial isostatic adjustment.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/glacial-adjustment.html
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Present-day glacial isostatic adjustment of Antarctica
Changes in mass balance (or the amount of ice that has melted) can be measured using space-geodetic techniques that detect variations in the Earth's gravity field and changes in ice height. Both satellite altimetry (used to measure ice topography heights) and GRACE (measures changes in potential) are sensitive to ongoing changes in continental lithosphere from glacial isostatic adjustment, the visco-elastic response of the Earth to the removal of a load after significant ice sheet melting over the past 10,000 years.
The rate of present-day uplift can be estimated using data from permanent GPS installations in Antarctica and can provide constraints on the modelling of the timing and amount of ice that has melted. Since 1998, RSES has installed and operated a network of remote GPS sites in East Antarctica specifically to estimate the isostatic adjustment pattern in the region. Uplift rates are significantly lower than anticipated, implying that either less ice has melted than is incorporated in the glaciology models or that the melting process ended earlier than expected.
Cosmogenic exposure dating utilises the amount of bombardment of cosmic particles that rocks have undergone to calculate when the rocks were exposed to the atmosphere. This provides constraints on the retreat of ice sheets. Coupled with dating of raised marine platforms, lake sediments and biological samples, past ice histories can be reconstructed to generate predicted present-day uplift scenarios that can be compared to observed uplift rates from GPS.
https://earthsciences.anu.edu.au/research/research-projects/present-day-glacial-isostatic-adjustment-antarctica
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What is glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), and why do you correct for it?
https://sealevel.colorado.edu/index.php/presentation/what-glacial-isostatic-adjustment-gia-and-why-do-you-correct-it
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Post-glacial rebound
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound
Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound and isostatic depression are phases of glacial isostasy (glacial isostatic adjustment, glacioisostasy), the deformation of the Earth's crust in response to changes in ice mass distribution.[1] The direct raising effects of post-glacial rebound are readily apparent in parts of Northern Eurasia, Northern America, Patagonia, and Antarctica. However, through the processes of ocean siphoning and continental levering, the effects of post-glacial rebound on sea level are felt globally far from the locations of current and former ice sheets.
Overview
Changes in the elevation of Lake Superior due to glaciation and post-glacial rebound
During the last glacial period, much of northern Europe, Asia, North America, Greenland and Antarctica was covered by ice sheets, which reached up to three kilometres thick during the glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago. The enormous weight of this ice caused the surface of the Earth's crust to deform and warp downward, forcing the viscoelastic mantle material to flow away from the loaded region. At the end of each glacial period when the glaciers retreated, the removal of this weight led to slow (and still ongoing) uplift or rebound of the land and the return flow of mantle material back under the deglaciated area. Due to the extreme viscosity of the mantle, it will take many thousands of years for the land to reach an equilibrium level.
The uplift has taken place in two distinct stages. The initial uplift following deglaciation was almost immediate due to the elastic response of the crust as the ice load was removed. After this elastic phase, uplift proceeded by slow viscous flow at an exponentially decreasing rate.[citation needed] Today, typical uplift rates are of the order of 1 cm/year or less. In northern Europe, this is clearly shown by the GPS data obtained by the BIFROST GPS network;[3] for example in Finland, the total area of the country is growing by about seven square kilometers per year.[4][5] Studies suggest that rebound will continue for at least another 10,000 years. The total uplift from the end of deglaciation depends on the local ice load and could be several hundred metres near the centre of rebound.
Recently, the term "post-glacial rebound" is gradually being replaced by the term "glacial isostatic adjustment". This is in recognition that the response of the Earth to glacial loading and unloading is not limited to the upward rebound movement, but also involves downward land movement, horizontal crustal motion,[3][6] changes in global sea levels[7] and the Earth's gravity field,[8] induced earthquakes,[9] and changes in the Earth's rotation.[10] Another alternate term is "glacial isostasy", because the uplift near the centre of rebound is due to the tendency towards the restoration of isostatic equilibrium (as in the case of isostasy of mountains). Unfortunately, that term gives the wrong impression that isostatic equilibrium is somehow reached, so by appending "adjustment" at the end, the motion of restoration is emphasized.
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Widespread low rates of Antarctic glacial isostatic adjustment revealed by GPS observations
16 November 2011
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011GL049277
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Glacial isostatic adjustment and post-seismic deformation in Antarctica
10 November 2022
https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/full/10.1144/M56-2022-13
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Ocean loading effects on the prediction of Antarctic glacial isostatic uplift and gravity rates
12 February 2010
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00190-010-0368-4
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An investigation of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment over the Amundsen Sea sector, West Antarctica
2012
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818112001567
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Glacial Isostatic Adjustment
29 October 2020
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-42584-5_15
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Satellites observe glacier committing 'ice piracy'
May 8, 2025
A glacier in Antarctica is committing "ice piracy"—stealing ice from a neighbor—in a phenomenon that has never been observed in such a short timeframe, say scientists.
This activity was previously believed to take place over hundreds or even thousands of years.
However, high-resolution satellite observations reveal one huge glacier has been relentlessly pinching ice from its slower-moving neighbor over a period of less than 18 years.
University of Leeds researchers say it is unprecedented that this change in ice flow direction can be directly witnessed in Antarctica over such a short time span and its discovery is an important step in improving our understanding of the future of Antarctica and its contribution to sea level rise...
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-satellites-glacier-committing-ice-piracy.html
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Time lapse: Watch glaciers rise, fall in thousands of years per second
March 27, 2019
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2854/time-lapse-watch-glaciers-rise-fall-in-thousands-of-years-per-second/
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Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017
2018 Jun 13
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29899482/
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A new glacial isostatic adjustment model for Antarctica: calibrated and tested using observations of relative sea-level change and present-day uplift rates
27 June 2012
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-246X.2012.05557.x
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Glacial isostatic adjustment and post-seismic deformation in Antarctica
February 08, 2023
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsl/books/edited-volume/2439/chapter/135861391/Glacial-isostatic-adjustment-and-post-seismic
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Antarctic glacial isostatic adjustment: a new assessment
18 November 2005
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/antarctic-glacial-isostatic-adjustment-a-new-assessment/9922D0DBA6B15C5513279A1D79407D95
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Glacial-Isostatic Adjustment Models Using Geodynamically Constrained 3D Earth Structures
25 October 2021
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GC009853
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A new glacial isostatic adjustment model for Antarctica: calibrated and tested using observations of relative sea-level change and present-day uplift rates
01 September 2012
https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/190/3/1464/570434?login=false
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Feasibility of a global inversion for spatially resolved glacial isostatic adjustment and ice sheet mass changes proven in simulation experiments
10 October 2022
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00190-022-01651-8
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Spatial and temporal Antarctic Ice Sheet mass trends, glacio-isostatic adjustment, and surface processes from a joint inversion of satellite altimeter, gravity, and GPS data
2016 Feb 3
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27134805/
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Detection of Crustal Uplift Deformation in Response to Glacier Wastage in Southern Patagonia
18 January 2023
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/3/584/htm
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High geothermal heat flow beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica inferred from aeromagnetic data
18 August 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00242-3
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Larsen Ice Shelf
The
Larsen Ice Shelf is a long, fringing ice shelf in the northwest part of
the Weddell Sea, extending along the east coast of Antarctic Peninsula
from Cape Longing to the area just southward of Hearst Island.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/larsen_ice_shelf.htm
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Ronne Ice Shelf
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Ronne+Ice+Shelf
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What They Just Discovered In Antarctica TERRIFIES The Whole World
Feb 8, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wxJP1l3qzU
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Russia Just Announced The TERRIFYING Truth About Antartica
Feb 10, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ0jg0L9Z2U
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Sea Ice in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
March 10, 2011
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/49600/sea-ice-in-mcmurdo-sound-antarctica
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McMurdo Sound
https://www.britannica.com/place/McMurdo-Sound
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Antarctic Dry Valleys haven't always been dry, study suggests
May 30, 2023
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-antarctic-dry-valleys-havent.html
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10 driest places on Earth
November 9, 2015
1. McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: the driest place on Earth
https://ourplnt.com/driest-places/
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What is the Driest Place on Earth?
June 12, 2008
The
driest place on Earth is in Antarctica in an area called the Dry
Valleys, which have seen no rain for nearly 2 million years. There is
absolutely no precipitation in this region and it makes up a 4800 square
kilometer region of almost no water, ice or snow. Water features
include Lake Vida, Lake Vanda, Lake Bonney and the Onyx River. There is
no net gain of water. The reason why this region receives no rain is due
to Katabatic winds, winds from the mountains that are so heavy with
moisture that gravity pulls them down and away from the Valleys.
One
feature of note is Lake Bonney, a saline lake situated in the Dry
Valleys. It is permanently covered with 3 to 5 meters of ice. Scientists
have found mummified bodies of seals around the lake. Lake Vanda, also
in the region, is 3 times saltier than the ocean. Temperatures at the
bottom of this lake are as warm as 25 degrees Celsius.
The next
driest place in the world measured by the amount of precipitation that
falls is the Atacama Desert in Chile and Peru. There are no glaciers
that are feeding water to this area; and thus, very little life can
survive. Some weather stations in this region have received no rain for
years, while another station reports an average of one millimeter per
year.
https://www.universetoday.com/15031/driest-place-on-earth/
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The ground is softening. Something is shifting in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys
May 21, 2020
The
first water measurements here were taken in 1903. Long-term monitoring
since then tells the tale of an abrupt ecosystem shift
https://massivesci.com/articles/antarctica-dry-valley-melting-ozone-water-climate-change-science-friday/
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The World's Largest Deserts
A map showing the generalized location of Earth's ten largest deserts and a table of over 20 major deserts.
https://geology.com/records/largest-desert.shtml
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PERMAFROST PROPERTIES IN THE McMURDO SOUND–DRY VALLEY REGION OF ANTARCTICA
1998
https://www.arlis.org/docs/vol1/ICOP/40770716/CD-ROM/Proceedings/PDF001189/019136.pdf
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Searching for Organic Carbon in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica
6 December 2017
Researchers identify the first evidence of microbial respiration in desiccated Antarctic permafrost soils.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/searching-for-organic-carbon-in-the-dry-valleys-of-antarctica
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Valley floor climate observations from the McMurdo dry valleys, Antarctica, 1986–2000
21 December 2002
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2001JD002045
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Geochemistry of aeolian material from the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: Insights into Southern Hemisphere dust sources
2020
https://dwirokue.afphila.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X20304040
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Observations of platelet ice growth and oceanographic conditions during the winter of 2003 in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
31 Mar 2006
https://typeset.io/papers/observations-of-platelet-ice-growth-and-oceanographic-3g6vtk51dj
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Ice-sheet expansion from the Ross Sea into McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, during the last two glaciations
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379122000105
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Influence of Late Holocene climate on Lake Eggers hydrology, McMurdo Sound
11 February 2021
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/abs/influence-of-late-holocene-climate-on-lake-eggers-hydrology-mcmurdo-sound/063189BE64FC2668C257FEEE4DB753E0
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McMurdo Sound
McMurdo Sound, bay off Antarctica that forms the western extension of Ross Sea, lying at the edge of Ross Ice Shelf, west of Ross Island and east of Victoria Land.
The channel, 92 miles (148 km) long and up to 46 miles (74 km) wide,
has been a major centre for Antarctic explorations. First discovered in
1841 by the Scottish explorer Sir James Clark Ross,
it thereafter served as one of the main access routes to the Antarctic
continent. Along its shores, on Ross Island, the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott
established his headquarters. That site later served as the main base
for the expedition (1908) of another British explorer, Ernest Henry
Shackleton, and from the 1950s it and several locations on Victoria Land
served as scientific-research stations operated by the United States and New Zealand.
https://www.britannica.com/place/McMurdo-Sound
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What They Just Discovered In Antarctica TERRIFIES The Whole World
Feb 8, 2023
Antarctica
is without a doubt the most mysterious continent on the planet! Yes,
this frozen wasteland holds many secrets, and with terrain that’s almost
impossible to navigate, it’s likely that we will never find out exactly
what lingers beneath the ice and snow of this shady landscape! Many
explorers have tried and failed to conquer Antarctica, and in doing so,
have unearthed some unsettling discoveries! From the alien meteorite
that may hold the secrets of our solar system, to the legendary
shipwreck that once was sailed by the iconic Arctic explorer Ernest
Shackleton, these are the 20 Unsettling Discoveries In Antarctica
Nobody Can Explain!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wxJP1l3qzU
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Russia Just Announced The TERRIFYING Truth About Antartica
Feb 10, 2023
Around
90 million years ago, Antarctica was home to a sprawling tropical
rainforest teeming with exotic flora and fauna. However, everything
changed when the Ice Age hit, and it became the tundra we know today.
With a landmass of 13.7 million square kilometers, the majority of which
is totally covered in ice and snow all year, there are many secrets
lurking beneath the surface. Melting ice and human touch have revealed
amazing features in this mysterious region of our planet, ranging from
peculiar microorganism's unknown to the rest of the world to odd
glaciers that sing. All kinds of unnerving things have been discovered
in Antarctica, and today we'll bring you some of the most terrifying and
formidable things Mankind has uncovered in the Antarctic ice. So, make
sure you stick around until the end.
Number 1. Allan Hills 84001
Allan Hills 84001 is the name given to a chunk of a Martian meteorite
discovered in the Antarctica town of Allan Hills. On December 27, 1984, a
team of American meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project discovered
this meteorite. This 1.93-kilogram meteorite originated from Mars and
belonged to the shergottite-nakhlite-chassignite group. Since the color
of the terrain in Antarctica makes it simple to notice items that seem
to not belong here, meteor hunters find it to be an ideal area to search
for rocks that have fallen from outer space. The ANSMET crew visits
Antarctica every year, and they've discovered some amazing rocks so far.
One of these rocks is Allan Hills 84001. ALH 84001 was discovered on
the Allan Hills Far Western ice field by Roberta Score, a lab manager at
the Johnson Space Center's Antarctic meteorite laboratory. Despite the
fact that specialists believe it to be one of the oldest meteorites to
have originated from Mars, they estimate that it crystallized from
molten Martian rock approximately 4.09 billion years ago. The chemical
examination of this rock shows that liquid water was present on Mars'
surface at the time of its formation. An investigation of the origin of
ALH 84001 was shared in September 2005 using data from the Mars Global
Surveyor and the 2001 Mars Odyssey probe. The meteorite appears to have
come from Eos Chasma in the Valles Marineris canyon, according to the
analysis. Scientists estimate that this boulder was blown away from
Mars' surface by the impact of a meteor that struck roughly 17 million
years ago. Radiometric dating studies revealed that ALH 84001 arrived on
Earth around 13,000 years ago. This meteorite has received more
attention than any other with probable biological signs because it is
the only one from wet Mars. In 1996, a group of experts claimed to have
discovered evidence in this meteorite indicating that it contained
remains of Martian microorganisms. This disclosure of possible
extraterrestrial life sparked a heated debate, with many assuming that
it was actual evidence. However, the majority of the scientific
community quickly rejected this contentious theory. There may or may not
have been Martian life in this meteorite, but it set the precedent for
many future breakthroughs in the developing field of astrobiology, and
just because this meteorite didn't contain fossilized Martian bacteria
doesn't mean there aren't more out there hiding the alien microorganisms
in their core. Disclaimer:
The content presented in our videos is intended solely for entertainment
purposes. While we may draw upon facts, rumors, and fiction, viewers
should not interpret any part of the content as factual or definitive
information. Please enjoy responsibly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ0jg0L9Z2U
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Sea Ice in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
2011
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/49600/sea-ice-in-mcmurdo-sound-antarctica
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What Are the Dry Valleys of Antarctica?
May 29 2018
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-dry-valleys-of-antarctica.html
Taylor Valley, Antarctica.
The
Dry Valleys of Antarctica refers to the McMurdo Dry Valleys, which are
located in the Transantarctic Mountains of Victoria Land, Antarctica.
Instead of being covered in snow and ice like most valleys in
Antarctica, the Dry Valleys are dry and covered with dirt, granite, and
gravel. The low humidity levels prevent precipitation from forming and
the high sides have kept glaciers from sliding down into the base of the
valleys. This part of the continent is home to the Onyx River, which
connects Lake Vanda and Lake Brownworth and is considered the
continent's longest river. Additionally, Lake Vida is located in the
McMurdo Dry Valleys, and has a higher salinity level than the
surrounding ocean, and therefore harbored frozen 2,800-year-old microbes
that were brought back to life in 2002. A number of other bodies of
water are found here, including Lake Miers, Don Juan Pond, and Kite
Stream.
The McMurdo Dry Valleys are made up of 15 separate
valleys. Of these 15 valleys, the principal formations are: the Taylor
Valley, Wright Valley, and Victoria Valley.
Taylor Valley
Taylor
Valley is located at the southernmost point of the dry valley region in
Antarctica and measures approximately 18 miles in length. Taylor
Glacier once occupied the majority of the valley, although over time the
glacier receded and is now located on the western side of Taylor
Valley. To its east sits the New Harbour Bay. The valley is home to
several bodies of water, including: Mummy Pond, Parera Pond, Lake Chad,
Lake Fryxell, Lake Bonney, Lake Chad, Lake Popplewell, and Lake Hoare.
It was first identified at the beginning of the 20th century by the
British National Antarctic Expedition.
Wright Valley
Wright
Valley is located in the middle of the three primary McMurdo Dry
Valleys. To its east lies the McMurdo Sound and to its west lies the
Labyrinth upland region. The valley is home to Lake Brownworth, which
supplies water for the Onyx River, which is the longest river in
Antarctica. Additionally, Lake Vanda, another source of water for the
Onyx River, is located in Wright Valley. Despite its large size, it was
one of the last McMurdo Dry Valleys to be discovered. Records indicate
that it was identified during the 1940s, when aerial pictures of the
region were taken. Later, in the 1960s, the Antarctic Division of New
Zealand and the National Science Foundation of the United States
identified the need for a permanent research base in the valley, and as a
result the Vanda Station was later built. Today, it has been replaced
by Lake Vanda Hut, which is a weather station.
Victoria Valley
Victoria
Valley is the northernmost of the largest McMurdo Dry Valleys. It is
situated between the Olympus Mountain Range to the south and the St.
Johns Mountain Range to the north. To its west are three minor dry
valleys: Balham, McKelvey, and Barwick. Like the other large valleys,
Victoria Valley is home to a number of bodies of water, including:
Victoria River (which drains into the Upper Victoria Lake), Lake Thomas,
and Lake Vida (the largest lake in Antarctica).
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Wright Valley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Valley
The
Wright Valley, named after Sir Charles Wright, is the central one of
the three large Dry Valleys in the Transantarctic Mountains, located
west of McMurdo Sound at approximately 77°10′S 161°50′E. Wright Valley
contains the Onyx River, the longest river in Antarctica, Lake
Brownworth, the origin of the Onyx River, and Lake Vanda, which is fed
by the Onyx River. Its southwestern branch, South Fork, is the location
of Don Juan Pond. The upland area known as the Labyrinth is at the
valley's west end.
Although portions of the interconnected valley
system were discovered in 1903 by the Discovery expedition led by
Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the Wright Valley located near the centre
of the system was not seen until aerial photographs of the region were
made in 1947. By the mid 1960s scientists were becoming increasingly
intrigued by the paradoxical fact that the valley lay immediately
adjacent to the permanent East Antarctic Ice Sheet, yet had remained
ice-free for at least thousands of years. Although Lake Vanda is covered
by roughly 3 metres (9.8 ft) of ice year-round, lake temperatures of 25
°C (77 °F) had been reliably measured at a depth of 65 metres (213 ft).
Increasing
summer field activity and a clear need to establish a winter record led
New Zealand's Antarctic Division and the National Science Foundation of
the United States to plan a more permanent base in the valley. In 1968
New Zealand established Vanda Station near the eastern end of Lake
Vanda.
Martin Cirque occupies the south wall of Wright Valley between Denton Glacier and Nichols Ridge.
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In Antarctic dry valleys, early signs of climate change-induced shifts in soil
January 6, 2018
https://phys.org/news/2018-01-antarctic-valleys-early-climate-change-induced.html
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Clays in Antarctica from millions of years ago reveal past climate changes
January 23, 2020
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-clays-antarctica-millions-years-reveal.html
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Artifact of the Week 20230428 - Antarctic Service Medal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUgq7lRqEvM
Scientists solve the mystery of green icebergs that are only seen in Antarctica
Mar 06, 2019
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/scientists-solve-the-mystery-of-green-icebergs-that-are-only-seen-in-antarctica-6207641.html
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The mystery of strange, emerald Green Icebergs in Antarctica Might have finally been solved
March 8, 2019
https://earthnewsreport.com/2019/03/08/the-mystery-of-strange-emerald-green-icebergs-in-antarctica-might-have-finally-been-solved/
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Willis Resilience Expedition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Resilience_Expedition
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Leonid Rogozov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Rogozov
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Leonid Rogozov, The Soviet Doctor Who Performed Emergency Surgery On Himself
When Russian explorer Leonid Rogozov needed an appendectomy in the middle of Antarctica, he was the only doctor on site. So he did it himself.
February 23, 2016
https://allthatsinteresting.com/leonid-rogozov
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The Antarctic Continental Margin: Geology and Geophysics of Offshore Wilkes Land
1987
https://books.google.com/books?id=XsZWAAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_book_similarbooks
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Potassium‐argon ages for some Australian Mesozoic igneous rocks
01 Aug 2007
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00167617608728916
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Wildfires likely contributed to Earth's largest mass extinction
https://www.earth.com/news/wildfires-likely-contributed-to-earths-largest-mass-extinction/
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The Mystery Of 536 AD: The Worst Climate Disaster In History | Catastrophe | Timeline
Jun 23, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUz5Vjq9-s
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Scientist New Discovery In Antarctica Nobody Would Have Believed!
Jul 20, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLvQHy5s-aI
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Investigations on baseline levels for natural radioactivity in soils, rocks, and lakes of Larsemann Hills in East Antarctica
18 November 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10661-021-09446-8
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Cave Diving Gone Wrong | The First Iceberg Cave Dive
Jun 20, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t7_3Zczr1I
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24 Most Dangerous and Difficult Mountains to Climb
Oct 23, 2017
2:28 - Mount Vinson, Antarctica
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OLwhtSLIA8
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Strange Places On Earth That Seem Scientifically Impossible
Aug 20, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PAuT9nqO3c
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These Places Shouldn’t Exist On Earth But They Damn Well DO! - Part 2
Jul 19, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v7HRlvdgrQ
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What They Discovered in Antarctica Shocked the Whole World
Aug 13, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FvX8b1ejEk
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Scientist's Terrifying NEW Discoveries Under Antarctica's Ice
Jun 19, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iM3kHSRNu8
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10 Conspiracy Theories About Antarctica
April 22, 2019
10 Some Ancient Civilization Built Pyramids In Antarctica
9 The Nazis Have A Secret Base In Antarctica
8 The Lost City Of Atlantis Is Under Antarctica
7 Rectangular Icebergs In Antarctica Were Built By Aliens
6 A UFO Crash-Landed In Antarctica
5 A Crater In Antarctica Is Actually An Entrance Into The Earth
4 Google Knows Something We Do Not Know About Antarctica
3 Two Craters In Antarctica Are Entrances To A Secret UFO Base
2 Antarctica Does Not Exist
1 The Nazis Hid UFOs In Antarctica
+ A UFO Flew Directly Above A Research Station In The Antarctic
https://listverse.com/2019/04/22/10-conspiracy-theories-about-antarctica/
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Massive ‘anomaly’ lurks beneath ice in Antarctica
December 29, 2016
Scientists believe a massive object that could change our understanding of history is hidden beneath the Antarctic ice.
The huge and mysterious “anomaly” is thought to be lurking beneath the frozen wasteland of an area called Wilkes Land. The area is 151 miles across and has a minimum depth of about 2,700 feet.
Some researchers believe it is the remains of a truly massive asteroid more than twice the size of the Chicxulub space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs.
If this explanation is true, it could mean this killer asteroid caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event, which killed 96 percent of Earth’s sea creatures and up to 70 percent of the vertebrate organisms living on land.
However, the wilder minds of the internet have come up with their own theories, with some conspiracy theorists claiming it could be a massive UFO base or a portal to a mysterious underworld called the Hollow Earth.
This “Wilkes Land gravity anomaly” was first uncovered in 2006, when NASA satellites spotted gravitational changes which indicated the presence of a huge object sitting in the middle of a 300-mile-wide impact crater.
Now the internet has lit up with discussions of the mysterious observations after the UFO-hunting crew Secure Team 10 posted a YouTube video about the anomaly.
“To this day, scientists have no idea or way to discover exactly what is buried deep under this thick ice shelf,” the video narrator said.
“This continent has been shrouded in a mystery of its own for years now.”
https://nypost.com/2016/12/29/massive-anomaly-lurks-beneath-ice-in-antarctica/
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Frozen Treasures Found In The Depths Of Antarctica
Feb. 2, 2023
https://www.grunge.com/161157/frozen-treasures-found-in-the-depths-of-antarctica/
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World's largest canyon could be hidden under Antarctic ice sheet
January 13, 2016
https://phys.org/news/2016-01-world-largest-canyon-hidden-antarctic.html
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Google Earth user spots dome-covered cave in Antarctica, sparking alien theories
Nov. 14, 2020
https://nypost.com/2020/11/14/youtuber-sparks-theories-after-spotting-dome-covered-antarctica-cave/
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Giant Hole the Size of Kansas Appeared in the Antarctic Ice in 2017 and Scientists Now Know Why
Apr 25, 2019
In 2017, a giant hole appeared in the Antarctic ice. It appeared in mid-September and, initially, measured 3,700 square miles. Within six weeks it had grown to more than 30,000 square miles—an area almost as big as Kansas.
Known as a polynya, the hole was an area of unfrozen ocean surrounded by ice. This one, known as the Maud-Rise Polynya, located in the Lazarev Sea, was first recorded in 1974 but had not reappeared since. It was spotted during the depths of the Antarctic winter, when sea ice is at its thickest.
What caused it to open back up was a mystery.
It had previously been suggested polynyas that appear in the winter were caused by winds blowing across the ice—but what exactly causes them to appear is not fully understood.
https://www.newsweek.com/giant-hole-antarctic-ice-2017-1405503
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'NASA images show giant hole at North Pole leading to hollow Earth' conspiracy theorists claim
In a video revealing never before seen pictures of the alleged hole, YouTube conspiracy theorists secureteam10 said: “Every single satellite image that we have of the North Pole shows a massive hole or a black out hole put there to hide whatever’s underneath.”
Alien hunters spot mysterious 'extra-terrestrial' markings in Google Maps images of seabed
They claim the US Government is covering up the secret hole – a theory they say is supported by the fact aircraft are blocked from flying over the North Pole .
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/nasa-images-show-giant-hole-8019446
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Is the Earth Actually Hollow?
October 21, 2015
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/agartha-hollow-earth-theory
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Hollow Earth Theory; Is The Subterranean Civilization of Agartha Real?
Is there evidence of a civilization deep beneath the Earth’s surface, or even an atmosphere capable of harboring life? While a lot of the information we receive from NASA and environmental agencies may be accurate, there is still much to be discovered about our planet.
Until more recent times, many people were convinced our planet was a hollow shell with a civilization of Earthly ancients residing underground. The French novelist Jules Verne, known for his series Voyages Extraordinaires, wrote Journey to The Center of the Earth around the time that the belief in a subterranean society piqued.
Before Verne, the hollow Earth concept was originally proposed in the 17th century by Edmond Halley, discoverer of the eponymous short-orbit comet that swings past Earth every 75 years or so. Halley believed the Earth consisted of several concentric shells separated by individual atmospheres, with the outermost layer having a thickness of about 500 miles. Halley believed natural phenomena like the Aurora Borealis and magnetic field variance were products of these multiple layers, which he said moved independently of each other.
Admiral Byrd and the Hollow Earth Expedition
Fast forward another century, between the time of the Great Depression and WWII, as Admiral Richard E. Byrd of the U.S. Navy pioneered further exploration of the poles. And after a multitude of trips to the arctic territories, there is one Byrd narrative that sticks out more than the rest: his record-setting flight over the North Pole.
According to an alleged diary entry written during his polar flight, Byrd came across a warm, lush climate with Mammoth-like creatures and an ancient human race that had been residing within the Earth.
His plane was commandeered mid-air and landed for him by people in the center of the Earth who intercepted his plane with saucer-shaped aircraft. Upon landing, he was met by emissaries of a civilization many assume to be the mythical Agartha. These alleged Agarthans expressed their concern about humanity’s use of atomic bombs during WWII and employed Byrd as their ambassador to return to the U.S. government and relay their sentiment.
The striking issue regarding the validity of this diary entry is that it is dated February 1947. If it is to be believed this story covers Byrd’s inaugural flight over the North Pole, then one need only look at the actual date when he achieved this feat more than 20 years earlier on May 9, 1926. In fact, upon further inspection, it appears Byrd probably didn’t quite reach the North Pole and instead fabricated his navigation records, poaching credit from another team that actually set the record a few days later.
But what makes this entry so intriguing is that, if it is real, could it have potentially been misconstrued from a later mission to Antarctica? Is it actually referring to the notorious Operation Highjump?
Highjump was one of the largest operations ever conducted in Antarctica with over 4,000 men sent to study, map, and reside on the continent for eight months. The expedition included 13 Navy support ships, an aircraft carrier, helicopters, flying boats, and an array of more traditional aircraft.
This expedition, as well as the subsequent Operation Deep Freeze eight years later, established an American military presence on Antarctica, which is prohibited today. So why, exactly, was there such a rush to facilitate this occupation?
Byrd later told a reporter for the Chilean newspaper, El Mercurio, that his expedition taught him the U.S. should “prepare for the possibility of hostile planes coming from the polar regions” as part of a “recapitulation of his own polar experience.” Many took this to be evidence of the flying craft he saw coming from what is believed to have been Agartha.
Were the Nazis at the Center of the Earth?
Agartha Proof in Ancient Cultures
https://www.gaia.com/article/hollow-earth-theory-is-the-subterranean-civilization-of-agartha-real
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Whatever Happened To Dallas Thompson?
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Operation Highjump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Highjump
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Operation Highjump | ADMIRAL BYRD AND the SECRET (NAZI UFO Base In Antarctica)
Dec 14, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCreks14meA
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What You Are Not Being Told About The Biggest Cover-up in Antarctica “Operation Highjump”
2017
https://simplecapacity.com/2017/10/what-you-are-not-being-told-about-the-cover-up-in-antarctica-operation-highjump/
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Operation Highjump: The Secret Mission to Antarctica and its cover-up
https://worldtruth.tv/operation-high-jump-the-secret-mission-to-antarctica-and-its-cover-up/
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Admiral Richard E. Byrd: Operation HighJump 1946 U.S. Navy Antarctic Research Expedition
October 13, 2019
https://beforeitsnews.com/paranormal/2019/10/admiral-richard-e-byrd-operation-highjump-1946-u-s-navy-antarctic-research-expedition-2545026.html
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Operation Highjump – declassified pictures, UFO evidence
November 18, 2013
https://coolinterestingstuff.com/operation-highjump-declassified-pictures-ufo-evidence
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Operation Highjump
2015
https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/operation-highjump/
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A Compilation of Hollow Earth Hypotheses and Evidence (for and against)
April 27, 2015
https://stillnessinthestorm.com/a-compilation-of-hollow-ear/
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Tales of a Hollow Earth
Tracing the Legacy of John Cleves Symmes
in Antarctic Exploration and Fiction.
2011
https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/5478/Thesis_Fulltext.pdf
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Where Is the World's Deepest Cave?
December 22, 2015
https://www.livescience.com/53179-where-is-the-worlds-deepest-cave.html
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Denman Glacier: Deepest point on land found in Antarctica
December 12, 2019
https://ps.uci.edu/news/112
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Denman Glacier: Deepest point on land found in Antarctica
2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50753113
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10 Totally Bizarre Holes In The Earth
2014
10. Siberia’s Holes
9. The Kola Superdeep Borehole
8. The German Continental Deep Drilling Program And The Earth’s Heartbeat
7. Dead Sea Sinkholes
6. Dean’s Blue Hole
5. Mount Baldy’s Randomly Appearing Holes
4. The Devil’s Sinkhole
3. The Sawmill Sink
2. The Black Hole Of Andros
1. The Son Doong Cave
+ The Deluxe Mystery Hole
https://listverse.com/2014/08/07/10-totally-bizarre-holes-in-the-earth/
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Earth has a vast interior ocean, 400-miles under our feet, that creates 'ringwoodite' gems
Aug 29, 2024
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Massive 'ocean' discovered towards Earth's core
12 June 2014
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25723-massive-ocean-discovered-towards-earths-core/
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Huge Underground Reservoir Holds Three Times as Much Water as Earth’s Oceans
June 13, 2014
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Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth
February 28, 2007
https://www.livescience.com/1312-huge-ocean-discovered-earth.html
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Scientists Found the Deepest Land on Earth Hiding Beneath Antarctica's Ice
December 13, 2019
A new mapping effort revealed critical new details of Antarctica's hidden land.
A new map of the mountains, valleys and canyons hidden under Antarctica's ice has revealed the deepest land on Earth, and will help forecast future ice loss.
The frozen southern continent can look pretty flat and featureless from above. But beneath the ice pack that's accumulated over the eons, there's an ancient continent, as textured as any other. And that texture turns out to be very important for predicting how and when ice will flow and which regions of ice are most vulnerable in a warming world. The new NASA map, called BedMachine Antarctica, mixes ice movement measurements, seismic measurements, radar and other data points to create the most detailed picture yet of Antarctica's hidden features.
https://www.livescience.com/new-anatarctica-map-climate-change.html
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'Factorian Deep,' the new deepest point in Antarctica's Southern Ocean, mapped for the first time
https://www.livescience.com/antarctica-southern-ocean-factorian-deep
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Ellsworth mountains: Position in West Antarctica due to sea-floor spreading
January 1, 1969
Similarities of middle and upper Paleozoic deposits of the Ellsworth Mountains with those of the Pensacola, Horlick, and other Transantarctic mountains indicate that all these ranges may have had a related geologic history. A tentative explanation is now suggested which involves sea-floor spreading and translocation of the Ellsworth crustal block from its original location adjacent to the East Antarctic Shield. Accordingly, the islands of West Antarctica may differ in origin and the Transantarctic Mountains of East Antarctica may represent one margin of an ancient rift.
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Antarctica has a huge, completely hidden mountain range. New data reveal its birth over 500 million years ago
May 12, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-antarctica-huge-hidden-mountain-range.html
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The hunt for ancient ice that witnessed West Antarctica’s collapse
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03793-w/
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New satellite images reveal mysterious dome structure hidden in Antarctica fuelling shock claims an ancient civilisation once lived there
A HUGE structure has been discovered in Antartica - and it's baffling scientists.
Conspiracy theorists insist that the Google Earth image proves the South Pole was once home to an ancient city.
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THE
'LOST CITY' OF ANTARCTICA: Shock claims massive ancient civilisation
lies frozen beneath mile of Antarctic ice – and could even be Atlantis
12 Dec 2016
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2380220/shock-claims-massive-civilisation-lies-frozen-beneath-a-mile-of-ice-in-the-south-pole/
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Was there a prehistoric civilization in Antarctica?
2002
https://english.pravda.ru/society/1609-antarctica/
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Frozen Ancient Civilization Discovered In Antarctica
https://newspunch.com/ancient-alien-civilization-antarctica/
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Pyramids Spotted In Antarctica – Real or Hoax?
April 7, 2022
https://www.antarcticajournal.com/pyramids-spotted-in-antarctica-real-or-hoax/
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Antarctica Pyramid May Hold Clues To Icy Atlantis, A Forgotten Prehistoric Civilization
https://aubtu.biz/62564/
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ANTARCTICA CASTLE DISCOVERED
July 7, 2022
https://www.antarcticajournal.com/antarctica-castle-discovered/
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Fact Check: Is this Antarctica as seen from space? Not really
July 20, 2020
Recently,
scientists have warned of the rapid melting of Antarctica's Thwaites
glacier - also known as "Doomsday glacier" for its collapse could
submerge many coastal cities worldwide. Amid this, a purported view of
Antarctica from space is being widely shared on social media.
https://www.indiatoday.in/fact-check/story/fact-check-is-this-antarctica-as-seen-from-space-not-really-1702651-2020-07-20
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6 Conspiracy Theories About Antarctica That Might Be True
Nov 28, 2017
https://www.buzzfeed.com/rickysans/6-conspiracy-theories-about-antarctica-that-might-be-true
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Mysterious Planet: Here’s a List of Earth’s 12 Vile Vortices
Dec 15, 2020
The List and location of the vortices according to Sanderson:
- Bermuda Triangle is the best known of the vile vortices.
- Algerian Megaliths is south of Timbuktu.
- Indus Valley is in the city of Mohenjo Daro, Pakistan.
- Hamakulia Volcano is east of Hawaii.
- “Devil’s Sea” is south of Japan.
- South Atlantic Anomaly
- Wharton Basin
- Easter Island megaliths
- East of Rio de Janeiro
- Loyalty Islands
- North Pole
Why these places are home to the mysterious remains an enigma, but Sanderson and other paranormal hunters, have come up with different theories.
https://curiosmos.com/mysterious-planet-heres-a-list-of-earths-12-vile-vortices/
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12 Vile Vortices: The Geometric Anomalies of Ivan Sanderson
https://www.strangerdimensions.com/2014/07/15/12-vile-vortices-ivan-sanderson/
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Hunting Antarctica's Holy Grail, Deep Beneath the Ice
An ambitious experiment to drill into the ice sheet and travel a million years into the past.
The oldest continuous ice core comes from Dome C, right where Pedro was supposed to start drilling over the 2021/22 summer season. It was obtained by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, or EPICA, in the early 2000s and was a watershed moment in Antarctic ice core science.
The
core helped strengthen the argument that CO2 levels and temperature are
tightly coupled. When CO2 rises, so does temperature. It also revealed
concentrations of CO2 have never been as high over the last 800,000
years as they are today.
https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/features/hunting-antarcticas-holy-grail-deep-beneath-the-ice/
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Does Giant Crater Lie Beneath The Antarctic Ice?
Signs of an Ancient Impact Could Help Explain Mass Extinction
June 2, 2006
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/antarctica/antartica19.htm
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Antarctica once covered in palm trees, scientists discover
August 2, 2012
https://www.foxnews.com/science/antarctica-once-covered-in-palm-trees-scientists-discover
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Antarctica Was Once Covered in Forests. We Just Found One That Fossilized.
November 15, 2017
The
ancient trees were able to withstand alternating months of pure
sunlight and darkness, before falling in history's greatest mass
extinction.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/ancient-fossil-forest-found-antarctica-gondwana-spd
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Traces of ancient rainforest in Antarctica point to a warmer prehistoric world
2020
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2020/04/traces-of-ancient-rainforest-in-antarctica-point-to-a-warmer-prehistoric-world/126963
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Antarctica: 260 Million-Year-Old Forest That Existed Before the Dinosaurs Discovered
2017
https://www.newsweek.com/antarctica-ancient-forest-dinosaurs-discovered-709192
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‘Antarctic king’ reptile discovery sheds light on weird prehistoric South Pole
31 Jan 2019
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/antarctic-king-reptile-south-pole
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Antarctica's Hidden Caves Could Be Home to 'New World' of Plants and Animals
Sep 08, 2017
The cave systems underneath the Antarctic ice could be home to an "exciting new world" of plants and animals. After analyzing DNA retrieved from a cave system underneath the Ross Island volcano Mount Erebus, scientists at the Australia National University found samples that could not be fully identified—pointing to the presence of unidentified species living in the subglacial terrains.
The caves around Mount Erebus are surprisingly hot—geothermal heat from the volcano has led to the formation of vents, with volcanic steam hollowing out extensive and interconnected cave systems.
"It can be really warm inside the caves—up to 25 degrees Celsius [77 degrees Fahrenheit] in some caves," Ceidwen Fraser, lead researcher on the project, said in a statement. "You could wear a T-shirt in there and be pretty comfortable. There's light near the cave mouths, and light filters deeper into some caves where the overlying ice is thin."
In the study, published in the journal Polar Biology, the team collected soil samples from three volcanoes in the Victoria Land region of Antarctica, and from the subglacial caves of Mount Erebus. Their findings showed many types of moss, algae, arthropods and nematodes at all the sites, supporting the idea that geothermal areas, including caves hidden beneath the ice, can be havens for biodiversity.
https://www.newsweek.com/antarctica-ice-caves-volcanoes-hidden-biodiversity-661642
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Warm Antarctic caves harbour secret life: scientists
September 8, 2017
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-antarctic-caves-harbour-secret-life.html
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The Shocking Reason Why Planes Never Fly Over Antarctica
Aug 19, 2024
https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-shocking-reason-why-planes-never-fly-over-antarctica-f16566e232e1
Think the Bermuda Triangle, but frozen.
Antarctica, the coldest and most remote continent on Earth, has long intrigued scientists and adventurers alike. Yet, despite our advances in aviation, commercial flights over this vast icy expanse remain almost nonexistent.
The reasons behind this aviation anomaly are as fascinating as they are complex, involving extreme weather conditions, treacherous geography, and even scientific mysteries buried beneath the ice.
Antarctica’s Harsh Environment
Antarctica is home to some of the harshest weather conditions on the planet, with temperatures plunging to an unimaginable -128.6°F. These frigid conditions render the continent nearly uninhabitable, challenging both humans and machines.
The extreme cold affects aircraft systems, from engines to hydraulics, making it difficult to operate efficiently. Even the most advanced planes face difficulties in such severe weather, as metal and mechanical parts can become brittle and prone to failure.
De-icing is a critical concern for any aircraft flying in cold regions, but in Antarctica, it becomes an almost insurmountable challenge. The freezing temperatures cause ice to build up quickly on the wings and fuselage, which can disrupt airflow and lead to catastrophic failures.
Traditional de-icing methods are often insufficient, as the ice can reform within minutes, making it unsafe for continuous flight. Sudden storms and turbulence, which are common in Antarctica, only exacerbate these risks, as they can cause unexpected changes in altitude and course, putting aircraft and passengers in jeopardy.
The unpredictable nature of Antarctica’s weather further complicates flight operations. Sudden whiteouts and blizzards can occur without warning, drastically reducing visibility and making navigation difficult. In such conditions, emergency landings are nearly impossible.
There are few, if any, safe places to land, and the extreme cold and isolation mean that rescue operations would be delayed, if not entirely unfeasible. For commercial airlines, the risks associated with these weather conditions are simply too great, making flights over Antarctica a dangerous proposition.
Antarctica’s geographic isolation is another significant barrier to flight operations. Situated at the southernmost point of the Earth, the continent is one of the most remote locations on the planet. Its distance from major landmasses makes it incredibly difficult for planes to reach and even harder to leave in the event of an emergency.
The continent’s lack of infrastructure further complicates matters. Unlike other regions, Antarctica has virtually no runways, refueling stations, air traffic control, or maintenance facilities that are essential for long-haul flights.
Without these critical resources, planes cannot safely navigate the vast distances required to cross the continent. In the event of an emergency, there would be nowhere to land and no immediate assistance available.
The sparse human presence on the continent compounds these risks. Antarctica is primarily inhabited by researchers stationed at isolated bases, which are few and far between.
This limited population means that rescue operations or support in the event of an emergency would be severely constrained. For commercial airlines, the prospect of flying over such a remote and unforgiving environment presents too many risks, making it a no-fly zone for most carriers.
Scientific Mysteries Under The Ice
Antarctica is far more than just a frozen expanse; it is a continent rich with geological history that offers glimpses into Earth’s ancient past. Beneath the ice lies evidence of a world that existed millions of years ago, including ancient fossils and massive subglacial mountains.
These findings reveal that Antarctica was once a verdant landscape, vastly different from the icy wilderness we see today.
One of the most compelling discoveries in recent years is the unearthing of ancient DNA and fossils that point to a time when Antarctica was not covered in ice. Scientists have found remnants of ancient plants, animals, and microorganisms preserved in the ice, suggesting that the continent once supported a lush, thriving ecosystem.
Fern fossils from the Triassic of Antarctica.
The implications of these discoveries are immense, offering new insights into Earth’s climatic history and the processes that have shaped our planet. By studying these ancient remains, scientists can better understand how global climates have shifted and how life on Earth has adapted to these changes.
Antarctica, with its hidden geological treasures, has become a critical location for research that could unlock the secrets of Earth’s evolutionary past and provide clues about future climate change.
However, the very fragility of Antarctica’s environment poses significant risks, particularly in the face of human activity. Aviation and other forms of human intervention could disrupt this delicate ecosystem, particularly the ice sheets and the unique wildlife that call this frozen continent home. The introduction of pollutants, noise, and physical disturbances could have long-lasting effects on the pristine environment.
To mitigate these risks, stringent environmental regulations and international treaties have been established to protect Antarctica. The Antarctic Treaty System, for example, sets forth strict guidelines that limit human presence and activities on the continent.
This framework is designed to preserve the ecological balance and ensure that scientific research can continue without causing harm to the environment.
Preserving Antarctica’s untouched landscape is crucial not only for protecting its unique ecosystems but also for maintaining global ecological balance. The continent’s ice sheets play a vital role in regulating the Earth’s climate, and any disruption could have far-reaching consequences.
By safeguarding this remote and fragile environment, we ensure that future generations of scientists can continue to explore and learn from the mysteries hidden beneath the ice.
Logistical and Technical Challenges of Flying Over Antarctica
Navigating over Antarctica presents unique challenges due to the Earth’s magnetic fields near the poles. These magnetic anomalies can disrupt traditional navigation systems, such as compasses, making it difficult for pilots to accurately determine their position. The closer an aircraft gets to the pole, the more unreliable these systems become, increasing the risk of navigational errors...
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Top 10 Prohibited Google Maps Locations You Are NEVER Allowed To Visit
Jan 21, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iootfjYd0VE
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A Theory You've Never Heard Of | Michael Robinson | TEDx University of Hartford (White Tribe)
Nov 9, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn4bvjMh4vc
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Scientists Terrifying New Discovery Frozen In Ice That Changes Everything
Feb 19, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IehtHEK4mgI
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Is THIS the Climate Tipping Point of No Return?
Feb 14, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpqZTqIKMxs
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Freemason draws earth
Jun 29, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPdiqYOaTGY
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Freemason draws the Earth
Jul 19, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWrYMrJvAo
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A Mysterious Hole Keeps Opening Up in Antarctica, And Scientists Say It'll Be Back
02 May 2019
In the early 1970s, when satellites first began snapping photos of Earth, scientists noticed a mysterious hole in one of Antarctica's seasonal ice packs, floating on the Lazarev Sea. Come summertime the gap had disappeared, and for decades the strange event went unexplained.
Then, a year and a half ago, during the continent's coldest winter months, when ice should be at its thickest, a giant 9,500-square-kilometre hole (almost 3,700 square miles) suddenly showed up in the same ice pack. Two months later it had grown a stunning 740 percent larger, before once again retreating with the summer ice.
It's taken decades, but scientists think they finally understand why this keeps happening. Using satellite observations and reanalysis data, researchers from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) have found that these ephemeral holes, known as polynyas, appear to be scars from cyclonic storms.
In September of 2017, as warm air and cold air collided at the South Pole, the authors explain that the swirling inward winds of a cyclone - reaching 117 kilometres an hour (72 mph) and whipping up waves 16 metres high (52 feet) - pushed the Antarctic ice pack in all directions and away from the eye of the storm, like a drill to the water below.
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Mysterious holes in Antarctic sea ice explained by years of robotic data
June 10, 2019
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-mysterious-holes-antarctic-sea-ice.html
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A Mysteriously Massive Hole in Antarctic Ice Has Returned
October 12, 2017
These
holes are thought to be crucial elements of the currents driving the
world’s oceans, and after 40 years, one has formed again
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/return-massive-ice-hole-antarctica-has-baffled-scientists-180965246/
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A giant hole has opened up in Antarctica as scientists look to find out what is to blame
2017
'It looks like you just punched a hole in the ice'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/antarctica-giant-hole-opens-up-scientists-climate-change-global-warming-weddell-sea-a7994171.html
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Mysterious, Gaping Holes in Antarctic Ice Explained
June 11, 2019
Enormous
holes in the Antarctic winter ice pack have popped up sporadically
since the 1970s, but the reason for their formation has been largely
mysterious.
Scientists, with the help of floating robots and
tech-equipped seals, may now have the answer: The so-called polynyas
(Russian for "open water") seem to be the result of storms and salt, new
research finds.
Polynyas have gotten a lot of attention lately
because two very large ones opened in the Weddell Sea in 2016 and 2017;
in the latter event, the open waters stretched over 115,097 square miles
(298,100 square kilometers), according to an article published in April
in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Now, the most
comprehensive look ever at the ocean conditions during polynya formation
reveals that these stretches of open water grow due to short-timescale
climate variations and particularly nasty weather. The polynyas also
release a lot of deep-ocean heat into the atmosphere, with consequences
that scientists are still working out...
The hole in the sea ice offshore of the Antarctic coast was spotted by a NASA satellite on Sept. 25, 2017.
https://www.livescience.com/65693-mysterious-antarctic-ice-holes-explained.html
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Primordial Helium Isotope is Leaking Out of Earth’s Metallic Core: Study
http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/geophysics/earths-core-helium-3-10661.html
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Has Earth’s inner core stopped its strange spin?
23 January 2023
Earthquake
data hint that the inner core stopped rotating faster than the rest of
the planet in 2009, but not all researchers agree.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00167-1?utm_source=pocket-newtab
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This is not a Liquid or Gas
https://youtube.com/shorts/aTmWUBzntOE?feature=share
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Scientists Shocking New Discovery Under Antarctica's Ice
Apr 18, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftMTGD0g-kc
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An Amateur Archaeologist Discovered a 12,000-year-old Underwater City with Pyramid & Energy Field
March 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=250_jBVtAlc
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Sudden Discovery Of Advanced Civilization Hidden in The Antarctica
Mar 23, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qPmN_IUCtY
___________________________
Joe Rogan Just Revealed The TERRIFYING Truth About Antarctica
Mar 20, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fz6jgaV8lQ
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Russia Just Announced The TERRIFYING Truth About Antarctica
Mar 26, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chcc29vSPZw
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Joe Rogan Reveals Sudden Discovery Of Ancient Aliens in The Antarctica
May 18, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3ZhfnM7FcM
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Does Elon Musk Believe in a Lost Civilization? - Joe Rogan
2022
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pSFrHymK2q4
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Elon Musk Just Reported That A Huge Miles Long Object Is Moving On The Ocean Floor!
May 9, 2023
Antarctica
is shrouded in incredible enigmas and wonders, from the eerie white
landscapes of snow and ice to the unique wildlife inhabiting its waters.
It is where the extremes of nature are on full display, and the
unexpected lurks around every corner. When the world's most famous
entrepreneur and innovator, Elon Musk, announced that a mysterious and
massive object was moving across Antarctica, many contemplated what it
could be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVR0VCRs124
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This Huge Miles Long Structure Has Just Been Detected Moving On The Ocean Floor
2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNV9qFflVSM
___________________________
This Huge Miles Long Structure Has Just Been Detected Moving On The Ocean Floor
This huge miles long structure has just been detected moving on the ocean floor. Today, we take a look at this huge miles long structure that has been detected moving on the ocean floor.
The ocean is a mystery, and it's Earth's final frontier. There's still vast amounts of the ocean that hasn't yet been explored, and it was only a few decades ago that scientists assumed that nothing could live in the deepest regions of the ocean, but new data has shown us that there's entire ecosystems that thrive in the dark. Technology has allowed us to explore the ocean in incredible detail.
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The Ark of the Covenant is in Antarctica? - Solomon's Temple Investigation Marathon #1090
2025
https://archive.org/details/solomons-temple-1090
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Pre-Adamite Civilization of Antarctica - How Did They Get Here and Where Did They Go?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MXC6E_EE2s
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CIA Classified Book about the Pole Shift, Mass Extinctions and The True Adam & Eve Story
Jan 12, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n3fkTq_p0o
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Creatures Made of Glass in Antarctica – Ariel Waldman's Talk at Eyeo 2022
Jan 8, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ9qNrfgsMM
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Scientists Discover An Ancient Aliens Crystal City Hidden Under Antarctica!
Dec 20, 2022
Richard
Evelyn Byrd Jr. was a United States naval commander and adventurer. He
was given the Medal of Reward, the highest honor for bravery in the
United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer,
and polar logistics manager. His aircraft traversed the Atlantic Ocean
while he served as navigator and expedition leader. The first person to
fly to both the North and South Poles is Vert. He also discovered Mount
Sibley, the largest dormant volcano in Antarctica. Except for one, he
has been recognized for all of his discoveries, which consisted of an
ancient city buried beneath Antarctica
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doU_AvZlRQo
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Sudden Discovery: аn Advanced Civilization Hidden in Antarctica
Jan 19, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzlRojcqNWA
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Terrifying New Discovery Under Antarctica's Ice Changes Everything
Jan 13, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY6mds-T8pw
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Strangest Discoveries From Antarctica
Feb 9, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUdCMBzBszs
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Something Inexplicable Is Happening In Antarctica!
Feb 5, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYX4FDFEYf4
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The Most Mysterious Places on Earth 4K - ReYOUniverse
Jan 2, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdsKw0dKSsg
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A Bizarre Discovery in the Deep Sea | Unveiled
2022
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MiKSfJak5Xg
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Hercules Dome
Hercules Dome (86°S 105°W) is a large ice dome between the Thiel Mountains and the Horlick Mountains in Antarctica. The feature was first mapped by the United States Geological Survey from U.S. Navy aerial photographs taken 1959–60. It was further delineated by the Scott Polar Research Institute – National Science Foundation – Technical University of Denmark airborne aerial radio echo sounding program, 1967–79, and named after the Lockheed LC-130 Hercules aircraft which was used on all echo sounding flights from 1969.[1] The dome is notable for its unusually high number of subglacial lakes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Dome
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NSF-funded deep ice core to be drilled at Hercules Dome, Antarctica
December 8, 2020
https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/12/08/hercules-dome-ice-core/
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Glaciological and climatic significance of Hercules Dome, Antarctica: An optimal site for deep ice core drilling
24 March 2005
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2004JF000188
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Spatial variations in heat at the base of the Antarctic ice sheet from analysis of the thermal regime above subglacial lakes
20 January 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-glaciology/article/spatial-variations-in-heat-at-the-base-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-from-analysis-of-the-thermal-regime-above-subglacial-lakes/2979F3EFE1FF8660652FBA0100CFF7AA
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Influence of West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse on Antarctic surface climate: Climate Response to Wais Collapse
June 2015
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276880945_Influence_of_West_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet_collapse_on_Antarctic_surface_climate_Climate_Response_to_Wais_Collapse
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Where the Ice Layers Grow
Scientists hunt for the site of the next deep U.S. ice core
July 13, 2020
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/4428/
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Influence of West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse on
Antarctic surface climate and ice core records
2015
https://atmos.uw.edu/~dargan/papers/set_submitted.pdf
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Structure of the internal isochronous layers at Dome A, East Antarctica
15 October 2010
Abstract
Dome A (Kunlun Station) is considered a likely place for finding an ice core record reaching back to one million years. The internal isochronous layering of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, revealed by ice radar, is a prerequisite for selecting sites for deep ice core drilling that can be used for studying the paleoclimatic record. In 2004/2005, during the 21st Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE 21), a 200-km long, continuous radar profile was obtained across Dome A. The internal layers along the profile were derived from the stratigraphy detected by the radar. The morphology of the isochronous layers shows that: (1) The internal layers in the shallow ice sheet (0–500 m) are generally flat, with no more than 50 m of layer intervals, and have typical synclines and anticlines in some localized regions. (2) At 500–2000 m below the surface of the ice sheet, the layers appear as “bright layers”, and the width of the layer intervals expands to 50–100 m. (3) When the basal topographic wavelengths are approximate to the thickness of the ice (3 km), the traced internal layers, with localized bumps or concave folds, are asymptotic parallel to the subglacial topography. For the longer topographic wavelengths (∼20 km) wider than the thickness of the ice, the layers do not rise and fall with the basal topography. The internal layers surrounding some mountain peaks representing the most extreme variation in the terrain are sharply disturbed by the subglacial topography. (4) Layer discontinuity and fracture were detected in the basal ice sheet. Finally, by combining this new information with that derived from existing data regarding ice thickness, we were able to select three potential sites for reconstructing the age-depth relationship of the ice core.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11430-010-4065-1
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Newly Discovered Lake May Hold Secret to Antarctic Ice Sheet’s Rise and Fall
May 9, 2022
Scientists investigating the underside of the world’s largest ice sheet in East Antarctica have discovered a city-size lake whose sediments might contain a history of the ice sheet since its earliest beginnings. That would answer questions about what Antarctica was like before it froze, how climate change has affected it over its history, and how the ice sheet might behave as the world warms.
Revealed by heavily instrumented polar research aircraft, Lake Snow Eagle is covered by 2 miles of ice and lies in a mile-deep canyon in the highlands of Antarctica’s Princess Elizabeth Land, a few hundred miles from the coast.
“This lake is likely to have a record of the entire history of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, its initiation over 34 million years ago, as well as its growth and evolution across glacial cycles since then,” said polar expert Don Blankenship, one of the paper’s authors and a senior research scientist at The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics (UTIG). “Our observations also suggest that the ice sheet changed significantly about 10,000 years ago, although we have no idea why.”
Because it lies relatively close to the coast, researchers think that Lake Snow Eagle might contain information about how the East Antarctic Ice Sheet first began and the part played by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, a ring of cold water circling the continent that scientists think is responsible for keeping it cool.
The first hint that the lake and its host canyon existed emerged when scientists spotted a smooth depression on satellite images of the ice sheet. To confirm it was there, researchers spent three years flying systematic surveys over the site with ice penetrating radar and sensors that measure minute changes in Earth’s gravity and magnetic field.
“I literally jumped when I first saw that bright radar reflection,” said the paper’s lead author, Shuai Yan, a graduate student at UT Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences who was flight planner for the field research that investigated the lake.
What Yan saw was the lake’s water that, unlike ice, reflects radar like a mirror. Along with the gravity and magnetic surveys, which lit up the underlying geology of the region and the depth of water and sediments, Yan constructed a detailed picture of a jagged, highland topography with Lake Snow Eagle nestled at the base of a canyon.
The newly discovered lake is about 30 miles long, 9 miles wide and 650 feet deep. The sediments at the bottom of the lake are 1,000 feet deep and might include river sediments older than the ice sheet itself.
Moving forward, the researchers said getting a sample of the lake’s sediments by drilling into it would fill big gaps in scientists’ understanding of Antarctica’s glaciation and provide vital information about the ice sheet’s possible demise from climate change.
“This lake’s been accumulating sediment over a very long time, potentially taking us through the period when Antarctica had no ice at all, to when it went into deep freeze,” said co-author Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at Imperial College London. “We don’t have a single record of all those events in one place, but the sediments at the bottom of this lake could be ideal.”
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Antarctic subglacial lakes
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825299000689
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Hot methane seeps could support life beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet
18 April 2025
Microbial communities feeding on geothermal methane seeps beneath the Antarctic ice sheet could resemble life-supporting environments on frozen worlds in our solar system and beyond
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First underwater methane leak discovered near Antarctica
Just below the freezing Antarctic ice shelves, researchers have discovered a gas leak that could change the region's climate destiny.
For the first time, scientists have detected an active leak of methane gas — a greenhouse gas with 25 times more climate-warming potential than carbon dioxide — in Antarctic waters. While underwater methane leaks have been detected previously all over the world, hungry microbes help keep that leakage in check by gobbling up the gas before too much can escape into the atmosphere. But according to a study published July 22 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, that does not seem to be the case in Antarctica.
The study authors found that methane-eating microbes took roughly five years to respond to the Antarctic leak, and even then they did not consume the gas completely. According to lead study author Andrew Thurber, the underwater leak almost certainly sent methane gas seeping into the atmosphere in those five years — a phenomenon that current climate models do not account for when predicting the extent of future atmospheric warming...
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Discovery of first active seep in Antarctica provides new understanding of methane cycle
July 27, 2020
https://www.nsf.gov/news/discovery-first-active-seep-antarctica-provides
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Scientists Detect Massive Methane Leaks In Antarctica, Raising Climate Concerns
February 25, 2025
A team of Spanish scientists have discovered large methane gas emissions from the Antarctica seabed, raising serious concerns about climate change and potential underwater landslides.
The findings come from a recent expedition aboard the Spanish research vessel Sarmiento de Gamboa, which explored the Pacific margin of the Antarctica Peninsula- one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth.
Methane in Antarctica is trapped in methane hydrates-solid, ice-like formations created from organic matter buried for over 20,000 years beneath the ocean floor.
These hydrates remain stable under high pressure and low temperatures but are now destabilising due to two major factors: rising ocean temperatures and post-glacial rebound.
Post-glacial rebound occurs when the weight of melting ice sheets decreases, causing the land to rise and reduce pressure on the seabed, which leads to the release of methane.
Geologist Roger Urgeles, who led the expedition alongside Ricardo Leon, estimates that the Antarctic Peninsula holds about 24 gigatons of carbon in methane hydrates. This amount is equivalent to the total carbon emissions produced by humanity over two years.
The research team detected huge methane columns rising from the ocean floor, with some stretching up to 700 meters long and 70 meters wide.
The gas is escaping through geological faults, often forming mud volcanoes hundreds of meters above the seabed. While much of this methane dissolves in seawater at around 150 meters below the surface, scientists are still determining how much might escape into the atmosphere, where it could have severe environmental consequences.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, considered 20 to 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat.
Although methane seepage has been studied in the Arctic, this is the first time such large-scale emissions have been observed in Antarctica.
The researchers have warned that methane gas expansion within seabed sediments could trigger large underwater landslides, leading to tsunamis. When frozen methane transforms into gas, it expands 160 times its original volume.
If the pressure buildup is too high, it can destabilise marine sediments and cause sudden collapses along the continental slope.
Urgeles compares this risk to the historic Storegga landslide in the Arctic, which occurred around 8,150 years ago. That incident, which was triggered by the dissociation of methane hydrates, resulted in a massive tsunami that devastated coastlines in northern Europe, including Scotland, Denmark, and Norway, with waves reaching up to 20 meters high.
The research team, which conducted extensive water and sediment sampling during their expedition, discussed the need for long-term monitoring to track methane seepage trends in Antarctica.
Since current climate models do not account for these emissions, in-depth studies are essential to assess their impact on global warming.
The Antarctic Peninsula has been experiencing a temperature rise of more than three degrees in just the past 50 years and scientists stress the urgency to understand how methane release will evolve in the coming decades.
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Immense Methane Leaks Discovered in Antarctica: The Emerging Threat of Antarctic Methane Hydrates
2025
Methane hydrates—a mixture of water and methane gas trapped under high pressure—are primarily found in oceanic permafrost and result from the decomposition of organic matter buried beneath polar seas. Research on these deposits has largely focused on the Arctic.
Several years ago, concerns arose over the potential for an arctic “methane bomb”—a controversial scenario in which global warming could trigger the massive release of methane from Arctic hydrates, accelerating climate change. This fear is heightened by the fact that methane is roughly 20 times more potent than CO₂ as a greenhouse gas. Additionally, estimates suggest that the amount of methane stored in Arctic hydrates exceeds the total methane currently in the atmosphere (1).
The topic of methane hydrates in the Antarctic remains relatively underexplored. However, Spanish scientists Ricardo León and Roger Urgeles recently released a preprint titled “Dynamics of the Gas Hydrate System of the Pacific Margin of the Antarctic Peninsula,” in which they report the discovery of a significant methane hydrate reservoir. In a recent interview, they described observing massive methane columns reaching up to 700 meters tall and 70 meters wide (2).
Research into Antarctic methane hydrates has evolved over the past decade, revealing significant insights into their potential impact on climate change.
Early Studies and Discoveries
In 2012, a pivotal study suggested that ancient organic matter, preserved in sedimentary basins beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet, may have been converted into methane by microorganisms in oxygen-deprived conditions. This methane could be released into the atmosphere if the ice sheet diminishes, potentially accelerating global warming (3). The research indicated that the sub-Antarctic methane hydrate inventory might be comparable in magnitude to that of Arctic permafrost, underscoring the significance of these reservoirs in global carbon assessments (4).
Recent Findings
More recent studies have identified a connection between rising seawater temperatures and methane emissions in the Antarctic region. Specifically, since 1999, increasing seawater temperatures near Marambio Island and the Weddell Sea have been linked to the destabilization of methane hydrates formed during the last glacial maximum. This destabilization results in the release of methane gas from the seabed, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions (5).
Methane Clathrate Theory: A Potential Climate Tipping Point
Methane clathrates (or hydrates) are ice-like structures where methane molecules are trapped within a water lattice. Stable under high pressure and low temperature, typically found in deep-sea sediments and permafrost, they pose a potential risk if these conditions change.
The Methane Clathrate Theory
This theory proposes that destabilization of methane hydrates, triggered by events like ocean warming, glacial melting, or seismic activity, can lead to a sudden, massive release of methane into the ocean and atmosphere. Given methane's potent greenhouse effect, such a release could trigger rapid and extreme global warming, potentially pushing the climate system past tipping points.
Historical Context and Evidence
Several lines of evidence support the theory, though debate continues regarding scale and mechanisms:
Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) (~56 million years ago): Scientists like James Kennett and colleagues (6) suggest a massive methane hydrate release contributed to the PETM, a period of abrupt global warming (5-8°C increase) with widespread extinctions. Isotopic carbon records support a large influx of light carbon, consistent with methane release.
Clathrate Gun Hypothesis: This hypothesis, also championed by Kennett and Richard Alley (7), posits a self-reinforcing feedback loop. Initial hydrate destabilization releases methane, accelerating warming, which further destabilizes hydrates. Geological records from events like the PETM offer some support, though the specifics are debated.
Recent Arctic and Antarctic Methane Seepage: Observations of methane plumes in the Arctic (e.g., East Siberian Arctic Shelf) and Antarctic Peninsula, researched by figures like Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov, suggest destabilization may already be occurring due to warming ocean temperatures. Sonar, seismic surveys, and atmospheric measurements reveal methane bubbles and elevated concentrations in these areas (8).
Potential Consequences
Methane clathrate destabilization could lead to:
Runaway Greenhouse Effect: A large-scale release could cause rapid, irreversible warming, potentially creating a "hothouse" Earth.
Ocean Chemistry Disruption: Methane oxidation in the ocean depletes oxygen, contributing to acidification and marine die-offs.
Permafrost Melt Amplification: Warming-driven methane emissions from permafrost could further accelerate climate change.
Scientific Debate and Uncertainties
Despite the risks, the theory is debated:
Ocean Dissolution: Some argue that most released methane dissolves in the ocean before reaching the atmosphere.
Release Rate: Whether releases are gradual or catastrophic is debated, influencing the risk of abrupt climate change.
Modeling Challenges: Current climate models don't fully incorporate deep-sea methane hydrate destabilization, creating uncertainty.
Triggers of Methane Hydrate Release in the Antarctic
Methane hydrates are highly sensitive to environmental and geological changes. As conditions shift, these hydrates can destabilize, releasing methane into the ocean and potentially the atmosphere. According to a recent preprint by León and Urgeles, methane hydrates in the Pacific margin of the Antarctic Peninsula are at risk due to geological and climate-related processes, including faulting, fluid expulsion, and glacio-isostatic rebound.
Trigger | Effect on Methane Release |
Faulting & Tectonics | Creates migration pathways for methane escape |
Fluid Expulsion Events | Increases heat flux, destabilizing hydrates |
Glacio-Isostatic Rebound | Reduces pressure, pushing hydrates out of stability |
Ocean Warming | Dissociates hydrates at vulnerable depths (375-425m) |
Seafloor Instability | Landslides expose gas reservoirs, accelerating methane seepage |
Implications of the Findings on Antarctic Methane Hydrates
The study on methane hydrates in the Pacific margin of the Antarctic Peninsula reveals a significant reservoir of methane that could be destabilized by ongoing geological and climate-driven processes. These findings have major implications for climate science, ocean chemistry, and future environmental monitoring.
The discovery of significant methane hydrate reserves in the Antarctic Peninsula, along with evidence of active methane plumes, highlights an emerging climate risk. While the full scale of potential emissions remains uncertain, these findings suggest that geological and climate-driven processes could be destabilizing methane hydrates faster than previously thought. Understanding and monitoring this system is critical to predicting future climate impacts.
Policy Recommendations and Risk Assessment
The findings on methane hydrates in the Pacific margin of the Antarctic Peninsula underscore the need for urgent scientific monitoring, policy intervention, and international cooperation to mitigate potential climate risks. Below are key policy recommendations and a risk assessment based on the study’s results.
Policy Recommendations
1. Expand Scientific Monitoring Programs
Establish long-term monitoring stations to track methane release trends in the Antarctic.
Increase seafloor temperature and gas flux measurements to determine how quickly hydrates are destabilizing.
Enhance satellite-based atmospheric methane detection to monitor potential emissions from Antarctic seep sites.
2. Integrate Methane Hydrate Risks into Climate Models
Current climate projections underestimate the potential contribution of Antarctic methane hydrates to global warming.
Methane seepage from oceanic sources should be fully incorporated into IPCC climate assessments.
Conduct modeling studies to determine worst-case methane release scenarios under different warming trajectories.
3. Strengthen International Climate Agreements
Given the Antarctic’s global significance, nations must expand international cooperation under agreements like the Paris Agreement and Antarctic Treaty System.
Support dedicated research initiatives through the United Nations.
Encourage methane mitigation policies beyond traditional land-based sources (e.g., incorporating deep-sea emissions risks).
4. Invest in Mitigation Strategies
Research potential methane capture or conversion technologies for deep-sea environments.
Explore biological or chemical methods to neutralize methane before it enters the atmosphere.
Investigate seafloor stabilization techniques to reduce risks of mass methane releases due to landslides.
Risk Assessment of Antarctic Methane Release
Risk Factor | Likelihood | Potential Impact | Mitigation Urgency |
Hydrate Destabilization Due to Ocean Warming | 🔴 High | Significant methane release could accelerate climate change | 🔥 Critical |
Seafloor Landslides Exposing Methane Reservoirs | 🟠 Moderate | Sudden methane release could lead to localized ocean deoxygenation | ⚠️ Moderate |
Tectonic Faulting Increasing Methane Migration | 🟠 Moderate | Methane plumes reaching the surface, adding to greenhouse effect | ⚠️ Moderate |
Fluid Expulsion Events Warming Hydrate Zones | 🟢 Low to Moderate | Localized impact, but could accelerate hydrate loss over time | Needs Monitoring |
Final Considerations
Unmonitored Antarctic methane hydrates represent an underestimated climate risk, as their destabilization could contribute to significant methane emissions. Even the release of a small fraction of these methane reserves has the potential to amplify global warming due to methane’s high greenhouse potency. To address this emerging threat, international collaboration is essential in funding and implementing comprehensive monitoring programs and mitigation strategies that can track, model, and potentially reduce the risks associated with methane hydrate destabilization.
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Oozing Methane Blasts Holes in Siberian Tundra (Arctic)
July 6, 2017
A crater on the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, reported in the spring of 2017.
https://www.livescience.com/59705-oozing-methane-blasts-craters-in-siberian-tundra.html
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Mystery of Siberia's giant exploding craters may finally be solved (Arctic)
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Climate explained: methane is short-lived in the atmosphere but leaves long-term damage
September 8, 2020
https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-methane-is-short-lived-in-the-atmosphere-but-leaves-long-term-damage-145040
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Why Capturing Methane Is So Difficult
2017
https://article.wn.com/view/2023/01/17/Why_Capturing_Methane_Is_So_Difficult/
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Capturing methane from the air would slow global warming. Can it be done?
2023
Methods of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere won’t work with methane
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/methane-capture-air-global-warming-climate
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Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought
2023
The gas absorbs both longwave and shortwave radiation, with competing effects on climate
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/methane-warm-earth-atmosphere-radiation
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MethaneMapper is poised to solve the problem of underreported methane emissions
June 8, 2023
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Seen From Space: Huge Methane Leaks
2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/climate/methane-leaks-satellites.html
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Why do we compare methane to carbon dioxide over a 100-year timeframe? Are we underrating the importance of methane emissions?
January 4, 2024
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Greenhouse gas ‘detergent’ recycles itself in atmosphere: NASA study
Dec 03, 2018
A simple molecule that breaks down methane and other greenhouse gases can recycle itself in the face of rising emissions, helping scientists better understand methane’s role in climate change.
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Switching to hydrogen fuel could prolong the methane problem
March 13, 2023
This is because hydrogen gas easily reacts in the atmosphere with the same molecule primarily responsible for breaking down methane, a potent greenhouse gas. If hydrogen emissions exceed a certain threshold, that shared reaction will likely lead to methane accumulating in the atmosphere — with decades-long climate consequences.
“Hydrogen is theoretically the fuel of the future,” said Matteo Bertagni, a postdoctoral researcher at the High Meadows Environmental Institute working on the Carbon Mitigation Initiative. “In practice, though, it poses many environmental and technological concerns that still need to be addressed.”
Bertagni is the first author of a research article published in Nature Communications, in which researchers modeled the effect of hydrogen emissions on atmospheric methane. They found that above a certain threshold, even when replacing fossil fuel usage, a leaky hydrogen economy could cause near-term environmental harm by increasing the amount of methane in the atmosphere. The risk for harm is compounded for hydrogen production methods using methane as an input, highlighting the critical need to manage and minimize emissions from hydrogen production.
“We have a lot to learn about the consequences of using hydrogen, so the switch to hydrogen, a seemingly clean fuel, doesn’t create new environmental challenges,” said Amilcare Porporato, Thomas J. Wu ’94 Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. Porporato is a principal investigator and member of the leadership team for the Carbon Mitigation Initiative and is also associated faculty at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.
The problem boils down to one small, difficult-to-measure molecule known as the hydroxyl radical (OH). Often dubbed “the detergent of the troposphere,” OH plays a critical role in eliminating greenhouse gases such as methane and ozone from the atmosphere.
The hydroxyl radical also reacts with hydrogen gas in the atmosphere. And since a limited amount of OH is generated each day, any spike in hydrogen emissions means that more OH would be used to break down hydrogen, leaving less OH available to break down methane. As a consequence, methane would stay longer in the atmosphere, extending its warming impacts.
According to Bertagni, the effects of a hydrogen spike that might occur as government incentives for hydrogen production expand could have decades-long climate consequences for the planet.
“If you emit some hydrogen into the atmosphere now, it will lead to a progressive buildup of methane in the following years,” Bertagni said. “Even though hydrogen only has a lifespan of around two years in the atmosphere, you’ll still have the methane feedback from that hydrogen 30 years from now.”
In the study, the researchers identified the tipping point at which hydrogen emissions would lead to an increase in atmospheric methane and thereby undermine some of the near-term benefits of hydrogen as a clean fuel. By identifying that threshold, the researchers established targets for managing hydrogen emissions.
“It’s imperative that we are proactive in establishing thresholds for hydrogen emissions, so that they can be used to inform the design and implementation of future hydrogen infrastructure,” said Porporato.
For hydrogen referred to as green hydrogen, which is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from renewable sources, Bertagni said that the critical threshold for hydrogen emissions sits at around 9%. That means that if more than 9% of the green hydrogen produced leaks into the atmosphere — whether that be at the point of production, sometime during transport, or anywhere else along the value chain — atmospheric methane would increase over the next few decades, canceling out some of the climate benefits of switching away from fossil fuels.
And for blue hydrogen, which refers to hydrogen produced via methane reforming with subsequent carbon capture and storage, the threshold for emissions is even lower. Because methane itself is the primary input for the process of methane reforming, blue hydrogen producers have to consider direct methane leakage in addition to hydrogen leakage. For example, the researchers found that even with a methane leakage rate as low as 0.5%, hydrogen leakages would have to be kept under around 4.5% to avoid increasing atmospheric methane concentrations.
“Managing leakage rates of hydrogen and methane will be critical,” Bertagni said. “If you have just a small amount of methane leakage and a bit of hydrogen leakage, then the blue hydrogen that you produce really might not be much better than using fossil fuels, at least for the next 20 to 30 years.”
The researchers emphasized the importance of the time scale over which the effect of hydrogen on atmospheric methane is considered. Bertagni said that in the long term (over the course of a century, for instance), the switch to a hydrogen economy would still likely deliver net benefits to the climate, even if methane and hydrogen leakage levels are high enough to cause near-term warming. Eventually, he said, atmospheric gas concentrations would reach a new equilibrium, and the switch to a hydrogen economy would demonstrate its climate benefits. But before that happens, the potential near-term consequences of hydrogen emissions might lead to irreparable environmental and socioeconomic damage.
Thus, if institutions hope to meet midcentury climate goals, Bertagni cautioned that hydrogen and methane leakage to the atmosphere must be held in check as hydrogen infrastructure begins to roll out. And because hydrogen is a small molecule that is notoriously difficult to control and measure, he explained that managing emissions will likely require researchers to develop better methods for tracking hydrogen losses across the value chain.
“If companies and governments are serious about investing money to develop hydrogen as a resource, they have to make sure they are doing it correctly and efficiently,” Bertagni said. “Ultimately, the hydrogen economy has to be built in a way that won’t counteract the efforts in other sectors to mitigate carbon emissions.”
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How clean is green hydrogen?
February 27, 2024
Hydrogen is often held up as a potential clean fuel of the future, because it can be burned like oil or gas but releases no climate-warming carbon dioxide (CO2)—only water. But while hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, there isn’t an easy-to-tap source of pure hydrogen available on Earth. To use it, society must manufacture it.
That manufacturing process can release climate pollution, so how "clean" hydrogen is depends on how it’s produced.
The best option for the climate, says Emre Gençer, a principal research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative, is so-called "green" hydrogen. (Which, like all hydrogen, is actually colorless.) To make green hydrogen, producers use electricity from a renewable source like wind or solar to split water molecules, removing hydrogen from oxygen and taking the H out of H2O.
This process can emit 1 kilogram or less of CO2 per kilogram of hydrogen produced, depending on the supply chain of the renewable electricity and the overall efficiency of the process.1 Currently, for instance, producing green hydrogen using wind energy is a bit cleaner than using solar energy, says Gençer. That’s because manufacturing solar equipment takes more energy, and wind energy installations produce electricity at their maximum output more often than solar projects of the same size.
This is important, because the CO2 emitted by green hydrogen production is nearly all “embedded emissions,” produced while manufacturing the equipment. The more consistently and efficiently you can make hydrogen with that equipment, the cleaner that hydrogen will be.
“The embedded emissions are divided by a much larger power generation value,” says Gençer. “This translates into a lower carbon footprint for generated power and green hydrogen.”
Today, green hydrogen accounts for less than one percent of hydrogen production in the United States.2 Gençer says about 95 percent of projects in the U.S. are “gray” hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas. Gray hydrogen is usually made by using high-temperature steam to break apart methane (CH4), the main component of natural gas. The reaction produces hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and—crucially—CO2. Around 12 kilograms of CO2e3 are emitted into the atmosphere for every kilogram of hydrogen produced. “Blue” hydrogen, which combines this process with carbon capture, emits three to five kilograms of CO2e per kilogram of hydrogen.4 That’s compared, again, to potentially less than 1 kilogram for green hydrogen.
“The difference is quite substantial,” says Gençer.
There are two big reasons why green hydrogen, despite its impressively low emissions, is so rare today. First, the “electrolyzers” that split hydrogen from water are costly. And second, solar and wind can only run during certain times of day, which means those electrolyzers are not being used to their full capacity. And while producers can turn to electricity from the grid when sun and wind are not available, that usually means relying on CO2-producing coal and natural gas: the hydrogen will no longer be “green” or quite so clean.
Luckily, the same technological advances that could make green hydrogen cleaner would also generally make it cheaper. “If we get cheaper electrolyzers, you will definitely see more green hydrogen coming online,” says Gençer. And cheaper energy storage would also help produce green hydrogen 24/7.
With advances like these, green hydrogen could play a key role in cleaning up industries, like high-heat manufacturing and air travel, that are very hard to run on clean electricity directly. But the success of hydrogen, Gençer believes, rests on whether it can establish itself as a genuinely clean resource.
“If the carbon intensity of
the hydrogen is not low enough, its role in decarbonization is zero,”
he says. “The reason we are talking about hydrogen today [is] because
there are hard to abate sectors with electrification or other
decarbonization options, and that's why we see hydrogen as a solution.
But that completely depends on how clean our hydrogen production is.”
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-clean-green-hydrogen
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Hydrogen ‘twice as powerful a greenhouse gas as previously thought’: UK government study
8 April 2022
Report highlights importance of preventing leakage from future H2 infrastructure
A study released on Friday by the UK government’s Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has found that hydrogen is twice as powerful a greenhouse gas as previously thought.
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Temperature variation and its driving forces over the Antarctic coastal regions in the past 250 years
October 2002
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02844594?noAccess=true
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250 years of accumulation, oxygen isotope and chemical records in a firn core from Princess Elizabeth Land, East Antarctica
January 2006
Abstract
A 51.85-m firn core collected from site DT001 (accumulation rate 127 kgm−2a−1, mean annual temperature −33.1 °C) on Princess Elizabeth Land, East Antarctica, during the 1996–97 Chinese First Antarctic Inland Expedition has been analyzed for chemical composition and oxygen isotope ratio. A comparison between the seasonal variations of major ions was carried out in order to reduce the dating uncertainty, using the volcanic markers as time constrains. A deposition period of 251 years was determined. The calculated accumulation rates display an increasing trend before 1820, while after 1820, the trend of the accumulation is not obvious. Overall, temperature change in the region shows a slight increasing trend over the past 250 years. But, notably, a temperature decline of −2 °C is observed from 1860 to the present. This feature, at odds with the warming trend over the past century recorded in both hemispheres, likely reflects a regional characteristic related to the lack of a high latitude/low latitude link in the Southern Hemisphere circulation patterns. The results of the glaciochemical records of the firn core show that the mean concentrations of Cl−, Na+ and Mg2+ are similar to those reported from other sites in East Antarctica. However, the mean concentration of Ca2+ is much higher than that reported from other regions, suggesting the influence of the strong local terrestrial sources in Princess Elizabeth Land. There is no evidence of a positive correlation between NO3 − concentrations and solar activity (11-year solar cycle and solar cycle length), although solar proton events may account for some of the NO3 − peak values in the record.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11442-006-0103-5
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Giantism (The Antarctic and The Arctic)
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New dinosaur fossil pushes evolution of gigantism in sauropods back 30 million years
Mon 9 Jul 2018
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The Most Unusual Dinosaurs Of The Mid Jurassic Period | ReYOUniverse
Jul 17, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osbPrUfgzvQ
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How Dinosaurs Thrived in the Snow
December 3, 2020
Discoveries made in the past decades help show how many species coped with cold temperatures near both poles
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-dinosaurs-thrived-snow-180976435/
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See the reconstructed home of 'polar dinosaurs' that thrived in the Antarctic 120 million years ago
May 12, 2025
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/see-the-reconstructed-home-of-polar-dinosaurs-that-thrived-in-the-antarctic-120-million-years-ago
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Forest home of ‘polar dinosaurs’ 120 million years ago in southern Australia recreated in detail for the first time
May 7, 2025
https://theconversation.com/forest-home-of-polar-dinosaurs-120-million-years-ago-in-southern-australia-recreated-in-detail-for-the-first-time-255494
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Early and fast rise of Mesozoic ocean giants
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm3751
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Giant Great White Shark Eaten By MONSTER Mystery Finally Solved
Jan 2, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cgGcSEAPmA
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How Big can a Great White ACTUALLY get???
Jul 24, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePHsEDnlDi0
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Megalodon: The Biggest Shark To Ever Exist
Jul 15, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFn7Soe2FG0
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Why Do Fish Become Giants Deep Underwater?
Sep 10, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUBeiT8WfIA
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He found Giants then the Government Found Him | What really happened to Andrew Dawson?
Jan 26, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOajRmbroY0
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Researchers identify prehistoric 'River Boss' crocodile, solving century-old mystery
13 Jun 2021
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Mosasaurus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosasaurus#
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The Arctic Spawned a Tyrant Scarier Than T. Rex
Mar 15, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3EPZKECs8A
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Alaska's "Polar Bear Lizard" Is The Tiny T-Rex Of The Ancient Arctic
Feb 1, 2025
https://www.thetravel.com/alaska-polar-bear-lizard-tiny-t-rex-of-ancient-arctic/
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Poles Apart: Arctic and Antarctic Octadecabacter strains Share High Genome Plasticity and a New Type of Xanthorhodopsin
May 6, 2013
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0063422
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Scientists Found the Deepest Land on Earth Hiding Beneath Antarctica's Ice
December 13, 2019
A new map of the mountains, valleys and canyons hidden under Antarctica's ice has revealed the deepest land on Earth, and will help forecast future ice loss.
The frozen southern continent can look pretty flat and featureless from above. But beneath the ice pack that's accumulated over the eons, there's an ancient continent, as textured as any other. And that texture turns out to be very important for predicting how and when ice will flow and which regions of ice are most vulnerable in a warming world. The new NASA map, called BedMachine Antarctica, mixes ice movement measurements, seismic measurements, radar and other data points to create the most detailed picture yet of Antarctica's hidden features.
"Using BedMachine to zoom into particular sectors of Antarctica, you find essential details, such as bumps and hollows beneath the ice that may accelerate, slow down or even stop the retreat of glaciers," Mathieu Morlighem, an Earth system scientist at the University of California, Irvine and the lead author of a new paper about the map, said in a statement.
The new map, published Dec. 12 in the journal Nature Geoscience, reveals previously unknown topographical features that shape ice flow on the frozen continent.
The previously unknown features have "major implications for glacier response to climate change," the authors wrote. "For example, glaciers flowing across the Transantarctic Mountains are protected by broad, stabilizing ridges."
Understanding how ice flows in Antarctica becomes increasingly important as Earth warms. If all of Antarctica's ice were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by 200 feet (60 meters), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. That isn't likely anytime soon, but even if small fractions of the continent were to melt, it would have devastating global effects.
https://www.livescience.com/new-anatarctica-map-climate-change.html
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Giant 6-Foot-8 Penguin Discovered in Antarctica
May 09, 2020
https://www.treehugger.com/giant-foot-penguin-discovered-in-antarctica-4864169
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Giant penguin fossil shows bird was taller than most humans
2014
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/04/giant-penguin-fossil-antarctica
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(A) Missing link between prokaryotes and complex cells identified
May 6, 2015
A form of archaea with many of the proteins that make complex organisms possible.
Eukaryotes—fungi, plants, us—are complex. Our large cells are characterized by their different compartments, many of which are neatly enclosed within a boundary of membrane. These compartments contain complex molecular machines that perform equally complex metabolic tasks: they degrade proteins, they splice RNA molecules, they engulf foreign bodies.
Prokaryotes, on the other hand—one celled organisms like bacteria—are simple, with a notable lack of internal membrane enclosed structures (i.e., nuclei) in their one and only cell. It has been assumed that eukaryotes must have somehow evolved from prokaryotes, but it has not been at all clear how that may have happened.
A clue came in 1977, when another branch type of prokaryotic life was discovered: archaea. They are single-celled organisms that lack nuclei and other structures, just like bacteria. But from an evolutionary standpoint, they are about as distant from bacteria as they are from eukaryotes. As soon as archaea were recognized, people started speculating that eukaryotes may have originated within the archaeal branch of life rather than the bacterial branch, or that eukaryotes and archaea might share a common ancestor.
One particular group of archaea has a number of proteins that were part of the eukaryotic signature, suggesting that there might be a missing link between prokaryotes and eukaryotes—an archaea that is more complex than the ones we have thus far identified. But finding that organism had to wait until the technology existed to generate and analyze genome data from entire populations of organisms. And now we can.
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The Biggest Spider in the World (by Weight and by Leg Span)
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Giant Antarctic sea spiders breathe really strangely
These creepy-crawlers absorb oxygen through their skin and pump blood with their guts
August 14, 2017
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/giant-antarctic-sea-spiders-breathe-really-strangely
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Dwyer to discuss Polar Gigantism in Antarctic Sea Spiders
February 7, 2017
https://www.islandssounder.com/news/dwyer-to-discuss-polar-gigantism-in-antarctic-sea-spiders/
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New DNA research on Alaska red king crab shows more diversity than previously thought
January 11, 2025
A new study
found that Alaska red king crabs are more genetically diverse than
previously thought, which could be crucial for the species' survival as
ocean conditions change.
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Genetic Diversity in Alaska Red King Crab May Provide Resilience to Climate Change
January 02, 2025
New genetic research on the Alaska red king crab reveals previously undiscovered diversity among different regions, suggesting the species is more resilient to climate change and changing ocean conditions.
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Developmental constraint shaped genome evolution and erythrocyte loss in Antarctic fishes following paleoclimate change
October 27, 2020
Abstract
In the frigid, oxygen-rich Southern Ocean (SO), Antarctic icefishes (Channichthyidae; Notothenioidei) evolved the ability to survive without producing erythrocytes and hemoglobin, the oxygen-transport system of virtually all vertebrates. Here, we integrate paleoclimate records with an extensive phylogenomic dataset of notothenioid fishes to understand the evolution of trait loss associated with climate change. In contrast to buoyancy adaptations in this clade, we find relaxed selection on the genetic regions controlling erythropoiesis evolved only after sustained cooling in the SO. This pattern is seen not only within icefishes but also occurred independently in other high-latitude notothenioids. We show that one species of the red-blooded dragonfish clade evolved a spherocytic anemia that phenocopies human patients with this disease via orthologous mutations. The genomic imprint of SO climate change is biased toward erythrocyte-associated conserved noncoding elements (CNEs) rather than to coding regions, which are largely preserved through pleiotropy. The drift in CNEs is specifically enriched near genes that are preferentially expressed late in erythropoiesis. Furthermore, we find that the hematopoietic marrow of icefish species retained proerythroblasts, which indicates that early erythroid development remains intact. Our results provide a framework for understanding the interactions between development and the genome in shaping the response of species to climate change.
Author summary
Our climate is rapidly changing. To better understand how species can adapt to major climate disturbance, we looked back into the past at a group of fishes that have encountered dramatic climate upheavals and thrived: Antarctic notothenioid fishes. In particular, we focus on the icefishes, which lost the ability to produce red blood cells in the frigid environment of the Southern Ocean. By integrating past climate records with a large genetic dataset of Antarctic fishes, we show that the loss of red blood cells occurred only after sustained cooling of the Southern Ocean. As cooling continued into the modern era, we discover that even some of the “red-blooded” relatives of the icefishes show early genetic and morphological signs of erythrocyte loss. This cooling event left a non-random imprint on the genome of icefishes. With few exceptions, the genetic toolkit underlying red cell development has remained intact in icefishes because many “erythroid” genes perform important functions in other tissues. Rather, mutations have accumulated in gene regulatory regions near genes that control terminal erythroid maturation, such that icefishes continue to produce red cell progenitors but not mature erythrocytes. These results show that the genetic constraints regulating embryonic development shaped the evolutionary response of this fish group to climate change.
https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1009173
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Transcriptomic and genomic evolution under constant cold in Antarctic notothenioid fish
September 2, 2008
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0802432105
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Brain Changes in Response to Long Antarctic Expeditions
2019
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1904905
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Sex differences in stress and immune responses during confinement in Antarctica
2019
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6469129/
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First Antarctic egg belonged to an ancient sea monster — study
https://www.inverse.com/science/big-egg
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Giant 'toothed' birds flew over Antarctica 40 million to 50 million years ago
November 21, 2021
https://news.yahoo.com/giant-toothed-birds-flew-over-211237005.html
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World's biggest reptile egg laid by a prehistoric sea monster 66 million years ago and unearthed in Antarctica has a soft shell like a turtle's egg
2020
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8432207/Worlds-biggest-reptile-egg-laid-prehistoric-sea-monster-66-million-years-ago.html
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Iguana-sized dinosaur cousin discovered in Antarctica, shows how life at the South Pole bounced back after mass extinction
2019
https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/01/31/antarctic-king-fossil/
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Fossil of ‘real-life Loch Ness Monster’ found in Antarctica was the biggest sea dinosaur ever
2019
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Huge groups of fin whales sign of hope for ocean giants
July 9, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-huge-groups-fin-whales-ocean.html
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Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna
2015
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4304853/
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Evolution of the recombination regulator PRDM9 in minke whales
16 March 2022
https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12864-022-08305-1
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Invasive species are threatening Antarctica’s fragile ecosystems as human activity grows and the world warms
November 22, 2021
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Plastic occurrence, sources, and impacts in Antarctic environment and biota
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772735122000488
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Plastic in the Arctic
Plastic in the ocean is an increasing global problem. Plastic debris harms marine flora and fauna, and degrades coastal areas and ecosystems in general. It also has social and economic consequences.
https://www.npolar.no/en/themes/plastic-arctic/
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Warming alters cascading effects of a dominant arthropod predator on fungal community composition in the Arctic
June 2024
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Ancient Antarctic microorganisms are aggressive predators
1 August 2024
Antarctic dwelling single-celled microorganisms called archaea can behave like parasites, new research published in Nature Communications shows.
In Antarctica is a small lake, called Deep Lake, that is so salty it remains ice-free all year round despite temperatures as low as -20 °C in winter. Archaea, a unique type of single-celled microorganism, thrive in this bitterly cold environment.
University of Technology Sydney (UTS) microbiologists Dr Yan Liao and Associate Professor Iain Duggin, from the Australian Institute of Microbiology and Infection, have been studying how these simple, ancient life forms grow and survive.
“Archaea is one of three lineages of life, alongside Bacteria and Eukarya (organisms whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus, including plants and animals). They are widespread and play a crucial role in supporting Earth's ecosystems,” said Dr Liao.
A new study published in Nature Communications, led by Dr Liao and Dr Joshua Hamm from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, shows for the first time some of these archaea behave like parasitic predators that rapidly kill their hosts.
“They are less studied and understood than the other lineages. However, archaea provide clues about the evolution of life on Earth, as well as how life might exist on other planets. Their unique biochemistry also holds promising applications in biotechnology and bioremediation.
“They have been found thriving in very acidic boiling hot springs, deep-sea hydrothermal vents at temperatures well over 100 degrees Celsius, in hypersaline waters like the Dead Sea, as well as in Antarctica,” Dr Liao said.
The archaea used in the study were collected from the cold and hypersaline Deep Lake in Antarctica by Professor Ricardo Cavicchioli, a senior author from UNSW Sydney, who initially led this project. Dr Liao and Associate Professor Duggin have also travelled to Australian pink salt lakes to collect archaea.
https://www.uts.edu.au/news/2024/08/ancient-antarctic-microorganisms-are-aggressive-predators
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Microbial Community Composition of the Antarctic Ecosystems: Review of the Bacteria, Fungi, and Archaea Identified through an NGS-Based Metagenomics Approach
2022
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9228076/
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Compendium of 530 metagenome-assembled bacterial and archaeal genomes from the polar Arctic Ocean
15 November 2021
Abstract
The role of the Arctic Ocean ecosystem in climate regulation may depend on the responses of marine microorganisms to environmental change. We applied genome-resolved metagenomics to 41 Arctic seawater samples, collected at various depths in different seasons during the Tara Oceans Polar Circle expedition, to evaluate the ecology, metabolic potential and activity of resident bacteria and archaea. We assembled 530 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) to form the Arctic MAGs catalogue comprising 526 species. A total of 441 MAGs belonged to species that have not previously been reported and 299 genomes showed an exclusively polar distribution. Most Arctic MAGs have large genomes and the potential for fast generation times, both of which may enable adaptation to a copiotrophic lifestyle in nutrient-rich waters. We identified 38 habitat generalists and 111 specialists in the Arctic Ocean. We also found a general prevalence of 14 mixotrophs, while chemolithoautotrophs were mostly present in the mesopelagic layer during spring and autumn. We revealed 62 MAGs classified as key Arctic species, found only in the Arctic Ocean, showing the highest gene expression values and predicted to have habitat-specific traits. The Artic MAGs catalogue will inform our understanding of polar microorganisms that drive global biogeochemical cycles.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-021-00979-9
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Antarctic Archaea Can Behave Like Parasites, Microbiologists Find
Aug 7, 2024
https://www.sci.news/biology/antarctic-archaea-13159.html
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Virus-induced cell gigantism and asymmetric cell division in archaea
March 29, 2021
Significance
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2022578118
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In wild soil, predatory bacteria grow faster than their prey
April 29, 2021
Predatory bacteria—bacteria that eat other bacteria—grow faster and consume more resources than non-predators in the same soil, according to a new study out this week from Northern Arizona University. These active predators, which use wolfpack-like behavior, enzymes, and cytoskeletal ‘fangs’ to hunt and feast on other bacteria, wield important power in determining where soil nutrients go. The results of the study, published in the journal mBio this week, show predation is an important dynamic in the wild microbial realm, and suggest that these predators play an outsized role in how elements are stored in or released from soil.
https://ecoss.nau.edu/in-wild-soil-predatory-bacteria-grow-faster-than-their-prey/
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Killer prey: Temperature reverses future bacterial predation
April 2023
Abstract
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The functional significance of bacterial predators
2021
Abstract
Predation structures food webs, influences energy flow, and alters rates and pathways of nutrient cycling through ecosystems, effects that are well documented for macroscopic predators. In the microbial world, predatory bacteria are common, yet little is known about their rates of growth and roles in energy flows through microbial food webs, in part because these are difficult to quantify. Here, we show that growth and carbon uptake were higher in predatory bacteria compared to nonpredatory bacteria, a finding across 15 sites, synthesizing 82 experiments and over 100,000 taxon-specific measurements of element flow into newly synthesized bacterial DNA. Obligate predatory bacteria grew 36% faster and assimilated carbon at rates 211% higher than nonpredatory bacteria. These differences were less pronounced for facultative predators (6% higher growth rates, 17% higher carbon assimilation rates), though high growth and carbon assimilation rates were observed for some facultative predators, such as members of the genera Lysobacter and Cytophaga, both capable of gliding motility and wolf-pack hunting behavior. Added carbon substrates disproportionately stimulated growth of obligate predators, with responses 63% higher than those of nonpredators for the Bdellovibrionales and 81% higher for the Vampirovibrionales, whereas responses of facultative predators to substrate addition were no different from those of nonpredators. This finding supports the ecological theory that higher productivity increases predator control of lower trophic levels. These findings also indicate that the functional significance of bacterial predators increases with energy flow and that predatory bacteria influence element flow through microbial food webs. IMPORTANCE The word “predator” may conjure images of leopards killing and eating impala on the African savannah or of great white sharks attacking elephant seals off the coast of California. But microorganisms are also predators, including bacteria that kill and eat other bacteria. While predatory bacteria have been found in many environments, it has been challenging to document their importance in nature. This study quantified the growth of predatory and nonpredatory bacteria in soils (and one stream) by tracking isotopically labeled substrates into newly synthesized DNA. Predatory bacteria were more active than nonpredators, and obligate predators, such as Bdellovibrionales and Vampirovibrionales, increased in growth rate in response to added substrates at the base of the food chain, strong evidence of trophic control. This work provides quantitative measures of predator activity and suggests that predatory bacteria—along with protists, nematodes, and phages—are active and important in microbial food webs.
https://experts.nau.edu/en/publications/the-functional-significance-of-bacterial-predators
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Effect of ice melting on bacterial carbon fluxes channelled by viruses and protists in the Arctic Ocean
2010
Abstract
During the last few years, extensive sea ice melting in the Arctic due to climate change has been detected, which could potentially modify the organic carbon fluxes in these waters. In this study, the effect of sea ice melting on bacterial carbon channelling by phages and protists has been evaluated in the northern Greenland Sea and Arctic Ocean. Grazing on bacteria by protists was evaluated using the FLB disappearance method. Lysis of bacteria due to viral infections was measured using the virus reduction approach. Losses of bacterial production caused by protists (PMMBP) dominated losses caused by viruses (VMMBP) throughout the study. Lysogenic viral production was detected in 7 out of 21 measurements and constituted from 33.9 to 100.0% of the total viral production. Significantly higher PMMBP and lower VMMBP were detected in waters affected by ice melting compared with unaffected waters. Consequently, significantly more bacterial carbon was channelled to the higher trophic levels in affected waters (13.05 ± 5.98 μgC l−1 day−1) than in unaffected waters (8.91 ± 8.33 μgC l−1 day−1). Viruses channelled 2.63 ± 2.45 μgC l−1 day−1 in affected waters and 4.27 ± 5.54 μgC l−1 day−1 in unaffected waters. We conclude that sea ice melting in the Arctic could modify the carbon flow through the microbial food web. This process may be especially important in the case of massive sea ice melting due to climate change.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-010-0798-8
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Exploiting predatory bacteria as biocontrol agents across ecosystems
2023
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0966842X23002937
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Chapter 20 - Antarctic microorganisms as sources of biotechnological products
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780128183229000204
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Chapter 12 - Biodiversity of cold-adapted extremophiles from Antarctica and their biotechnological potential
2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780323901482000134
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Advances in Antarctic Research for Antimicrobial Discovery: A Comprehensive Narrative Review of Bacteria from Antarctic Environments as Potential Sources of Novel Antibiotic Compounds Against Human Pathogens and Microorganisms of Industrial Importance
2018
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30347637/
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Soil protists – key microbiome predators selecting for the bacterial antibiotic resistance
Dec 10, 2023
Curiosity at the beginning: why is antibiotic resistance ancient and ubiquitous in nature?
The antibiotic resistance - a global health concern in the 21st century – occurs when microorganisms acquire genetic information (e.g., antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs)) from the bacterial gene pool. The rapid dissemination of the global antibiotic resistance elevates risks to from One Health to Global Health across different countries or continents (1). However, the antibiotic resistance is a natural and ancient phenomenon. In our review article published in 2020, we have noticed substantial evidence of antibiotic resistant determinants such as ARGs, mobile genetic elements and antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) detected from thousand-to-million-year-old permafrost samples - before human antibiotic usage - to soils or sediments in pristine environments (e.g., isolated jungles or caves, Arctic and Antarctica) as reported in many previous studies (2). Surprisingly, these samples harbour diverse ARGs and ARB, which confer resistance against a wide array of modern antibiotics such as β-lactam, tetracycline, macrolides and aminoglycosides. Our comprehension of the fundamental mechanisms governing antibiotic resistance remains limited. This curiosity leads us to ask, “What truly occurs in natural habitats?” The understanding of how biological interactions between bacteria and other microorganisms contribute to the antibiotic resistance in natural ecosystems is pivotal in tackling the global challenge of antibiotic resistance.
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Antarctic bacteria live on air and make their own water using hydrogen as fuel
November 14, 2021
Humans have only recently begun to think about using hydrogen as a source of energy, but bacteria in Antarctica have been doing it for a billion years.
We studied 451 different kinds of bacteria from frozen soils in East Antarctica and found most of them live by using hydrogen from the air as a fuel. Through genetic analysis, we also found these bacteria diverged from their cousins in other continents approximately a billion years ago.
These incredible microorganisms come from ice-free desert soils north of the Mackay Glacier in East Antarctica. Few higher plants or animals can prosper in this environment, where there is little available water, temperatures are below zero, and the polar winters are pitch-black.
Despite the harsh conditions, microorganisms thrive. Hundreds of bacterial species and millions of cells can be found in a single gram of soil, making for a unique and diverse ecosystem.
How do microbial communities survive in such punishing surroundings?
A dependable alternative to photosynthesis
We discovered more than a quarter of these Antarctic soil bacteria create an enzyme called RuBisCO, which is what lets plants use sunlight to capture carbon dioxide from air and convert it into biomass. This process, photosynthesis, generates most of the organic carbon on Earth.
However, we found more than 99% of the RuBisCO-containing bacteria were unable to capture sunlight. Instead, they perform a process called chemosynthesis.
Rather than relying on sunlight to power the conversion of carbon dioxide into biomass, they use inorganic compounds such as the gases hydrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide.
Living on air
Where do the bacteria find these energy-rich compounds? Believe it or not, the most reliable source is the air!
Air contains high levels of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide, but also trace amounts of the energy sources hydrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide.
They are only present in air in very low concentrations, but there is so much air it provides a virtually unlimited supply of these molecules for organisms that can use them.
And many can. Around 1% of Antarctic soil bacteria can use methane, and some 30% can use carbon monoxide.
More remarkably, our research suggests that 90% of Antarctic soil bacteria may scavenge hydrogen from the air.
The bacteria gain energy from hydrogen, methane and carbon by combining them with oxygen in a chemical process that is like a very slow kind of burning.
Our experiments showed the bacteria consume atmospheric hydrogen even at temperatures of -20°C, and they can consume enough to cover all their energy requirements.
What’s more, the hydrogen can power chemosynthesis, which may provide enough organic carbon to sustain the entire community. Other bacteria can access this carbon by “eating” their hydrogen-powered neighbours or the carbon-rich ooze they produce.
Water from thin air
When you burn hydrogen, or when the bacteria harvest energy from it, the only by-product is water.
Making water is an important bonus for Antarctic bacteria. They live in a hyper-arid desert, where water is unavailable because the surrounding ice is almost permanently frozen and any moisture in the soil is rapidly sucked out by the dry, cold air.
So the ability to generate water from “thin air” may explain how these bacteria have been able to exist in this environment for millions of years. By our calculations, the rates of hydrogen-powered water production are sufficient to rehydrate an entire Antarctic cell within just two weeks.
By adopting a “hydrogen economy”, these bacteria fulfil their needs for energy, biomass, and hydration. Three birds, one stone.
Could a hydrogen economy sustain extraterrestrial life?
The minimalist hydrogen-dependent lifestyle of Antarctic soil bacteria redefines our understanding of what is the very least required for life on Earth. It also brings new insights into the search for extraterrestrial life.
Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, making up almost three-quarters of all matter. It is a major component of the atmosphere on some alien planets, such as HD 189733b which orbits a star 64.5 light-years from Earth.
If life were to exist on such a planet, where conditions may not be as hospitable as on much of Earth, consuming hydrogen might be the simplest and most dependable survival strategy.
“Follow the water” is the mantra for searches of extraterrestrial life. But given bacteria can literally make water from air, perhaps the key to finding life beyond Earth is to “follow the hydrogen”.
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Antibiotic resistance and cold-adaptive enzymes of antarctic culturable bacteria from King George Island
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873965221001493
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Identification of Microbial Dark Matter in Antarctic Environments
2018
Numerous studies have applied molecular techniques to understand the
diversity, evolution, and ecological function of Antarctic bacteria and
archaea. One common technique is sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, which
produces a nearly quantitative profile of community membership. However,
the utility of this and similar approaches is limited by what is known
about the evolution, physiology, and ecology of surveyed taxa. When
representative genomes are available in public databases some of this
information can be gleaned from genomic studies, and automated pipelines
exist to carry out this task. Here the paprica metabolic inference
pipeline was used to assess how well Antarctic microbial communities are
represented by the available completed genomes. The NCBI’s Sequence
Read Archive (SRA) was searched for Antarctic datasets that used one of
the Illumina platforms to sequence the 16S rRNA gene. These data were
quality controlled and denoised to identify unique reads, then analyzed
with paprica to determine the degree of overlap with the closest
phylogenetic neighbor with a completely sequenced genome. While some
unique reads had perfect mapping to 16S rRNA genes from completed
genomes, the mean percent overlap for all mapped reads was 86.6%. When
samples were grouped by environment, some environments appeared more or
less well represented by the available genomes. For the domain Bacteria,
seawater was particularly poorly represented with a mean overlap of
80.2%, while for the domain Archaea glacial ice was particularly poorly
represented with an overlap of only 48.0% for a single sample. These
findings suggest that a considerable effort is needed to improve the
representation of Antarctic microbes in genome sequence databases.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2018.03165/full
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Awakening ancient polar Actinobacteria: diversity, evolution and specialized metabolite potential
2019
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31592756/
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Biogeographic survey of soil bacterial communities across Antarctica
12 January 2024
https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-023-01719-3
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A survey of Antarctic cyanobacteria
27 April 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10750-021-04588-9
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Heterotrophic bacteria in Antarctic lacustrine and glacial environments
2016
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-016-2011-1
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Effects of temperature on growth rate and gross growth efficiency of an Antarctic bacterivorous protist
09 October 2008
Abstract
The effects of temperature on the growth rate and gross growth efficiency (GGE) of the heterotrophic nanoflagellate, Paraphysomonas imperforata, cultured from the Ross Sea, Antarctica were investigated using five experimental temperatures (range=0–20 °C). This bacterivorous protist exhibited measurable growth over the temperature range examined, although temperature exerted a significant effect on its growth rate. There was no evidence for an effect of temperature on GGE. The growth rates and GGE of our Antarctic P. imperforata isolate were compared to values reported for other cultures of species from this genus. A wide range of growth efficiencies have been reported for different strains of Paraphysomonas spp., but our estimates were comparable to mean/median values reported in the literature. The growth rates of our Antarctic P. imperforata were similar to rates obtained for an Arctic conspecific at low temperatures (0–5 °C), among the highest reported rates for any Paraphysomonas species at intermediate temperatures (10–15 °C) and similar to rates reported for temperate congeners and conspecifics at 20 °C. Q10 values of 15, 2.2, 3.6 and 0.93 were calculated for growth rates at 5 °C intervals between 0 and 20 °C, respectively. Results indicated that our Antarctic P. imperforata grew at rates comparable to other polar isolates at ambient polar temperatures, but these low temperatures may be outside the physiological optimum for the isolate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ismej200896
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Bacterial
diversity and bioprospecting for cold-active enzymes from culturable
bacteria associated with sediment from a melt water stream of Midtre Lovenbreen Glacier, an Arctic Glacier
2009
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092325080900134X
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Microbial Competition in Polar Soils: A Review of an Understudied but Potentially Important Control on Productivity
2013
Abstract
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/2/2/533
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Diversity and Physiological Characteristics of Antarctic Lichens-Associated Bacteria
2021
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8001610/
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Biodiversity and physiological characteristics of Antarctic and Arctic lichens-associated bacteria
2014
Abstract
The diversity and physiological characteristics of culturable bacteria associated with lichens from different habitats of the Arctic and Antarctica were investigated. The 68 retrieved isolates could be grouped on the basis of their 16S rRNA gene sequences into 26 phylotypes affiliated with the phyla Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Deinococcus-Thermus, and Firmicutes and with the classes Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria. Isolates belonging to the Alphaproteobacteria were the most abundant, followed by those belonging to Actinobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Deinococcus-Thermus. Phylogenetic analysis showed that approximately 21 % of the total isolates represented a potentially novel species or genus (≤97 % sequence similarity). Strains belonging to the genera Sphingomonas, Frondihabitans, Hymenobacter, and Burkholderia were recovered from lichen samples from both geographic locations, implying common and important bacterial functions within lichens. Extracellular protease activities were detected in six isolates, affiliated with Burkholderia, Frondihabitans, Hymenobacter, Pseudomonas, and Rhodanobacter. Extracellular lipase activities were detected in 37 isolates of the genera Burkholderia, Deinococcus, Frondihabitans, Pseudomonas, Rhodanobacter, Sphingomonas, and Subtercola. This is the first report on the culturable bacterial diversity present within lichens from Arctic and Antarctica and the isolates described herein are valuable resources to decode the functional and ecological roles of bacteria within lichens. In addition, the low similarity (≤97 %) of the recovered isolates to known species and their production of cold-active enzymes together suggest that lichens are noteworthy sources of novel bacterial strains for use in biotechnological applications.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25001073/
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Antifungal activity of Arctic and Antarctic bacteria isolates
Abstract
Various psychrotolerant bacterial strains with broad-spectrum antimicrobial potential were isolated from a number of Antarctic and Arctic samples (lake sediments, water, as well as faeces, feathers and soils collected in penguin rookeries). Seven isolates from all types of samples exhibited clear antifungal activities against the multidrug-resistant pathogenic yeast strain Candida albicans NCIM 3471. One isolate from the penguin rookery, identified by means of 16S rDNA sequencing as a strain of Enterococcus faecium, showed very strong antimycotic activity against a total of six C. albicans strains. The antibiotic activity was found after ammonium sulphate precipitation and dialysis but was sensitive to proteolytic enzymes.
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Diversity and structure of bacterial communities in Arctic versus Antarctic pack ice.
01 Nov 2003
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/14602620
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Bacterial community composition responds to changes in copepod abundance and alters ecosystem function in an Arctic mesocosm study
2018
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6194086/
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Scientists’ warning to humanity: microorganisms and climate change
18 June 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-019-0222-5
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Airborne bacterial community diversity, source and function along the Antarctic Coast
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004896972036229X
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Microorganisms in the atmosphere over Antarctica
2009
Abstract
Antarctic microbial biodiversity is the result of a balance between evolution, extinction and colonization, and so it is not possible to gain a full understanding of the microbial biodiversity of a location, its biogeography, stability or evolutionary relationships without some understanding of the input of new biodiversity from the aerial environment. In addition, it is important to know whether the microorganisms already present are transient or resident – this is particularly true for the Antarctic environment, as selective pressures for survival in the air are similar to those that make microorganisms suitable for Antarctic colonization. The source of potential airborne colonists is widespread, as they may originate from plant surfaces, animals, water surfaces or soils and even from bacteria replicating within the clouds. On a global scale, transport of air masses from the well-mixed boundary layer to high-altitude sites has frequently been observed, particularly in the warm season, and these air masses contain microorganisms. Indeed, it has become evident that much of the microbial life within remote environments is transported by air currents. In this review, we examine the behaviour of microorganisms in the Antarctic aerial environment and the extent to which these microorganisms might influence Antarctic microbial biodiversity.
https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/69/2/143/629591?login=false
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Sulfur aerosols in the Arctic, Antarctic, and Tibetan Plateau: Current knowledge and future perspectives
2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825221002543
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Scientists Unveil Secrets of Mysterious “Red Sprite” Lightning Strikes Over the World’s Highest Mountain Range
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Elves, Sprites & Blue Jets: Earth's Weirdest Lightning
January 21, 2014
Column-shaped red sprites in a photo snapped Aug. 12, 2013 above Red Willow County, Neb.
Photographer Steve Lenz captured this incredible lightning photo in northeast Oregon, outside the city of Milton-Freewater. The region is characterized by rolling hills, and treeless agriculture, he said. Lenz snapped this electrifying shot during a storm on July 20, 2012.'I was out in the middle of this storm with lightning crashing all around (a few miles away) and excitedly taking photos,' Lenz told LiveScience in an email. 'This photo is the last one I got when my shutter broke. My heart sank. I put my equipment away and got in my car and then realized the lightning had gotten dangerously close. So I was somehow relieved my shutter had broken or I might have been in trouble.'Lenz used a Canon 5D mark1 camera and a Sigma 150-500 lens to capture the magnificent scene.'I set the camera on a tripod and aimed it towards the windmills where there was a high concentration of lightning strikes,' he said. 'I set it at F5, ISO 100 and left the shutter open for about 30 seconds at a time hoping to catch strikes.'
Like sprites, elves are reddish, ultra-fast bursts of electricity bright enough to see during the daytime high in the Earth's atmosphere. But elves are ring-shaped halos that can spread to more than 185 miles (300 kilometers) wide. Scientists first captured images of elves and sprites dancing above thunderstorms in the late '80s and early '90s. The leading culprit behind elves and sprites is positive lightning.
Blue jets are cones of blue light brighter than sprites that spray upward from the tops of thunderclouds up to an altitude of about 25 miles (40 kilometers) at speeds of about 22,370 mph (36,000 km/h). They most frequently happen early in thunderstorms, and seem to be linked with strong hail.
Blue starters resemble blue jets, but are much shorter, protruding upward from cloud tops about 10 miles (17 kilometers) to a maximum of about 16 miles (25.5 km) in altitude. Blue starters are thought to be closely related to blue jets — they may even be incomplete blue jets.
A gigantic jet captured above a storm in North Carolina in 2009.
https://www.livescience.com/42731-weird-lightning-types.html
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Bacteria in the lakes of the Tibetan Plateau and polar regions
2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720357776
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-
Biogeography of culturable marine bacteria from both poles reveals that 'everything is not everywhere' at the genomic level
Abstract
Based on 16S rRNA gene analyses, the same bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) are common to both the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, supporting the concept 'everything is everywhere'. However, whether the same OTUs from both poles have identical genomes, i.e. whether 'everything is still everywhere' at the genomic level has not yet been examined systematically. Here, we isolated, sequenced and compared the genomes of 45 culturable marine bacteria belonging to three genera of Salinibacterium, Psychrobacter and Pseudoalteromonas from both polar oceans. The bacterial strains with identical 16S rRNA genes were common to both poles in every genus, and four identical genomes were detected in the genus Salinibacterium from the Arctic region. However, no identical genomes were observed from opposite poles in this study. Our data, therefore, suggest that 'everything is not everywhere' at the genomic level. The divergence time between bacteria is hypothesized to exert a strong impact on the bacterial biogeography at the genomic level. The geographical isolation between poles was observed for recently diverged, highly similar genomes, but not for moderately similar genomes. This study thus improves our understanding of the factors affecting the genomic-level biogeography of marine microorganisms isolated from distant locations.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34913576/
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Structure and function of the Arctic and Antarctic marine microbiota as revealed by metagenomics
02 April 2020
https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-020-00826-9
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Pole-to-pole biogeography of surface and deep marine bacterial communities
October 8, 2012
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1208160109
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Abundance and Single-Cell Activity of Heterotrophic Bacterial Groups in the Western Arctic Ocean in Summer and Winter
2012
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3302604/
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Antarctic environmental change and biological responses
27 Nov 2019
Abstract
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz0888
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Changes in Arctic marine bacterial carbon metabolism in response to increasing temperature
04 May 2010
Abstract
Arctic areas of deep-water convection have a large potential for export of organic carbon from surface waters into the deep sea and, therefore, are an important part of the global carbon cycle. As the Arctic is reportedly heating up faster than any other part of the planet, temperature-driven changes in the biogeochemical cycling in these areas can be very significant. Here, we study the regulation of bacterial carbon metabolism, which process vast amounts of organic carbon, by temperature and the availability of resources. The response of bacterial production and respiration of natural bacterial assemblages from the Fram Strait was studied by experimental manipulations of temperature and resources in combination. Both bacterial production and respiration were enhanced by temperature so that the total bacterial carbon demand increased sixfold following a temperature increase of 6°C. Respiration responded more strongly than production so that bacterial growth efficiency decreased with increasing temperature. Although neither production nor respiration was limited by resource availability under in situ conditions, the response to temperature was higher in resource-amended treatments, indicative of a substrate-temperature interaction regulating both components of bacterial metabolism. In conclusion, the results show that warming can result in a substantial increase of the carbon flow through bacteria and that most of the carbon consumed would be released as CO2. Moreover, the results suggest that both temperature and availability of resources need to be considered to accurately be able to predict changes in bacterial carbon metabolism in response to climate change.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-010-0799-7
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Marine Bacterioplankton Seasonal Succession Dynamics
2017
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966842X16302190
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Pan-Arctic patterns of planktonic heterotrophic microbial abundance and processes: Controlling factors and potential impacts of warming
2015
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0079661115001585
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Potential chemical defenses of Antarctic benthic
organisms against marine bacteria
2017
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17518369.2017.1390385
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Severe 21st-century ocean acidification in Antarctic Marine Protected Areas
04 January 2024
Abstract
Antarctic coastal waters are home to several established or proposed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) supporting exceptional biodiversity. Despite being threatened by anthropogenic climate change, uncertainties remain surrounding the future ocean acidification (OA) of these waters. Here we present 21st-century projections of OA in Antarctic MPAs under four emission scenarios using a high-resolution ocean–sea ice–biogeochemistry model with realistic ice-shelf geometry. By 2100, we project pH declines of up to 0.36 (total scale) for the top 200 m. Vigorous vertical mixing of anthropogenic carbon produces severe OA throughout the water column in coastal waters of proposed and existing MPAs. Consequently, end-of-century aragonite undersaturation is ubiquitous under the three highest emission scenarios. Given the cumulative threat to marine ecosystems by environmental change and activities such as fishing, our findings call for strong emission-mitigation efforts and further management strategies to reduce pressures on ecosystems, such as the continuation and expansion of Antarctic MPAs.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44438-x
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Lake Enigma in Antarctica
has been somewhat of a… well… enigma for scientists, but researchers
have now discovered unfrozen water underneath its surface, as well as bacteria which has been able to survive in such an extreme environment...
https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/antarctica-bacteria-lake-enigma
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Researchers find life on the outside of the space station, in hot oily tar pits and under 800m of Antarctic ice
August 21, 2014
SPACE: it’s cold, it’s dark — and utterly airless. So how has plankton been found clinging to the outer hull of the International Space Station? .
IFE it seems is pretty extreme. It’s just been found living on the outside of a space station, inside hot tar pools and under almost a kilometre of ice.
In space it’s cold, it’s dark — and utterly airless. So how has plankton been found clinging to the outer hull of the International Space Station?
Under 800m of ice it’s cold, it’s dark — and no sunlight has touched the soil for millions of years. So how has a whole ecosystem of microbes survive?
Inside thick, black tar pits it’s hot, toxic — and completely inhospitable. Yet inside the largest natural asphalt lake on Earth have been found happy, active microbes.
These three life forms are answers which pose many questions.
The answer is: Yes, simple lifeforms are incredibly resilient — making the possibility of life on other worlds, even Jupiter’s moon Europa, much more likely.
The questions mostly boil down to “how”.
HOW CAN PLANKTON LIVE IN SPACE?
Russian scientists have claimed they made a unique and startling discovery when analysing samples from the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS) to figure out why the windows were getting dirty. Traces of a tiny sea creature called plankton.
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13 Creatures That Can Survive in Outer Space
April 25, 2025
Space exploration has captivated human imagination for decades, but while we need complex equipment to survive the harsh vacuum, extreme temperatures, and radiation of outer space, certain remarkable organisms demonstrate extraordinary resilience to these conditions. These extremophiles challenge our understanding of life’s limits and provide valuable insights for astrobiology and space research. From microscopic tardigrades to hardy bacteria, these space survivors have evolved unique adaptations that allow them to endure conditions that would be lethal to most Earth life forms. Their remarkable abilities not only fascinate scientists but also raise profound questions about the potential for life beyond our planet. Let’s explore these 13 extraordinary creatures that can withstand the brutal environment of outer space.
Tardigrades (Water Bears)
Tardigrades, also known as water bears or moss piglets, are microscopic
eight-legged animals that have become famous for their extraordinary
survival capabilities. These tiny creatures, typically measuring between
0.1 to 1.5 millimeters, can survive in the vacuum of space for up to 10
days with minimal damage. Their remarkable survival strategy involves
entering a state called cryptobiosis, where they expel almost all water
from their bodies, retracting their heads and legs to form a
barrel-shaped structure called a tun. In this dehydrated state, their
metabolism slows to less than 0.01% of normal, and they produce special
proteins that protect their cells from damage. During the 2007 TARDIS
(Tardigrades in Space) experiment, these resilient creatures were
exposed to the vacuum and radiation of low Earth orbit, and many
survived to reproduce normally after returning to Earth, demonstrating
their status as the ultimate space survivors among multicellular
organisms.
Bacillus subtilis
Bacillus subtilis is a rod-shaped, gram-positive bacterium commonly
found in soil and the human gastrointestinal tract that has demonstrated
remarkable space-surviving capabilities. These bacteria form protective
endospores when environmental conditions become unfavorable,
essentially entering a dormant state where metabolic activity nearly
ceases. During the Apollo 16 mission, B. subtilis spores were exposed
directly to the vacuum of space, and many remained viable. More
extensive testing during various space experiments, including the
European Space Agency’s EXPOSE missions, has shown these bacterial
spores can survive in space for up to six years when shielded from solar
UV radiation. Their extraordinary resilience comes from their spores’
multilayered structure, which provides protection against dehydration,
temperature extremes, and radiation damage. Scientists are particularly
interested in B. subtilis for understanding potential planetary
cross-contamination and developing more effective sterilization
protocols for spacecraft.
Deinococcus radiodurans
Deinococcus radiodurans has earned the nickname “Conan the Bacterium”
for its exceptional ability to withstand extreme radiation, cold,
vacuum, and acid environments. This polyextremophilic bacterium can
survive radiation doses up to 5,000 Grays (Gy), which is roughly 1,000
times the amount that would kill a human. Its extraordinary radiation
resistance comes from its unique genome structure and efficient DNA
repair mechanisms. D. radiodurans possesses multiple copies of its
genome and can reassemble fragmented DNA with remarkable precision,
allowing it to rebuild its genetic material even after severe radiation
damage. In space experiments aboard the International Space Station,
these bacteria survived exposure to the vacuum and radiation of space
for nearly three years. Their resilience makes them particularly
interesting for astrobiology research and potential applications in
radiation cleanup, as well as understanding how life might persist in
radiation-heavy environments like Mars or Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Lichens
Lichens represent one of the few complex organisms capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of outer space. These remarkable symbiotic partnerships between fungi and photosynthetic partners (usually algae or cyanobacteria) have evolved to thrive in some of Earth’s most extreme environments. The European Space Agency’s EXPOSE-E experiment subjected two lichen species—Rhizocarpon geographicum and Xanthoria elegans—to space conditions for 18 months outside the International Space Station. Remarkably, after returning to Earth, most of the lichen samples resumed normal metabolic activity within 24 hours of rehydration. Their survival strategy involves entering a dormant, anhydrobiotic state when dehydrated, which allows them to withstand temperature extremes ranging from -196°C to +100°C, as well as intense radiation. The protective pigments in their upper fungal layers, including melanin and carotenoids, shield their photosynthetic partners from harmful UV radiation. These findings have significant implications for theories about panspermia—the hypothesis that life could be transported between planets via meteoroids, asteroids, or comets.
Caenorhabditis elegant
Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny transparent nematode worm about 1mm in length, has demonstrated remarkable resilience to space conditions despite being a multicellular organism with a nervous system. During the International C. elegans Experiment first (ICE-First) conducted on the International Space Station, these nematodes completed their life cycles while experiencing microgravity and elevated radiation levels. When directly exposed to space during later experiments, a significant percentage survived and recovered after return to Earth. Their space-surviving adaptations include entering a resistant “dauer” larval stage when faced with harsh conditions, which involves metabolic changes and increased production of protective compounds. What makes C. elegans particularly valuable for space research is its well-documented biology—it was the first multicellular organism to have its genome completely sequenced and its neural network fully mapped. This extensive knowledge base allows scientists to track specific genetic and physiological changes induced by space exposure, providing crucial insights into how complex organisms respond to space radiation and microgravity at the molecular level.
Bacillus pumilus
Bacillus pumilus is a spore-forming bacterium that has exhibited extraordinary resistance to the extreme conditions of outer space. During the 18-month EXPOSE-E mission on the International Space Station, B. pumilus spores demonstrated a remarkable survival rate when exposed to the vacuum, temperature fluctuations, and radiation of space. These bacteria produce highly resistant endospores with thick protective coats containing dipicolinic acid and calcium ions that stabilize DNA and essential proteins. What sets B. pumilus apart from other space-surviving bacteria is its particularly high resistance to UV radiation—some strains isolated from spacecraft assembly facilities have shown UV resistance exceeding even that of the famously hardy Deinococcus radiodurans. This exceptional UV tolerance appears to be connected to unique spore coat proteins and specialized DNA repair mechanisms. The space-surviving capabilities of B. pumilus have raised significant concerns about planetary protection, as these bacteria have been found contaminating spacecraft despite stringent cleaning protocols, suggesting they could potentially survive interplanetary travel and contaminate other celestial bodies.
Haloarcula hispanica
Haloarcula hispanica is an extremophilic archaeon that thrives in environments with extremely high salt concentrations, conditions that would be lethal to most organisms. This microorganism has demonstrated remarkable resistance to the vacuum and radiation conditions of space during exposure experiments conducted outside the International Space Station. H. hispanica’s survival strategy involves several specialized adaptations, including a cell membrane reinforced with unusual lipids that remain stable under extreme conditions and DNA repair mechanisms that can quickly address radiation damage. Perhaps most notably, these archaea naturally contain high concentrations of potassium chloride in their cytoplasm, which helps stabilize proteins and nucleic acids during dehydration in vacuum conditions. Additionally, they produce carotenoid pigments that provide protection against UV radiation damage. Their ability to withstand both desiccation and radiation makes them intriguing study subjects for understanding potential microbial survival on Mars, where high salt environments have been identified, and the planet’s thin atmosphere provides little protection from cosmic and solar radiation.
Bacillus safensis
Bacillus safensis, named after NASA’s Spacecraft Assembly Facility (SAF) where it was first isolated, has proven to be one of the most persistent bacterial contaminants in spacecraft clean rooms and subsequently demonstrated significant resistance to space conditions. This spore-forming bacterium was discovered during rigorous pre-launch sterilization protocols for Mars exploration missions, highlighting its extraordinary persistence. During experiments aboard the International Space Station, B. safensis spores survived direct exposure to space conditions for extended periods, particularly when shielded from direct UV radiation. Their resilience derives from multiple protective mechanisms, including a specialized spore structure that provides mechanical protection, low water content that prevents radiation-induced free radical formation, and high concentrations of dipicolinic acid that stabilizes DNA. Additionally, these bacteria possess efficient DNA repair systems that activate upon germination. The remarkable space hardiness of B. safensis raises important questions about planetary protection policies and the potential for terrestrial microorganisms to survive interplanetary transfer, whether via natural impacts or human space missions.
Plant Seeds
Seeds from various plant species represent some of the more complex biological structures capable of surviving exposure to space conditions. During several space experiments, including those conducted on the EXPOSE facility outside the International Space Station, seeds from plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress), tobacco, and certain crop species maintained viability after exposure to the vacuum, radiation, and temperature extremes of space. Their survival mechanism revolves around their naturally dormant state, where metabolic activity is minimal and moisture content is extremely low—conditions that already prepare them for long periods of inactivity. The seed coat provides physical protection against radiation, while specialized proteins called late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins help stabilize cellular structures during dehydration. Additionally, seeds contain various antioxidants that help neutralize radiation-induced free radicals upon rehydration. This remarkable resilience has significant implications for both natural panspermia theories and human space exploration, particularly for understanding how plant-based life support systems might be established for long-duration missions or eventual space colonization efforts.
Cryptococcus neoformans
Cryptococcus neoformans, a basidiomycetous yeast commonly found in soil contaminated with bird droppings, has demonstrated surprising resilience to space conditions. During experiments aboard the International Space Station, researchers discovered that C. neoformans not only survived exposure to increased cosmic radiation and microgravity but actually showed enhanced virulence factors after space flight. This yeast’s space-surviving capabilities stem from several adaptations, including a thick polysaccharide capsule that provides protection against radiation and desiccation, melanin production that shields against UV and cosmic radiation, and efficient DNA repair mechanisms. Perhaps most interestingly, C. neoformans can undergo phenotypic switching in response to environmental stressors, essentially changing its cellular characteristics to become more resistant to hostile conditions. The finding that space exposure actually increased the pathogenicity of this opportunistic human pathogen raises important biosafety considerations for long-duration human spaceflight, where immune system changes already make astronauts more vulnerable to infections. Understanding how this yeast adapts to space conditions may provide insights into both space microbiology and mechanisms of microbial virulence on Earth.
Chroococcidiopsis
Chroococcidiopsis is a genus of cyanobacteria renowned for its extraordinary resilience to extreme environmental conditions, including those found in outer space. These ancient photosynthetic microorganisms are considered polyextremophiles, naturally inhabiting some of Earth’s most inhospitable environments, from the hyper-arid cores of deserts to Antarctic dry valleys and even inside rocks in cold and hot deserts (a lifestyle known as endolithic). During the EXPOSE-R2 experiment on the International Space Station, Chroococcidiopsis specimens survived 18 months of exposure to space conditions, including vacuum, radiation, and temperature fluctuations. Their space hardiness stems from several adaptations, including the ability to form thick, protective extracellular sheaths, efficient DNA repair mechanisms, and the production of various UV-screening compounds such as scytonemin and mycosporine-like amino acids. Additionally, these cyanobacteria can enter a dormant state where metabolism effectively ceases during unfavorable conditions. Their remarkable survival capabilities make Chroococcidiopsis particularly interesting for astrobiological research, especially as potential model organisms for how life might survive on Mars or as candidates for future biologically-based life support systems in space habitats.
Thermococcus gammatolerans
Thermococcus gammatolerans represents one of the most radiation-resistant organisms ever discovered, an extremophilic archaeon first isolated from hydrothermal vents in the Guaymas Basin at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. This remarkable microorganism can withstand radiation doses exceeding 30,000 Gray with no loss of viability—about 3,000 times the lethal dose for humans. When exposed to simulated space conditions during laboratory experiments, including vacuum, temperature extremes, and radiation, T. gammatolerans demonstrated exceptional survival rates. Its space-hardiness stems from several unique adaptations, including an unusually stable genome with multiple copies of its chromosomes, highly efficient DNA repair mechanisms that can rapidly address radiation damage, and specialized proteins that protect cellular structures during desiccation. Additionally, this archaeon naturally thrives in extreme environments, growing optimally at temperatures around 88°C (190°F) in anaerobic conditions. The extraordinary resilience of T. gammatolerans makes it a prime candidate for studying the limits of life in space environments and provides valuable insights into potential biological protection mechanisms for future human space exploration.
Coliform Bacteria
Coliform bacteria, particularly certain strains of Escherichia coli, have demonstrated surprising resilience to space conditions despite not being traditional extremophiles. During several space missions, including experiments aboard the International Space Station, E. coli bacteria survived exposure to microgravity and increased radiation for extended periods, though their survival rates decreased significantly with direct exposure to the vacuum of space. Their space-surviving capabilities appear to involve rapid genetic adaptation, with researchers documenting that E. coli can develop increased radiation resistance through successive generations exposed to hostile conditions. This adaptability involves upregulation of stress response genes, increased production of protective proteins, and enhanced DNA repair mechanisms. Interestingly, some studies have shown that E. coli actually grows more rapidly in microgravity than on Earth, forming thicker biofilms that may provide additional protection against environmental stressors. The ability of these common bacteria to adapt to space conditions raises important considerations for both spacecraft sterilization protocols and potential contamination issues in space-based research. It also provides valuable models for studying accelerated microbial evolution under the selective pressures of the space environment.
Conclusion: The Implications of Space-Surviving Organisms
The remarkable abilities of these 13 organisms to withstand the harsh
conditions of outer space have profound implications for multiple
scientific fields. Their resilience challenges our fundamental
understanding of life’s boundaries and expands the potential habitable
zones where we might find extraterrestrial life. From an astrobiological
perspective, these extremophiles provide tangible evidence supporting
the panspermia hypothesis—the idea that life could be transported
between planets via meteoroids or asteroids. For space exploration,
understanding these organisms’ survival mechanisms has practical
applications in developing better planetary protection protocols to
prevent cross-contamination between Earth and other celestial bodies.
Additionally, their unique adaptations offer valuable insights for
biotechnology, including radiation-resistant materials, more effective
preservation techniques, and novel compounds with pharmaceutical
potential. As we continue exploring these extraordinary space survivors,
we gain not only a deeper appreciation for life’s remarkable
adaptability but also crucial knowledge that may one day support
humanity’s own ventures beyond our home planet.
___________________________
Diversity and biogeography of SAR11 bacteria from the Arctic Ocean
09 September 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-019-0499-4
___________________________
Potential chemical defenses of Antarctic benthic organisms against marine bacteria
2017
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17518369.2017.1390385
___________________________
Antimicrobial activity of selected benthic Arctic invertebrates
2015
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HUGE, WEIRD, and TERRIFYING Invertebrates of the Amazon Rainforest!
Jun 18, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ115YQCCPk
___________________________
Demystifying Polar Gigantism: The Oxygen-Temperature Hypothesis
March 6, 2021
___________________________
Why polar gigantism and Palaeozoic gigantism are not equivalent: effects of oxygen and temperature on the body size of ectotherms
11 July 2013
Summary
- Organisms of gigantic proportions inhabited the world at a time of a hyperoxic prehistoric atmosphere (Palaeozoic gigantism). Extant giants are found in cold polar waters, with large quantities of dissolved oxygen (polar gigantism). Oxygen is usually deemed central to explain such gigantism. Examples of one category of gigantism are often cited in support of the other, but novel insights into the bioavailability of oxygen imply that they cannot be taken as equivalent manifestations of the effect of oxygen on body size.
- Recently, the availability of oxygen has been shown to be lower in cold waters, despite greater oxygen solubility. Consequently, gigantism in cold, oxygenated waters and gigantism in an oxygen-pressurized world are fundamentally different: Palaeozoic gigantism likely arose because of greater oxygen availability, while polar gigantism arises in spite of lower oxygen availability.
- The traditional view of respiration focuses on meeting the challenge of extracting sufficient amounts of oxygen, which essentially is a toxic gas. We present a broader perspective, which specifically includes risks of oxygen poisoning. We discuss how challenges pertaining to balancing oxygen uptake capacity and risks of oxygen poisoning are very different for animals breathing either air or water.
- We propose a novel explanation for polar gigantism in aquatic ectotherms, arguing that their larger body size represents a respiratory advantage that helps to overcome the larger viscous forces in water. Being large helps organisms to balance the opposing risks of asphyxiation and poisoning, especially in colder, more viscous, water. This results in a selection for larger sizes, with polar gigantism as the extreme manifestation. Hence, a larger size provides respiratory benefits to water-breathing ectotherms, but not terrestrial ectotherms. This can explain why clines in body size across temperature and latitude are stronger in aquatic ectotherms.
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12152
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Reconsidering the Oxygen–Temperature Hypothesis of Polar Gigantism: Successes, Failures, and Nuance
23 June 2020
https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/60/6/1438/5861538?login=false
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Why might they be giants? Towards an understanding of polar gigantism
2012
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22623187/
___________________________
What is Polar Gigantism? Exactly What It Sounds Like
April 24, 2014
https://weather.com/science/news/what-polar-gigantism-exactly-what-it-sounds-20140422
___________________________
Polar gigantism and the oxygen–temperature hypothesis: a test of upper thermal limits to body size in Antarctic pycnogonids
10 April 2019
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.0124
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Virus Genomes from Deep Sea Sediments Expand the Ocean Megavirome and Support Independent Origins of Viral Gigantism
2019
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6401483/
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Serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in a year of residence on the Antarctic continent
1994
Abstract
Objective: Since exposure to sunlight is the main source of vitamin D in human beings and skin photosynthesis decreases markedly as the latitude increases, we studied the changes in serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels in young healthy men who lived in the Antarctic Continent during 1 year.
Design: Blood was drawn in the fasting state every 2 months from March 1990 to January 1991 to determine the serum levels of calcium, alkaline phosphatase and 25(OH)D.
Subjects: 19 healthy volunteers, who left Buenos Aires (34 degrees S) during the 1990 summer, arriving at the Antarctic bases at the end of January (Belgrano) and in mid-March (San Martín) and stayed there up to summer 1991.
Results: Serum calcium did not change significantly throughout the year. Serum alkaline phosphatase levels were not different comparing the beginning to the end of the year, but autumn and winter levels were lower (P < 0.05). At Belgrano Base the serum 25(OH)D levels (ng/ml) decreased from (mean +/- SD) 18.7 +/- 7.4 (March) to 10.0 +/- 4.3 (July) (P < 0.005) and did not recover for the rest of the year. At San Martín Base the serum 25(OH)D levels descended from 22.0 +/- 5.4 in March to 12.2 +/- 3.7 in August (P < 0.02) and did not increase even at the beginning of summer (January) except in two men with frequent outdoor activities.
Conclusions: The levels of 25(OH)D of healthy men living in the Antarctic continent decreased to approximately 46% of the initial values and did not increase even at the onset of summer. Further studies should determine the effect of these changes upon calcium-regulating hormones and bone metabolism.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7925221/
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Amphiumas: gigantism, extended parental care and freaky morphology in a group of eel-like salamanders
May 14, 2010
https://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/05/14/amphiumas-are-amazing
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Biggest freshwater fish ever caught is a stingray that weighs nearly as much as a polar bear
June 22, 2022
https://www.livescience.com/biggest-freshwater-fish-stingray
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Giant Jellyfish: Arctic Lion's Mane
http://www.extremescience.com/giant-jellyfish.htm
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Cephalopod size
Cephalopods, which include squids and octopuses, vary enormously in size. The smallest are only about 1 centimetre (0.39 in) long and weigh less than 1 gram (0.035 oz) at maturity, while the giant squid can exceed 10 metres (33 ft) in length and the colossal squid weighs close to half a tonne (1,100 lb), making them the largest living invertebrates. Living species range in mass more than three-billion-fold,[nb 1] or across nine orders of magnitude, from the lightest hatchlings to the heaviest adults.[4] Certain cephalopod species are also noted for having individual body parts of exceptional size.[5]
Cephalopods were at one time the largest of all organisms on Earth,[6] and numerous species of comparable size to the largest present day squids are known from the fossil record, including enormous examples of ammonoids, belemnoids, nautiloids, orthoceratoids, teuthids, and vampyromorphids. In terms of mass, the largest of all known cephalopods were likely the giant shelled ammonoids and endocerid nautiloids,[7] though perhaps still second to the largest living cephalopods when considering tissue mass alone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_size
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"Supergiant" new species of isopod discovered in the deep ocean
August 13, 2020
https://newatlas.com/environment/supergiant-isopod-new-species/
___________________________
Genome size variation in deep-sea amphipods
2017
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28989783/
___________________________
Bergmann's Principle and Deep-Water Gigantism in Marine Crustaceans
November 2001
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1012336823275
___________________________
Study reveals the first deep-sea crustacean genome
June 23, 2022
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-reveals-deep-sea-crustacean-genome.html
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Deep-sea community
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_sea_creature
___________________________
-
Megafauna
In zoology, megafauna (from Greek μέγας megas "large" and Neo-Latin fauna "animal life") are large animals. The precise definition of the term varies widely, though a common threshold is approximately 45 kilograms (99 lb), this lower end being centered on humans, with other thresholds being more relative to the sizes of animals in an ecosystem,[1] the spectrum of lower-end thresholds ranging from 10 kilograms (22 lb) to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb). Large body size is generally associated with other traits, such as having a slow rate of reproduction and, in large herbivores, reduced or negligible adult mortality from being killed by predators.
Megafauna species have considerable effects on their local environment, including the suppression of the growth of woody vegetation and a consequent reduction in wildfire frequency. Megafauna also play a role in regulating and stabilizing the abundance of smaller animals.
During the Pleistocene, megafauna were diverse across the globe, with most continental ecosystems exhibiting similar or greater species richness in megafauna as compared to ecosystems in Africa today. During the Late Pleistocene, particularly from around 50,000 years ago onwards, most large mammal species became extinct, including 80% of all mammals greater than 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb), while small animals were largely unaffected. This pronouncedly size-biased extinction is otherwise unprecedented in the geological record. Humans and climatic change have been implicated by most authors as the likely causes, though the relative importance of either factor has been the subject of significant controversy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megafauna
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Polar Bear is the Largest Carnivore – Is the Polar Bear the Largest Bear?
https://polarbearfacts.net/polar-bear-is-the-largest-carnivorous-mammal/
___________________________
This is Why Gigantopithecus is 100 Times More Dangerous Than Gorilla
Aug 2, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wr0_Xn0eHQ
___________________________
Barbary Lions | Largest Lions in the World?
Jun 12, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnZ_g5oBlsU
___________________________
How to make a rodent giant: Genomic basis and tradeoffs of gigantism in the capybara, the world’s largest rodent
September 23, 2018
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/424606v1
___________________________
Unbelievable Giant Animals Caught on Camera
Sep 5, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKD33KMfZO4
___________________________
Why some creatures in the deep sea get so big
https://www.zmescience.com/science/biology/deep-sea-giant-creature/
___________________________
Deep-sea gigantism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-sea_gigantism
___________________________
Why are there so many giants in the deep sea?
May 8, 2022
https://www.livescience.com/why-deep-sea-animals-are-giants
___________________________
Horrifying Examples Of Abyssal Gigantism
December 11, 2020
https://www.ranker.com/list/abyssal-gigantism/colleen-conroy
___________________________
Into the Abyss: Chemosynthetic Oases (Full Movie)
Jul 19, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LrcTa0dDmw
___________________________
How to Survive the Deep Sea
Dec 14, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNQ1wroGzAY
___________________________
Comparative Oxygen Consumption of Gastropod Holobionts from Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents in the Indian Ocean.
___________________________
The unique deep sea-land connection: interactive 3D visualization and molecular phylogeny of Bathyhedyle boucheti n. sp. (Bathyhedylidae n. fam.)-the first panpulmonate slug from bathyal zones.
06 Dec 2016
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/27957391
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Believe it or not, massive sea creatures once lived in the Sahara
July 12, 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/12/us/sahara-desert-sea-creatures-catfish-large-scn-trnd/index.html
___________________________
Sahara was home to some of largest sea creatures, study finds
Scientists reconstruct extinct species using fossils found in northern Mali from ancient seaway
___________________________
Most Incredible Recent Archaeological Discoveries!
Jul 5, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H76VNjmKVJg
___________________________
Confirmed: Island gigantism and dwarfism result of evolutionary island rule
April 15, 2021
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210415114108.htm
___________________________
Island Gigantism and Dwarfism: Evolutionary “Island Rule” Confirmed
https://scitechdaily.com/island-gigantism-and-dwarfism-evolutionary-island-rule-confirmed/
___________________________
Island gigantism
Island gigantism, or insular gigantism, is a biological
phenomenon in which the size of an animal species isolated on an island
increases dramatically in comparison to its mainland relatives. Island
gigantism is one aspect of the more general "island effect" or "Foster's rule",
which posits that when mainland animals colonize islands, small species
tend to evolve larger bodies, and large species tend to evolve smaller
bodies (insular dwarfism). This is itself one aspect of the more general phenomenon of island syndrome which describes the differences in morphology, ecology, physiology and behaviour
of insular species compared to their continental counterparts.
Following the arrival of humans and associated introduced predators
(dogs, cats, rats, pigs), many giant as well as other island endemics
have become extinct (e.g. the dodo and Rodrigues solitaire, giant flightless pigeons related to the Nicobar pigeon). A similar size increase, as well as increased woodiness, has been observed in some insular plants such as the Mapou tree (Cyphostemma mappia) in Mauritius which is also known as the "Mauritian baobab" although it is member of the grape family (Vitaceae).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_gigantism
___________________________
The island rule and the evolution of body size in the deep sea
29 June 2006
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2006.01545.x
___________________________
Islands That AREN'T Actually Islands
May 6, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OqUjXEqUtc
___________________________
Earth's Lost Islands
Jan 28, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qJ8BjLRJM4
___________________________
Paleopathologist finds gigantism in third century Roman skeleton
November 19, 2012
https://phys.org/news/2012-11-paleopathologist-gigantism-century-roman-skeleton.html
___________________________
Pituitary Disease from the Past: A Rare Case of Gigantism in Skeletal Remains from the Roman Imperial Age
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/97/12/4302/2536330?login=false
___________________________
Unusual Cluster of Gigantism in Ireland Traced to Ancient Gene
October 17, 2016
The land of giants. It sounds like something from a fairy tale, but it arguably exists in a region of Northern Ireland where a cluster of people with a genetic predisposition grow abnormally tall.
In Mid-Ulster, about 1 in 150 people carry a genetic mutation to the AIP gene that leads to an overproduction of growth hormone resulting in acromegaly, also known as gigantism. The hormone disorder is spurred by a tumor on the pituitary gland, a pea-sized organ at the base of the brain.
"This is probably the highest proportion of giants in the whole world in that little part of Northern Ireland," Marta Korbonits, professor of endocrinology at Barts and the London School of Medicine Queen Mary, tells Seeker. Korbonits led the team that discovered the link between the AIP gene defect in Irish populations and gigantism in 2011.
https://www.livescience.com/56518-gigantism-in-ireland-traced-to-ancient-gene.html
-
The Oldest Recorded Case of Acromegaly and Gigantism in Iran.
01 Oct 2015
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/26443258
___________________________
An Egyptian pharaoh from the Third Dynasty may be the oldest known human with a case of gigantism
2017
___________________________
A model for obesity and gigantism due to disruption of the Ankrd26 gene
January 8, 2008
Abstract
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0710978105
___________________________
Gigantism and Acromegaly Due to Xq26 Microduplications and GPR101 Mutation
December 18, 2014
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1408028
___________________________
Duplication of gene on X chromosome causes gigantism
Dec. 4, 2014
Researchers found activity of GPR101 was up to 1,000 times stronger than normal in children with enlarged and overactive pituitary glands.
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NIH researchers link chromosome region to gigantism
December 4, 2014
Duplication of gene on X chromosome appears to cause excessive growth.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found a duplication of a short stretch of the X chromosome in some people with a rare disorder that causes excessive childhood growth. They believe that a single gene within the region likely has a large influence on how much children grow. The research comes from a lab at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which seeks to understand growth.
“Finding the gene responsible for childhood overgrowth would be very helpful, but the much wider question is what regulates growth,” said Constantine Stratakis, M.D., D.Sc., lead author of the new paper and the scientific director of the Division of Intramural Research at NICHD.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-researchers-link-chromosome-region-gigantism
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Pituitary gigantism with intracerebral metastases
1999
Abstract
Gigantism is usually caused by a benign growth hormone (GH)- secreting pituitary tumor. We describe a case of gigantism with markedly increased serum GH concentrations and radiological evidence of meningocerebral metastases. The 16-year-old patient presented with vision loss and gait disturbance. His basal serum GH concentration was markedly elevated (1293-2070 μg/L) and did not decrease with an oral glucose load. There was biochemical evidence of hypogonadism with low follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, and testosterone (the serum prolactin level was normal). A 6-cm pituitary tumor with secondary hydrocephalus was found on computerized tomographic imaging. Because surgical excision with shunt placement was of limited clinical benefit, the patient underwent postoperative external beam radiation therapy. Serum GH levels were partially responsive to octreotide therapy, but treatment was incompletely effective due to noncompliance. At the age of 18 years, intracerebral, cerebellar, and meningeal metastases became evident on neuroimaging. Although a post mortem examination was not performed, death was caused by increased intracranial pressure and cerebral, as well as cerebellar, herniation.
___________________________
The causes and consequences of pituitary gigantism
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-018-0114-1
___________________________
Cerebral gigantism (Sotos syndrome) with juvenile macular degeneration.
1 March 1980
___________________________
Gigantism
Gigantism is a serious condition that is nearly always caused by an adenoma, a tumor of the pituitary gland. Gigantism occurs in patients who had excessive growth hormone in childhood. The pituitary tumor cells secrete too much growth hormone (GH), leading to many changes in the body.
___________________________
Pituitary gigantism
- Other Names: hypophyseal gigantism; infantile and juvenile forms of acromegaly
https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/6506/index
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Pituitary Gigantism
2022
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25905378/
___________________________
Acromegaly and gigantism in the medical literature. Case descriptions in the era before and the early years after the initial publication of Pierre Marie (1886)
September 2008
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RENAL FUNCTION STUDIES AND AUTOPSY REPORT IN A PATIENT WITH GIGANTISM AND ACROMEGALY
01 March 1957
Abstract
IT IS generally accepted that hypersecretion of anterior pituitary growth hormone is the major factor in the production of gigantism and acromegaly. This assumption is supported by the fact that many of the abnormalities found in these patients can be reproduced in animals by injections of the hormone. These abnormalities include diabetes mellitus (1), arthritis (2), elevated level of plasma inorganic phosphate (3, 4), and increased body water (5, 6). In addition, a renotropic effect of the hormone has been demonstrated in dogs, in that glomerular filtration rate, renal blood flow, TmPAH (7), urea clearance and sulphate Tm (8) are increased. Glomerular filtration rate and renal plasma flow have been reported to be increased in acromegaly (9, 10), but to our knowledge there are no reports in which all the foregoing renal functions have been measured and correlated with observations at autopsy. This has prompted us to describe a case in which these measurements were made and in which autopsy revealed marked renal hypertrophy.
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-abstract/17/3/377/2717154?login=false
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Gigantism treated by pure endoscopic endonasal approach in a case of McCune-Albright syndrome with sphenoid fibrous dysplasia: a case report
2013 Jan 10
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23307306/
___________________________
Gigantism and Acromegaly Treatment & Management
Apr 23, 2025
https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/925446-treatment
___________________________
Gigantism and Acromegaly
March 20, 2023
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538261/
___________________________
Gigantism
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/gigantism
___________________________
Gigantism and Its Implications for the History of Life
2016
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4714876/
___________________________
https://casereports.bmj.com/content/12/5/e229464
___________________________
Gigantism treated by pure endoscopic endonasal approach in a case of McCune-Albright syndrome with sphenoid fibrous dysplasia: a case report.
2013
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/23307306
___________________________
Antarctic 'Hoff crab' males grow bigger claws to compete for mates around hot vents
February 6, 2025
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-antarctic-hoff-crab-males-bigger.html
___________________________
LOOK AT THIS ARM!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItWq4mO60-8
___________________________
Why Tall People Are More Likely To Die Early
Dec 14, 2022
https://www.yourtango.com/2017300936/why-tall-people-more-likely-die-young
___________________________
Are Humans Still Evolving?
May 19, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEhOZJ55Ve8
___________________________
Morphological divergence in giant fossil dormice
04 November 2020
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.2085
___________________________
Floral Gigantism in Rafflesiaceae
30 Mar 2007
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1135260
___________________________
Gigantism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantism
___________________________
Dwarfism and gigantism
March 2021
https://www.accessscience.com/content/dwarfism-and-gigantism/207150
___________________________
Whole exome sequencing identifies a novel variant causing cockayne syndrome type I in a consanguineous Pakistani family
12 Jun 2022
Abstract
Background
Cockayne syndrome (CS) is a rare neurodegenerative disorder characterized by impaired neurological functions, cachectic dwarfism, microcephaly and photosensitivity. Complementation assays identify two groups of this disorder, CS type I (CSA) and CS type II (CSB), caused by mutations in ERCC8 and ERCC6, respectively.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207454.2022.2082967
___________________________
Dwarfism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfism
___________________________
How Humans Ruined Dogs
Oct 8, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pajgeSTO2jw
___________________________
Global warming led to dwarfism in mammals -- twice
November 2, 2013
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131102095546.htm
___________________________
Current insights into the molecular genetic basis of dwarfism in livestock
2017
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090023317301119
___________________________
The Very Big Problem of Dwarfism in Horses
February 22, 2019
https://thehorsesback.com/dwarfism-in-horses/
___________________________
An Evolutionary Genomic Perspective on the Breeding of Dwarf Chickens
2017
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28961939/
___________________________
Identifying genetic cause of Dwarfism in American Angus cattle
2004-01-01
https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/entities/publication/c8fa2b56-90d7-4eca-9a4b-f2094b5e043e
___________________________
FDA Approves First Drug to Improve Growth in Children with Most Common Form of Dwarfism
November 19, 2021
___________________________
Dwarfism drug aims to boost healthy growth
21 June 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48580041
___________________________
Experimental drug can encourage bone growth in children with dwarfism
June 18, 2019
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190618102710.htm
___________________________
Medical interventions to manage dwarfism, boost victims development
2019
___________________________
Improved understanding of the pathology of dwarfism may lead to new treatment targets
Dec 12, 2018
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-12-pathology-dwarfism-treatment.html
___________________________
Effects of high-dose recombinant human growth hormone treatment on IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 levels in idiopathic dwarfism patients
2022
https://pjms.org.pk/index.php/pjms/article/view/5502
___________________________
Current insights into the molecular genetic basis of dwarfism in livestock
2017
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28697878/
___________________________
Pituitary Dwarfism
2016
___________________________
Dwarfism in Dogs: Types, Health Concerns & Breeds It Affects
May 27, 2022
https://www.hillspet.com/dog-care/healthcare/understanding-dwarfism-in-dogs
___________________________
Pituitary dwarfism in Saarloos and Czechoslovakian wolfdogs is associated with a mutation in LHX3
2014 Oct 1
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25273400/
___________________________
Gene Insertion Underlies Origin of Dogs With Short Legs
June 27, 2009
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-insertion-underlies-origin-dogs-short-legs
___________________________
Primordial dwarfism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primordial_dwarfism
___________________________
Dwarfism in Troyer syndrome: a family with SPG20 compound heterozygous mutations and a literature review
19 September 2019
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.14229
___________________________
Difference Between Dwarf and Midget
http://www.differencebetween.net/science/nature/difference-between-dwarf-and-midget/
___________________________
New marine scale worm species first to provide evidence of male dwarfism
June 7, 2021
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-marine-scale-worm-species-evidence.html
___________________________
Dwarfism in chickens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfism_in_chickens
___________________________
Insular dwarfism
Insular dwarfism, a form of phyletic dwarfism,[1] is the process and condition of large animals evolving or having a reduced body size[a]
when their population's range is limited to a small environment,
primarily islands. This natural process is distinct from the intentional
creation of dwarf breeds, called dwarfing. This process has occurred many times throughout evolutionary history, with examples including various species of dwarf elephants that evolved during the Pleistocene epoch, as well as more ancient examples, such as the dinosaurs Europasaurus and Magyarosaurus. This process, and other "island genetics"
artifacts, can occur not only on islands, but also in other situations
where an ecosystem is isolated from external resources and breeding.
This can include caves, desert oases, isolated valleys and isolated mountains ("sky islands").[citation needed] Insular dwarfism is one aspect of the more general "island effect" or "Foster's rule", which posits that when mainland animals colonize islands, small species tend to evolve larger bodies (island gigantism), and large species tend to evolve smaller bodies. This is itself one aspect of island syndrome, which describes the differences in morphology, ecology, physiology and behaviour of insular species compared to their continental counterparts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism
___________________________
Phyletic dwarfism
Phyletic dwarfism is the decrease in average size of animals of a species. There are a few circumstances that often lead to species doing this. Lack of predators of smaller creatures can allow smaller members of a species to survive. The lack of resources to sustain a large population of larger animals can pick off the largest specimens. Available resources being more beneficial for smaller creatures can also do so.
These circumstances are common on islands, making insular dwarfism the most common form of phyletic dwarfism. Examples of this are the Channel Island fox, extinct dwarf elephants of Crete, and Brookesia micra, a minuscule chameleon from Madagascar. An noninsular example is the evolution of dwarfed marmosets and tamarins among New World monkeys.[1] Phyletic dwarfism may have also helped give rise to birds from their much larger dinosaur ancestors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyletic_dwarfism
___________________________
Dwarfism Medicine Shows Lure of $400,000 Rare-Disease Drugs
2012
___________________________
Dwarf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf
___________________________
Dental Abnormalities in Pituitary Dwarfism: A Case Report and Review of the Literature
28 March 2017
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/crid/2017/5849173/
___________________________
Feline Dwarfism
https://pets.thenest.com/feline-dwarfism-11803.html
___________________________
PITUITARY DWARFISM AND TOXOPLASMOSIS
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-abstract/15/6/745/2719033?login=false
___________________________
Intestinal Secretory Defects and Dwarfism in Mice Lacking cGMP-Dependent Protein Kinase II
20 Dec 1996
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.274.5295.2082
___________________________
A unique virulence factor for proliferation and dwarfism in plants identified from a phytopathogenic bacterium
April 14, 2009
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0813038106
___________________________
Suppression of the heterotrimeric G protein causes abnormal morphology, including dwarfism, in rice
June 22, 1999
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.96.13.7575
___________________________
Skeletal dysplasia-like syndromes in wild giraffe
2020
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7772923/
___________________________
Nazi 'Angel of Death' doctor Josef Mengele was obsessed with dwarfism and twins but his choice 'specimen' was a 12-year-old boy's head he planned to dissect, new book on his monstrosities reveal
___________________________
Dwarfism in an adolescent from the Italian late Upper Palaeolithic
05 November 1987
Abstract
There have been numerous reports of pathological conditions in the hominid fossils, but these have only involved trauma or age-related deterioration in the health of otherwise normal individuals1–4. Here we describe a skeleton of a young male from Riparo del Romito in Calabria, dated to the Epi-Gravettian of southern Italy. The preserved skeletal elements show that this individual (Romito 2) had the skull and long-bone morphology consistent with a mesomelic form of dwarfism, most probably the autosomal recessive disorder acromesomelic dysplasia5–8. Generally recognized at birth, persons with acromesomelic dysplasia usually have normal intelligence and are free of serious medical problems. However, growth deficiency is severe (adult height typically is 110–120 cm) and mobility at the elbows is restricted. These physical impairments would have greatly interfered with the individual's participation in subsistence activities and would have been a substantial handicap in a nomadic hunting and gathering group. Thus, besides being the earliest known case of dwarfism in the human record, this skeleton provides evidence of tolerance of, and care for, a severely deformed individual in the Palaeolithic.
https://www.nature.com/articles/330060a0
___________________________
Germline and somatic mosaicism in achondroplasia
2000
https://jmg.bmj.com/content/37/12/956
___________________________
Anauxetic dysplasia, a spondylometaepiphyseal dysplasia with extreme dwarfism
2001
https://jmg.bmj.com/content/38/4/262
___________________________
Washington State Bill Looks to Finally Ban Dwarf Tossing at Bars and Strip Clubs: 'There is Nothing Funny About Dwarf-Tossing'
2019
___________________________
There may be a cure for dwarfism — but some call it unethical
Sep. 28, 2020
https://nypost.com/2020/09/28/there-may-be-a-cure-for-dwarfism-but-some-call-it-unethical/
___________________________
How Genetic Disorders Are Inherited
Understanding Patterns of Inheritance
September 17, 2024
https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-genetic-disorders-are-inherited-2860737
___________________________
Animals With Dwarfism: Does Dwarfism Occur In Animals?
19 Oct 2023
https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/animals/does-dwarfism-occur-in-animals.html
___________________________
A new domestic cat genome assembly based on long sequence reads empowers feline genomic medicine and identifies a novel gene for dwarfism
February 27, 2020
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.06.896258v3
___________________________
How is dwarfism inherited?
January 15, 2014
https://www.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/inheriting-dwarfism
___________________________
Brother and sister with dwarfism work to debunk misconceptions about genetic condition
___________________________
Genetic diversity and drivers of dwarfism in extinct island emu populations
04 April 2018
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0617
___________________________
Dwarfism and Increased Adiposity in the gh1 Mutant Zebrafish vizzini
2013
https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/154/4/1476/2423447?login=false
___________________________
Endocrine Disorders: Common Types and Their Treatments
May 27, 2022
https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/endocrinology-and-metabolism/endocrine-disorders
___________________________
The copied gene that gave dachshunds and corgis their short legs
July 16, 2009
___________________________
Growth Hormone Receptor Mutations Related to Individual Dwarfism
10 May 2018
https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/19/5/1433
___________________________
Ancient Giants Og & Gilgamesh's Tombs Found?
Sep 26, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRKiLk4PdQA
___________________________
These unique people might hold a key to defeating aging
Aug 17, 2016
https://www.businessinsider.com/laron-syndrom-anti-aging-ecuador-fasting-mimicking-diet-2016-8?op=1
___________________________
Genetic disorders in beef cattle: a review
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13258-017-0525-8
___________________________
A new hominid species has been found in a Philippine cave, fossils suggest
The newly dubbed Homo luzonensis lived at least 50,000 years ago, scientists say
2019
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-hominid-species-homo-luzonensis-philippines
___________________________
12 Pros and Cons of Gene Therapy
July 28, 2017
https://vittana.org/12-pros-and-cons-of-gene-therapy
___________________________
Avoiding genetic genocide: understanding good intentions and eugenics in the complex dialogue between the medical and disability communities
2012
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3566260/
___________________________
Mutations in CENPE define a novel kinetochore-centromeric mechanism for microcephalic primordial dwarfism
20 April 2014
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00439-014-1443-3
___________________________
Dwarfing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfing
___________________________
Foster's rule
Foster's rule, also known as the island rule or the island effect, is an ecogeographical rule in evolutionary biology stating that members of a species get smaller or bigger depending on the resources available in the environment. For example, it is known that pygmy mammoths evolved from normal mammoths on small islands. Similar evolutionary paths have been observed in elephants, hippopotamuses, boas, sloths, deer (such as Key deer) and humans.[1][2] It is part of the more general phenomenon of island syndrome which describes the differences in morphology, ecology, physiology and behaviour of insular species compared to their continental counterparts.
The rule was first formulated by Leigh Van Valen in 1973[3][4] based on the study by mammalogist J. Bristol Foster in 1964.[5][6] In it, Foster compared 116 island species to their mainland varieties. Foster proposed that certain island creatures evolved larger body size (insular gigantism) while others became smaller (insular dwarfism). Foster proposed the simple explanation that smaller creatures get larger when predation pressure is relaxed because of the absence of some of the predators of the mainland, and larger creatures become smaller when food resources are limited because of land area constraints.[7]
The idea was expanded upon in The Theory of Island Biogeography, by Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson. In 1978, Ted J. Case published a longer paper on the topic in the journal Ecology.[8]
Recent literature has also applied the island rule to plants.[9]
There are some cases that do not neatly fit the rule; for example, artiodactyls have on several islands evolved into both dwarf and giant forms.[10][11]
The Island Rule is a contested topic in evolutionary biology. Some argue that, since body size is a trait that is affected by multiple factors, and not just by organisms moving to an island, genetic variations across all populations could also cause the body mass differences between mainland and island populations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster%27s_rule
___________________________
Achondroplasia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achondroplasia
___________________________
Osteochondrodysplasias (Osteochondrodysplastic Dwarfism)
Dec 2022
___________________________
Intestinal Secretory Defects and Dwarfism in Mice Lacking cGMP-Dependent Protein Kinase II
20 Dec 1996
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.274.5295.2082
___________________________
The Origin of Worms
Jun 9, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUoTeob18QY
___________________________
When Giant 'Shrimps' Ruled the Earth
Mar 11, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4_nK9STouE
___________________________
Difference Between Horizontal Nystagmus and Vertical Nystagmus
___________________________
Bigger, faster, stronger: why polar bears are the most prolific record-breaking bears (Arctic)
26 February 2019
___________________________
Down to the Bear Bones: How Polar Bears evolved from Grizzlies to hunt in the Arctic
___________________________
Grizzly–polar bear hybrid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly%E2%80%93polar_bear_hybrid
___________________________
What Are Pizzly Bears And Grolar Bears?
https://northamericannature.com/what-is-a-pizzly-bear/
___________________________
`Rare' bug dominates the oceans
19 November 1994
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14419522-700-rare-bug-dominates-the-oceans/
___________________________
Climate drives long-term change in Antarctic Silverfish along the western Antarctic Peninsula
03 February 2022
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-03042-3
___________________________
Growth and early life stage of Antarctic silverfish (Pleuragramma antarctica) in the Amundsen Sea of the Southern Ocean: evidence for a potential new spawning/nursery ground
28 January 2022
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-021-02994-2
___________________________
This Antarctic scale worm is some serious nightmare fuel
May 8, 2018
___________________________
The Insect That Freezes To Survive
November 27, 2021
https://www.realclearscience.com/video/2021/11/27/the_insect_that_freezes_to_survive_805364.html
___________________________
The Insect That Freezes To Survive | Nature's Biggest Beasts | BBC Earth
Nov 26, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G67UGmZMuI
___________________________
Giant prehistoric lion fossil discovered hiding in museum drawer
Simbakubwa kutoaafrika takes its place in the circle of life.
April 17, 2019
https://www.cnet.com/news/giant-prehistoric-lion-fossil-discovered-hidden-in-museum-drawer/
___________________________
Gigantic Ice Age Lions Used to Roam Africa, 200,000-Year-Old Fossil Reveals
3/26/18
https://www.newsweek.com/gigantic-lion-africa-extinct-200000-years-860353
___________________________
The Giant Fleas which Sucked Dino Blood | Parasitober
Nov 7, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6jvkecx2s0
___________________________
Giants Emerging Everywhere - They Can't Hide This
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVmOnwng6gs
___________________________
Koolasuchus - The Antarctic Amphibian That Ate Dinosaurs
Sep 29, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-lPDo_KMiA
___________________________
The Evolution of Sea Turtles
Oct 6, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Zw8A_IYGc
___________________________
Antarctic Octopuses Discovered With Sub-Zero Venom
2010
A
research expedition to Antarctica to study the region’s octopus life
has returned with descriptions of four new species, and the first known
sub-zero venoms. “Antarctic octopus venom works at temperatures that
would stop other venoms in their tracks,” said biochemist Bryan Fry of
the University of Melbourne, who led the expedition.
https://www.wired.com/2010/08/antarctic-octopus-gallery/
___________________________
10 Important Dinosaurs That Roamed Across Australia and Antarctica
July 25, 2019
https://www.thoughtco.com/most-important-dinosaurs-of-australia-and-antarctica-1092053
___________________________
When dinosaurs roamed Antarctica
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/when-dinosaurs-roamed-antarctica
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - The Arctic
June 17th, 2023
PollutionScience101Arctic.blogspot.com
___________________________
June 17th, 2023
PollutionScience101Antarctic.blogspot.com
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - Egypt
6/1/2020
https://pollutionscience101egypt.blogspot.com
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - Russia
December 2nd, 2015
Pollutionscience101Russia.blogspot.com
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - China
October 6th, 2015
Pollutionscience101China.blogspot.com
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - Israel (Fate of the Middle East)
8/9/2019
https://pollutionscience101israel.blogspot.com
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - Cancer Investigated (California)
Jan/7/15
Pollutionscience101cancerinvestigated.blogspot.com
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - Mexico - Faults of Mexico
5/1/2019
https://pollutionscience101mexico.blogspot.com/
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - Texas Industry Pollution Investigated ( Texas vs BP Oil)
Feb/2/15
Pollutionscience101texasvsbpoil.blogspot.com/
___________________________
Energy Science 101 - ( Pollution Science 101 )
August 23rd, 2016
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - Solutions
August 23rd, 2016
Pollutionscience101solutions.blogspot.com/
___________________________
Laguna
Beach Government corruption: Investigative report 1/16/2017. (Asbestos
contamination & our waterways in Orange County).
January 16th, 2017
Lagunabeachcorruption.blogspot.com
https://pollutionscience101.wordpress.com/2025/04/27/laguna-beach-ca-government-corruption-investigative-report/
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - India - Ecological Collapse
10/9/2017
PollutionScience101india.Blogspot.com
___________________________
___________________________
Uranium Trade 101 - India & Pakistan ( Pollution Science 101- India )
10/9/2017
UraniumTrade101india.Blogspot.com
___________________________
___________________________
6/1/2020 - Pollution Science 101 - Egypt
https://pollutionscience101egypt.blogspot.com
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - Cuba
May 7th, 2021
https://Pollutionscience101Cuba.blogspot.com
___________________________
___________________________
April 4th, 2024
PollutionScience101Florida.blogspot.com
___________________________
___________________________
___________________________
Pollution Science 101 - Brazil - Emergency Report
1/7/2020
https://pollutionscience101brazil.blogspot.com
___________________________
Race Dysgenics Brazil | Eugenics in Brazil
1/8/2020
https://eugenicsbrazil.blogspot.com
___________________________
https://pollutionscience101.wordpress.com/2023/02/16/coronavirus-investigation-news-race-virus-201/ (New Link)
https://archive.org/details/covid-news_202302 (Archive Link)
https://coronavirusinvestigation.blogspot.com (My banned Covid research link).
___________________________
The Cephalic Investigation - Race Eugenics & Dysgenics (Skull Evolution & The History of the Lineage of Man)
4/10/2020
https://skullevolution.blogspot.com
___________________________
Eugenics 101 (Dysgenics 101) - Genetics, Race, Science, Eugenics & Dysgenics
October 15th, 2020
https://eugenics101.blogspot.com
___________________________
Race Dysgenics: Evolution, Dysgenic De-evolution, Eugenics & Genetic Modification - The History of the Lineage of Man
3/5/2019
https://racedysgenics.blogspot.com
___________________________
The Dysgenics Investigation - Race, Science & the Human Genome Project - The Eugenics Investigation (Akoniti)
04/19/2018
DysgenicsInvestigation.blogspot.com
___________________________
Genetically Modified Vaccines Investigated - The Eugenics Investigation (MonsantoInvestigation.com)
8/15/2017
GMOvaccinesinvestigated.blogspot.com
___________________________
Genetically Modified Humans & Viruses - The Eugenics Investigation
July 7th, 2017
GMOhumansandviruses.blogspot.com
___________________________
The DuPont investigation
Feb/18/14
http://dupontinvestigation.blogspot.com
___________________________
King Solomon's Temple Investigation Marathon - Legend
7/21/2019
https://solomonstempleinvestigation.blogspot.com
___________________________
PollutionScience@Protonmail.com
TheInvestigations@Protonmail.com
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