Existing conservation efforts insufficient to protect Antarctic ecosystems Researchers have discovered a process that can contribute to the melting of ice shelves in the Antarctic. An international team of scientists found that adjacent ice shelves play a role in causing instability in others downstream. The study, led by the University of East Anglia in the UK, also identified that a small ocean gyre - a system of circulating ocean currents - next to the Thwaites Ice Shelf can impact the amount of glacial-meltwater flowing beneath it. When that gyre is weaker, more warm water can access the areas beneath the ice shelf, causing it to melt. Meanwhile, another study says that existing conservation efforts are insufficient to protect Antarctic ecosystems, and population declines are...
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travelogues, travel articles and news from continent of Antarctica
Courageous runners braved snow and freezing temperatures this week for the Antarctic Ice Marathon, won by Ireland's Sean Tobin who organisers said clocked a record time on the continent. A runner participates in the Antarctic Ice Marathon, in Union Glacier, Antarctica, December 14, 2022. Mark Conlon/Antarctic Ice Marathon/Handout via REUTERS The event, the 17th of its kind, took place on Wednesday at Union Glacier, with more than 60 competitors from 20 nations taking part. Organisers describe it as "the southernmost marathon on Earth". Tobin, 28, ran the traditional marathon distance of 42.195 kilometres (26.22 miles) in 2:53.33. "You just sink (into the snow)... One turn I took, I just went completely legless and hit the ground. I was trying to get up and go again," Tobin sai...
Read MoreAntarctica’s emperor penguin is at risk of extinction due to rising global temperatures and sea ice loss, the U.S. government said Tuesday as it finalized protections for the animal under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said emperor penguins should be protected under the law since the birds build colonies and raise their young on the Antarctic ice threatened by climate change. The wildlife agency said a thorough review of evidence, including satellite data from 40 years showed the penguins aren’t currently in danger of extinction, but rising temperatures signal that is likely. The agency's review followed a 2011 petition by the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity to list the bird under the Endangered Species Act. FILE PHOTO: Emp...
Read MoreSome estimates of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea-level rise may be over- or underestimated, after researchers detected a previously unknown source of ice loss variability. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Austrian engineering company ENVEO, identified distinct, seasonal movements in the flow of land-based ice draining into George VI Ice Shelf – a floating platform of ice roughly the size of Wales – on the Antarctic Peninsula. Riley Glacier, Palmer Land, Antarctica. Photo: Ian Willis Using imagery from the Copernicus/European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellites, the researchers found that the glaciers feeding the ice shelf speed up by approximately 15% during the Antarctic summer. This is the first time that such seasonal cycles have been detected on la...
Read MoreHow coastal ocean currents increase Antarctic ice shelf melt A new model developed by Caltech and JPL researchers suggests that Antarctica's ice shelves may be melting at an accelerated rate, which could eventually contribute to more rapid sea level rise. The model accounts for an often-overlooked narrow ocean current along the Antarctic coast and simulates how rapidly flowing freshwater, melted from the ice shelves, can trap dense warm ocean water at the base of the ice, causing it to warm and melt even more. The study was conducted in the laboratory of Andy Thompson, professor of environmental science and engineering, and appears in the journal Science Advances on August 12. A research vessel in Antarctica on June 3, 2017. Photo: Ben Adkison Ice shelves are outcroppings of t...
Read More“I’d never seen so many whales in one place before and was absolutely fascinated watching these massive groups feed,” enthuses Prof Bettina Meyer, a biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and at the University of Oldenburg as well as the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity, who is a co-author of the current study in Scientific Reports. From March to May 2018, she led an expedition with the research icebreaker Polarstern in the region of the Antarctic Peninsula, during which groups of up to 50 or even 70 fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus quoyi) were observed. Fin whale feeding aggregation at a distance. The horizon is covered by blows of a feeding aggregation numbering approximately 150 fin whales. © BBC T...
Read MoreChina has blocked efforts to step up protection of emperor penguins that are increasingly threatened by the effects global warming is having on their natural habitat in Antarctica, officials said Friday. Dozens of countries had backed giving the world’s largest penguins special protection status at a 10-day meeting in Berlin of parties to the Antarctic Treaty. The treaty was forged in 1959 to ensure that the continent remains the preserve of science, and free of arms. FILE PHOTO: Crowds of emperor penguins on the ice in Antarctica on Dec. 21, 2005. (Zhang Zongtang/Xinhua via AP) “An overwhelming majority of parties held the opinion that there is sufficient scientific evidence for the species to be put under the special protection,” the German government, which hosted the May 22-J...
Read MoreThe emperor penguin, which roams Antarctica's frozen tundra and chilly seas, is at severe risk of extinction in the next 30 to 40 years as a result of climate change, an expert from the Argentine Antarctic Institute (IAA) warned. The emperor, the world's largest penguin and one of only two penguin species endemic to Antarctica, gives birth during the Antarctic winter and requires solid sea ice from April through December to nest fledgling chicks. If the sea freezes later or melts prematurely, the emperor family cannot complete its reproductive cycle. "If the water reaches the newborn penguins, which are not ready to swim and do not have waterproof plumage, they die of the cold and drown," said biologist Marcela Libertelli, who has studied 15,000 penguins across two colonies i...
Read MoreWarmer summers and meltwater lakes are damaging the fringes A first-of-its-kind study looking at surface meltwater lakes around the East Antarctic Ice Sheet across a seven-year period has found that the area and volume of these lakes is highly variable year-to-year, and offers new insights into the potential impact of recent climatic change on the ‘Frozen Continent’. The research, led by Durham University (UK), used over 2000 satellite images from around the edge of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet to determine the size and volume of lakes on the ice surface, also known as supraglacial lakes, across seven consecutive years between 2014 and 2020. Meltwater lake near Shackleton Ice Shelf, East Antarctica. Photo: David Small, Durham University The study, which involved Newcastle and ...
Read MoreIn the Southern Hemisphere, the ice cover around Antarctica gradually expands from March to October each year. During this time the total ice area increases by 6 times to become larger than Russia. The sea ice then retreats at a faster pace, most dramatically around December, when Antarctica experiences constant daylight. New research led by the University of Washington explains why the ice retreats so quickly: Unlike other aspects of its behavior, Antarctic sea ice is just following simple rules of physics. The study was published March 28 in Nature Geoscience. A research vessel in Antarctica on June 3, 2017, the first day researchers saw the sun rise above the horizon after weeks of polar darkness. New research shows that solar radiation drives the relatively fast annual retrea...
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