Remember the difference between weather and climate? We know what happens when the weather changes—it’s obvious. Climate is another story. Read on. When it rains, you put on a raincoat or take your umbrella when you go out. It snows: time for high boots, a heavier coat, scarf, and warm gloves. And sunny days, well,
Here’s one of the funniest ways to tell world time that I have ever seen. I call it “Dial-a-Time,” although that’s not the official name for it. (The official name is “xkcd.com/1335/”.) First of all, with this graphic you have to get used to the fact that you are looking at the world from Antarctica
Tonight’s the first annular solar eclipse of 2014 (April 28-29), but almost nobody will be able to see it. The ring of fire will be visible only from the uninhabited region of Wilkes Land in Antarctica, the southern edge of Indonesia, and the South Indian Ocean. Australians will experience a partial solar eclipse, as may
Research has found that approximately 99% of our planet’s land-locked ice is held up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The remainder, however, is out in the open, located primarily in the glaciers dotted throughout the appropriate latitudes across the planet. And according to new research, those glaciers contributed approximately the same amount of
Scientific understanding is continually shifting as time moves on. For decades now, scientists have assumed that ancient high tide lines referred to higher sea levels. These assumptions have led scientists to believe that if the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets were to completely melt, they would cause such a high sea level again. New research,
The loss of ozone over Antarctica in the southern hemisphere is relatively well documented and popularly known, especially within Australia where for residents of southern states (like the island state of Tasmania) venturing out into the sun during summer is downright dangerous. Simply put, conditions in the Arctic — on the other side of the
Often, understanding what the planet’s climate will do and why requires study into fields that we as laymen might consider irrelevant. Thankfully, there are those out there who have dedicated their lives to the sciences and are not so quick to discuss a particular field or aspect of science as irrelevant. So when geoscientists from the University
The National Science Foundation recently noted that the researchers working on the Pine Island Glacier project are one of three Antarctic science initiatives that have achieved technological milestones with innovative approaches to drilling. Specifically, in an attempt to map the cavity beneath the 37 mile long Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, Penn State graduate student
An Antarctic research team has accomplished what no other team has ever accomplished previously by drilling through 800 metres (2,600 feet) of Antarctic ice to reach an isolated subglacial lake and taking water and sediment samples. Isolated from our atmosphere for thousands of years, the samples taken from the subglacial lake may have evolved in
Understanding the future of sea-level rise has been at the forefront of climate scientists’ minds for years now, and new research studying fossilised marine animals found in Antarctica’s seabed sediments are providing new clues as to what we might expect from a melting Antarctica. The immediate conclusion of the research is that the melting changes
Science is awesome! A team of scientists made up from nine separate countries and led by Victoria University have successfully drilled through 760 metres of ice to reach bedrock on the Antarctic island of Roosevelt Island in the Ross Sea. The project was led by Dr. Nancy Bertler of Victoria University’s Antarctic Research Centre and
Here’s one of those science stories that seem to make no sense on the surface: according to new research Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) increased snowfall over Antarctica as a result of climate change is actually countered by an increase in ice-flow to the ocean, up to three times. Thus, Antarctica’s contribution
Scientists discover just why it is Antarctic sea-ice cover has been increasing while the Arctic sea-ice cover has been so dramatically decreasing.
Never let it be said that planet Earth made life easy for its scientists. A new NASA study has shown that, while the Arctic has been losing ice each summer, Antarctica has been gaining ice. “There’s been an overall increase in the sea ice cover in the Antarctic, which is the opposite of what
The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is a bit of a mouthful, but that’s rather the point. Penguins, seals and other land-based animals living on the Antarctic continent enjoy a privileged, if slightly chilly, position. The land they live upon is protected from human exploitation in a way no
A new study led by researchers from Durham University in the UK has found that the geometry of channels beneath an ice-sheet play a much stronger role in mitigating retreat than previously understood. The findings are part of a study which simulate ice-sheet retreat and collapse over a ten thousand year period in Antarctica,
It’s too late! We’re all going to die! So says the latest research to be published in the respected journal Environmental Research Letters. OK. I might be jumping to a bit of a dramatic conclusion there. In fact, the study in question has shown that the levels of greenhouse gasses we have already pumped into the
British and Australian researchers working on data collected over a ten-year period from robotic probes wandering around the Southern Ocean have discovered an important method of how carbon is drawn from the surface of the Southern Ocean to the deeper waters below. The research shows that carbon is not drawn down uniformly by the ocean
New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen has shown that the rise in temperature after the last ice age into the warmer intergrlacial period was followed closely by a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, contrary to previously held opinion. The research was published in the journal Climate of the Past and showed
A new study has found that Antarctica is at great risk from human activities and other forces, and that environmental management is vital to protect the continent from human interests. The report showed that one of the longer-term concerns that could very well be the greatest threat to Antarctica is the potential for potential for oil,
A new University-led study that received NASA participation has discovered that Antarctica was warmer and wetter during the Miocene era than had previously been suspected, to the point where the climate was able to sustain substantial vegetation along the edges of the mostly frozen continent. The team of scientists — led by Sarah J.
A previously unknown sub-glacial basin that is almost the size of New Jersey residing beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet near the Weddell Sea has prompted scientists to reevaluate the ice sheet location most at risk of collapse. “If we were to invent a set of conditions conducive to retreat of the West Antarctic
A new study which represents the most extensive study of the evolution of floating ice shelves in the eastern Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica has revealed that the ice is steadily losing their grip on adjacent bay walls, a problem which scientists believe may hasten the loss of ice to the sea.
Over the past half-decade the American population’s understanding of the facts about polar regions have increased, sadly, their concern or those same regions have stayed the same. These are the findings of the first comparative analysis conducted by Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, in conjunction with the National Science Foundation, on science
Dropped through the massive ice sheets on the Ross Ice Shelf, half-mile long thermometres will begin to give scientists and researchers across the world relevant data on sea and ice temperatures that will help them track climate change and its effect on the glacial ice surrounding Antarctica. The thermometres were deployed by a team based
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have released a map that strips Antarctica of all its ice and details the rock bed underneath. The map – BEDMAP – is, according to the BAS, “a close-up view of the landscape beneath the Antarctic icesheet and incorporates decades of survey data acquired by planes, satellites, ships and even
A team of scientists have set forth from BAS Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula and are heading for Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica where they will survey the world’s largest glacier in an effort to understand how ice is being lost from the glacier and what contribution the loss is likely to
[UPDATED – Dec. 11, 2001 – embedded video restored] A most unusual and amazing phenomenon of Nature, the ‘brinicle’ is a descending channel of brine (highly salty water) that resembles a twisting icicle, or perhaps, an underwater, ‘slow mo’, ice tornado. And, not unlike the latter, it leaves a path of (frozen) death its wake.
In the midst of its third field campaign in Antarctica, NASA’s Operation IceBridge mission has provided the first ever detailed airborne measurements of the process of a massive iceberg calving from its parent glacier. Pine Island Glacier has not calved such a significant iceberg since 2001, and many scientists had suspected that it was now
For many of us, we’re never going to see an aurora. We simply live too far away from the poles. We might be able to make do with photos people have taken from the ground, but even that doesn’t match up with the video and image below, which show the aurora australis over Antarctica on September 11, 2005.
Scientists working with NASA’s Operation IceBridge airborne research campaign started their third year of survey flights and captured this image of the sea ice covering the Weddell Sea.
A team of engineers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) will leave next week for Antarctica to begin the first stage of a scientific mission to collect water and sediment samples from Lake Ellsworth, a subglacial lake some three kilometres underneath the solid ice of Antarctica.
Once again using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on board their Aqua satellite, NASA have provided this stunning image of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Akin to the ozone loss which has been much publicized over Antarctica, the Arctic saw massive ozone losses in 2011 thanks to unusually low temperatures which lingered for a longer than normal time in the stratosphere.
In one of those research studies that exposes an area of change that you would have never expected, researchers from the British Antarctic Survey have found that colonies of tiny marine creatures living on Antarctica’s seabed are suffering from climate change as a result of the increase in frequency of icebergs pounding the seafloor.
A mapping project that stemmed from the International Polar Year has provided scientists with an intricate map of previously unmapped glaciers and their slow progress across the icy continent of Antarctica.
Much focus has been given to the increasing climate change taking place at the poles, both the Arctic and Antarctica. However new research out of The Pennsylvania State University shows that such climate change-induced warming could very well end up affecting the poles geography and geology in different ways.
New research from an international team of scientists has provided the strongest yet evidence that Antarctica and North America were once part of the same continent 1.1 billion years ago, well before the super continent of Pangaea was formed.
The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami left devastation along the Japanese coast line that is still being felt to this day. But the resultant tsunami also caused havoc in Antarctica, breaking off several large icebergs from the Sulzberger Ice Shelf.
Small amounts of subsurface warming of oceans can trigger a massive and rapid collapse of ice shelves, according to an analysis of prehistoric “Heinrich events.”
“If West Antarctica collapsed, that means it’s more unstable than we expected, which is quite scary,” said a scientist who set out to determine whether Greenland or Antarctica will introduce more melting water to rising sea levels.
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered a slew of previously undiscovered underwater volcanoes in the ocean waters around the remote South Sandwich Islands, a series of islands grouped together with Britain’s claim in Antarctica.
“If you put an ice cube in a warm room, it will melt in several hours. But if you put an ice cube in a cup of warm water, it will disappear in just minutes.”
It’s been a little while since I last wrote about Happy Feet, the second penguin in history known to have swum from Antarctica to New Zealand. So, here are a number of updates about the emperor penguin from the last week or so.
By looking at fossilised pollen found below a hundred feet of dense rock off the coast of Northern Antarctica, researchers have been able to reconstruct a climate record for the southern continent, and determine that the last remnant of Antarctic vegetation existed on the continents northern peninsula some 12 million years ago in a tundra landscape similar to that of northern Canada.
A group of scientists collected from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, have taken a look below the Aurora Subglacial Basin in the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and found some of the largest fjords on Earth.
Two of Greenland’s largest three glaciers have lost enough ice that they could have filled Lake Erie with the accumulated melted ice water.
Focusing their attention on the collapse of the Barents ice sheet which took place some 140,000 years ago, scientists from Bangor University and the University of Sheffield have used a computer climate model to understand how different states of freshwater entering the oceans affect the circulation of the oceans.
