Scientists in Antarctica: why they’re there and what they’ve found

David William Hedding, University of South AfricaA media storm blew up in mid-March 2025 when a researcher at South Africa’s isolated Sanae IV base in Antarctica accused one of its nine team members of becoming violent. The Conversation Africa asked geomorphologist David William Hedding, who has previously carried out research from the frozen continent, about the work researchers do in Antarctica, what conditions are like and why it matters. What do researchers focus on when they’re working in Antarctica? Currently, the main focus of research in the Antarctic revolves around climate change because the White Continent is a good barometer for changes in global cycles. It has a unique and fragile environment. It’s an extreme climate which makes it highly sensitive to any changes in global climate and atmospheric conditions. Importantly, the Antarctic remains relatively untouched by humans, so we are able to study processes and responses of natural systems. Also, the geographic location of Antarctic enables science that is less suitable elsewhere on the planet. An example of this is the work on space weather (primarily disturbances to the Earth’s magnetic field caused by solar activity). Studying space weather is significant because the magnetic field of the Earth can impact communication platforms, technology, infrastructure and...

Read More........→March 26, 2025

Melting Antarctic ice will slow the world’s strongest ocean current – and the global consequences are profound

Mongkolchon Akesin, Shutterstock Taimoor Sohail, The University of Melbourne and Bishakhdatta Gayen, The University of MelbourneFlowing clockwise around Antarctica, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the strongest ocean current on the planet. It’s five times stronger than the Gulf Stream and more than 100 times stronger than the Amazon River. It forms part of the global ocean “conveyor belt” connecting the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. The system regulates Earth’s climate and pumps water, heat and nutrients around the globe. But fresh, cool water from melting Antarctic ice is diluting the salty water of the ocean, potentially disrupting the vital ocean current. Our new research suggests the Antarctic Circumpolar Current will be 20% slower by 2050 as the world warms, with far-reaching consequences for life on Earth. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current keeps Antarctica isolated from the rest of the global ocean, and connects the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Sohail, T., et al (2025), Environmental Research Letters., CC BYWhy should we care? The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is like a moat around the icy continent. The current helps to keep warm water at bay, protecting vulnerable ice sheets. It also acts as a barrier to invasive species such as southern bull kelp and any animals hitching a ride on these...

Read More........→March 17, 2025

DNA detectives in Antarctica: probing 6,000 years of penguin poo for clues to the past

Jamie Wood Jamie Wood, University of Adelaide and Theresa Cole, University of AdelaideStudies of ancient DNA have tended to focus on frozen land in the northern hemisphere, where woolly mammoths and bison roamed. Meanwhile, Antarctica has received relatively little attention. We set out to change that. The most suitable sediments are exposed near the coast of the icy continent, where penguins like to breed. Their poo is a rich source of DNA, providing information about the health of the population as well as what penguins have been eating. Our new research opens a window on the past of Adélie penguins in Antarctica, going back 6,000 years. It also offers a surprise glimpse into the shrinking world of southern elephant seals over the past 1,000 years. Understanding how these species coped with climate change in the past can help us prepare for the future. Wildlife in Antarctica faces multiple emerging threats and will likely need support to cope with the many challenges ahead. A unique marine ecosystem Adélie penguins are particularly sensitive to changes in their environment. This makes them what we call a “sentinel species”, providing an early warning of imbalance or dysfunction in the coastal ecosystem. Their poo also provides a record of how they responded to changes in the past. In our new research, we excavated...

Read More........→March 11, 2025

More Than 50,000 Pounds of Trash Removed from the Arctic in 2023

credit – Protection of the Arctic Marine EnvironmentOver 50,000 pounds of trash have been removed from the Arctic in 2023 after a multilateral effort flooded critical northern ecosystems with volunteers.Working during the brief Arctic summer, clean-up operations were carried out in Alaska, Greenland, Norway, and Iceland.Nearly 2,000 volunteers were enlisted across the treaty nations of the Arctic Council, an inter-governmental panel on peaceful and sustainable use and protection of the Arctic zone formed by the nations that pierce its frozen borders, and the indigenous peoples that call it home.The council is divided into working groups that address certain issues, and the Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment (PAME), founded in 1991, partnered with the Ocean Conservancy and various local groups like Keep Norway Clean to organize this sizable operation through its Arctic Cleanup initiative.These annual clean-ups have removed over 100,000 pounds of trash between 2021 and 2023. The overwhelming majority of trash originates in the fishing industry, Keep Norway Clean reports.Arctic cleanup is both challenging and costly, the government-funded nonprofit writes. Long distances, difficult-to-access areas, scattered populations, short cleanup seasons, and limited access to waste management, are the main challenges for voluntary cleanup...

Read More........→February 25, 2025

Antarctica Yields Intact Skull — An Ancestor of Today’s Waterfowl That Survived Dinosaur Extinction

An artist’s impression of Vegavis iaai, an ancestor of modern waterfowl – credit: Mark Witton / SWNSA modern-looking diving bird was living somewhere in Antarctica when a massive asteroid struck the Earth and caused the dinosaurs to go extinct.But unlike the dinosaurs, this early ancestor of today’s waterfowl survived that mass extinction event, and a nearly complete skull has now been recovered by a special paleontological project on the southern continent.The animal is called Vegavis iaai—a Late Cretaceous diving bird which lived at the same time that Tyrannosaurus rex was dominating North America.The skull exhibits a long, pointed beak and a brain shape unique among all known birds previously discovered from the Mesozoic Era—the epoch stretching from 252 to 66 million years ago, and comprising the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods.Researchers say the features place Vegavis in the group that includes all modern birds, representing the earliest evidence of a now widespread and successful evolutionary radiation across the planet.Assistant Professor of Biology Chris Torres from the University of the Pacific acquired the fragments of the animal’s skull from a geology sample obtained during a 2011 expedition by the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project.Meticulously extracted and scanned into a 3D rendering, Torres said...

Read More........→February 21, 2025

Scientists Drill Ice Core–2 Miles Down–Extracting 1.2 Million Years of Climate Record On Earth

Antarctica ice core – PNRA / IPEV via SWNSAn international team of scientists in the Antarctic has successfully extracted what is believed to be the world’s oldest ice—a historic milestone for climate science.They drilled down almost two miles to extract 2.8-km of ice core, reaching the actual bedrock beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.The air bubbles trapped inside the ice are “like tiny time capsules of Earth’s atmospheric past”. The samples equate to a continuous record of climate history dating back to 1.2 million years ago, which could illuminate the mysteries of glacial climate cycles.This was the fourth Antarctic field mission for the Europeans behind the ‘Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice’ project, funded by the European Commission.They achieved more than 200 days of successful drilling and ice core processing operations across four seasons in the harsh environment of the central Antarctic plateau, working at an altitude of 3,200 meters above sea level with an average summer temperature of -35°C.The ice core from Beyond EPICA will offer unprecedented insights into the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, a remarkable period between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago when glacial cycles slowed down from 41,000-years to 100,000-year intervals.The reasons behind this shift remain one of climate science’s enduring mysteries, one which this project...

Read More........→February 07, 2025

First major chunk breaks off world's biggest iceberg

PARIS - An enormous chunk has broken off the world's largest iceberg, in a possible first sign the behemoth from Antarctica could be crumbling.The colossal iceberg -- which is more than twice the size of Greater London and weighs nearly one trillion tonnes -- had largely stayed intact since it started slowly moving north in 2020.It has been drifting toward the remote island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic, raising the prospect it could run aground in shallower water and disrupt feeding for baby penguins and seals.But a chunk about 19 kilometres (12 miles) long has cleaved off, said Andrew Meijers from the British Antarctic Survey, who encountered the iceberg in late 2023 and has tracked its fate via satellite ever since."This is definitely the first significant clear slice of the iceberg that's appeared," the physical oceanographer told AFP.Soledad Tiranti, a glaciologist currently on an Argentinian exploration voyage in the Antarctic, also told AFP that a section had "broken" away.The jagged piece has an area of roughly 80 square kilometres (31 square miles) -- huge in its own right, but just a fraction of the approximately 3360 square kilometres that remained.Meijers said icebergs were full of deep fractures, and although this monumental specimen had shrunk over time and lost a much smaller piece, it had "held together...

Read More........→February 06, 2025

How is Antarctica melting, exactly? Crucial details are beginning to come into focus

The front of the Ross Ice Shelf floats in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Matt Siegfried/Scripps Institution of Oceanography, CC BY-NC Madelaine Gamble Rosevear, University of Tasmania; Ben Galton-Fenzi; Bishakhdatta Gayen, The University of Melbourne, and Catherine Vreugdenhil, The University of MelbourneThe size of the Antarctic ice sheet can be hard to comprehend. Two kilometres thick on average and covering nearly twice the area of Australia, the ice sheet holds enough freshwater to raise global sea levels by 58 metres. Ice loss from this sheet is projected to be the leading driver of sea level rise by 2100, yet its contribution remains highly uncertain. While sea levels are certain to rise this century, projections of the contribution from Antarctic ice vary from a 44 cm rise to a 22 cm fall. Much of this uncertainty is because the ocean processes that control the fate of the sheet occur on an incredibly small scale and are very difficult to measure and model. But recently scientists have made significant progress in understanding this “ice-ocean boundary layer”. This progress is the subject of our new review paper, published today in Annual Reviews. Shrinking, thinning and retreating At the margins of the Antarctic ice sheet, glaciers flow into the Southern Ocean, forming floating ice shelves. These ice shelves act as...

Read More........→January 22, 2025

Scale of microplastics in Antarctic revealed in preliminary survey results

(Image: IAEA)The first results of the pioneering scientific research project launched earlier this year have catalogued microplastic particles in the sea water, sediment and animals in Antarctica.The preliminary results were outlined during an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference session focusing on the study, which is supported by Argentina and forms part of the wider IAEA NUTEC plastics initiative, which aims to use nuclear technologies to tackle plastic pollution.Nathalie Bernard, from the IAEA Marine Environment Laboratories and University of Buenos Aires, unveiling the results, said that "sadly we have found microplastics everywhere, on every sample, every matrix". She said that the concentrations of microplastics varied by location and by day.More than 250 samples were collected from the Almirante Irizer icebreaker, which sailed 27,209 kilometres over 125 days covering 84 sampling stations. Over the course of a week 166 samples were collected from Argentina's Carlini research station base as part of what was described as the first study of microplastics pollution from South America to Antarctica.The samples were of water, of sediment and also of penguin droppings and shellfish. Bernard said: "All of these results were possible thanks to nuclear techniques, specifically vibrational microspectroscopy...

Read More........→January 10, 2025

First Antarctic amber discovery sheds light on ancient forests

Berlin, (IANS): Scientists in Germany have discovered amber in Antarctica for the first time, revealing that around 90 million years ago, the continent's climate conditions supported resin-producing forests, Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) reported.This southernmost discovery of amber offers new insights into Cretaceous forests near the South Pole, AWI said in a press release.The amber was discovered in a sediment core retrieved from the Amundsen Sea at a depth of 946 meters, using a seabed drilling device during a 2017 expedition aboard the icebreaker Polarstern. For analysis, the source material was carefully air-dried and sliced into pieces about 1 mm in diameter to extract the amber. Potential remnants of tree bark were also identified, offering further clues about the ancient forests near the South Pole."The analyzed amber fragments provide direct insights into the environmental conditions that prevailed in West Antarctica 90 million years ago," AWI marine geologist Johann P. Klages said. "It was very exciting to realize that, at some point in their history, all seven continents had climates that allowed resin-producing trees to survive."The research team, led by scientists from AWI and the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, has published their findings in the journal Antarctic Science, Xinhua news agency reported. First Antarctic...

Read More........→November 14, 2024

Scale of microplastics in Antarctic revealed in preliminary survey results

The first results of the pioneering scientific research project launched earlier this year have catalogued microplastic particles in the sea water, sediment and animals in Antarctica. (Image: IAEA)By Alex Hunt: The preliminary results were outlined during an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference session focusing on the study, which is supported by Argentina and forms part of the wider IAEA NUTEC plastics initiative, which aims to use nuclear technologies to tackle plastic pollution.Nathalie Bernard, from the IAEA Marine Environment Laboratories and University of Buenos Aires, unveiling the results, said that "sadly we have found microplastics everywhere, on every sample, every matrix". She said that the concentrations of microplastics varied by location and by day.More than 250 samples were collected from the Almirante Irizer icebreaker, which sailed 27,209 kilometres over 125 days covering 84 sampling stations. Over the course of a week 166 samples were collected from Argentina's Carlini research station base as part of what was described as the first study of microplastics pollution from South America to Antarctica.The samples were of water, of sediment and also of penguin droppings and shellfish. Bernard said: "All of these results were possible thanks to nuclear techniques, specifically vibrational microspectroscopy...

Read More........→September 20, 2024

Antarctica is missing a chunk of sea ice bigger than Greenland – what’s going on?

Ella Gilbert, British Antarctic Survey and Caroline Holmes, The Open UniversityDeadly heatwaves, raging wildfires and record global temperatures are upon us. But far from the flames, at the southernmost tip of the planet, something just as shocking is unfolding. It’s Antarctic winter, a time when the area of floating sea ice around the continent should be rapidly expanding. This year though, the freeze-up has been happening in slow motion. After reaching a record low minimum extent this summer there is now an area of open ocean bigger than Greenland. If the “missing” sea ice were a country, it’d be the tenth largest in the world.  Antarctic sea ice extent in 2023 compared to the 1981-2010 average. Zachary LabeWho cares about Antarctic sea ice? In the face of more immediate climate concerns, why does Antarctic sea ice matter? Floating sea ice is a pivotal climate puzzle piece. Without it, global temperatures would be warmer because its bright, white surface acts like a mirror, reflecting the sun’s energy back to space. This keeps the Antarctic – and by extension, the planet – cool. Antarctic sea ice also plays a particularly important role in controlling ocean currents and may act as a buffer that protects floating ice shelves and glaciers from collapsing and adding to global sea levels. In short, the loss of Antarctic...

Read More........→May 22, 2024

Heat from El Niño can warm oceans off West Antarctica – and melt floating ice shelves from below

AndreAnita/Shutterstock Maurice Huguenin, UNSW Sydney; Matthew England, UNSW Sydney, and Paul Spence, University of TasmaniaAs snow falls on Antarctica, layers build up and turn to ice. Over time, this compressed snow has become a continent-sized glacier, or ice sheet. It’s enormous – almost double the size of Australia and far larger than the continental United States. As the weight of ice builds up, the ice sheet begins to move towards the oceans. When it reaches the sea, the ice floats. These floating extensions are known as ice shelves. The largest is over 800 kilometres wide. When the ocean water has a temperature close to 0°C, these ice shelves can persist for a long time. But when temperatures rise, even a little, the ice melts from below. Antarctic ice shelves are now losing an alarming 150 billion tons of ice per year, adding more water to the ocean and accelerating global sea level rise by 0.6 mm per year. Ice shelves in West Antarctica are particularly prone to melting from the ocean, as many are close to water masses above 0°C. While the melting trend is clear and concerning, the amount can vary substantially from year-to-year due to the impact of both natural climate fluctuations and human-made climate change. To figure out what is going on and to prepare for the future, we need to tease apart the different drivers...

Read More........→April 09, 2024