Showing 9328 items
2 June, 2021 by Peter Convey
Pollution associated with petrogenic hydrocarbons is increasing in Antarctica due to a combination of increasing human activity and the continent’s unforgiving environmental conditions. The current study focuses on the ability…2 June, 2021 by Kevin Newsham
Previous studies have shown changes to the frequencies of hyphal coils and other fungal structures in leafy liverwort tissues across latitudinal transects through Antarctica. Although suggestive of a role of…
1 June, 2021 by Philip Trathan, Peter Fretwell
The distribution of emperor penguins is circumpolar, with 54 colony locations currently reported of which 50 are currently extant as of 2019. Here we report on eight newly discovered colonies…Read more on Discovery of new colonies by Sentinel2 reveals good and bad news for emperor
1 June, 2021 by Huw Griffiths, Lloyd Peck
Important findings from the second decade of the 21st century on the impact of environmental change on biological processes in the Antarctic were synthesised by 26 international experts. Ten key…Read more on Antarctic ecosystems in transition – life between stresses and opportunities
1 June, 2021 by Gareth Chisham
The high frequency radars in the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) estimate the elevation angles of returned backscatter using interferometric techniques. These elevation angles allow the ground range to…
1 June, 2021 by Huw Griffiths
Quantarctica (https://www.npolar.no/quantarctica) is a geospatial data package, analysis environment, and visualization platform for the Antarctic Continent, Southern Ocean (>40oS), and sub-Antarctic islands. Quantarctica works with the free, cross-platform Geographical Information…
1 June, 2021 by Andrew Orr, Gareth Marshall, Hua Lu, Scott Hosking, John King, John Turner, Steve Colwell, Tony Phillips
Commencing in 1956, observations made at Halley Research Station, Antarctica provide one of the longest continuous series of near-surface temperature observations from the Antarctic continent. Since few other records of…Read more on Inhomogeneity of the surface air temperature record from Halley, Antarctica
1 June, 2021 by Kevin Hughes, Peter Convey
Antarctica currently has few non-native species, compared to other regions of the planet, due to the continent’s isolation, extreme climatic conditions and the lack of habitat. However, human activity, particularly…
1 June, 2021 by Martin Collins
The yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) is a widely distributed, migratory species that supports valuable commercial fisheries throughout their range. Management of migratory species requires knowledge of movement, mixing and key…
1 June, 2021 by Teal Riley
We present the results of U-Pb zircon dating conducted using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), isotopic tracing analyses of Hf in zircon and Sr-Nd in whole-rock and whole-rock…
1 June, 2021 by Kevin Hughes, Susie Grant
Antarctic ecosystem services are rich and diverse and include global climate modulation, biodiversity and habitat protection, cultural heritage, scientific knowledge, education and recreation as well as the extraction of marine…1 June, 2021 by Hugh Venables, Alexander Brearley, Mark Barham, Michael Meredith
The west Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is a region of marked climatic variability, exhibiting strong changes in sea ice extent, retreat of most of its glaciers, and shifts in the amount…
1 June, 2021 by Eugene Murphy, John Dickens, Martin Collins, Philip Hollyman, Philip Trathan, John Dickens
Many remote islands present barriers to effective wildlife monitoring in terms of challenging terrain and frequency of visits. The sub-Antarctic islands of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are…
1 June, 2021 by Irena Vankova
High-frequency radar tracking of icebergs floating in front of a glacier in Greenland show that movements of the ice mélange consistently increase before calving events, indicating that mélange has the…Read more on Calving prediction from ice mélange motion [News]
31 May, 2021 by Katrin Linse
Growing human activity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) is driving increasing impacts on the biodiversity of this vast area of the ocean. As a result, the United Nations General…
28 May, 2021 by Robert Mulvaney
Fire plays a pivotal role in shaping terrestrial ecosystems and the chemical composition of the atmosphere and thus influences Earth’s climate. The trend and magnitude of fire activity over the…28 May, 2021 by Philip Trathan
Climate change and other human activities are causing profound effects on marine ecosystem productivity. We show that the breeding success of seabirds is tracking hemispheric differences in ocean warming and…Read more on Hemispheric asymmetry in ocean change and the productivity of ecosystem sentinels
28 May, 2021 by Sandra McInnes, Sandra McInnes
Over the last two decades, Zootaxa has hosted nearly 200 papers concerning tardigrade taxonomy, systematics, phylogeny, and evolution. A total of 160 researchers from all continents (except the Antarctic) published…Read more on 20 years of Zootaxa: Tardigrada (Ecdysozoa: Panarthropoda).
28 May, 2021 by Martin Collins
The yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares: YFT) is a widely distributed, migratory species that supports valuable commercial fisheries. Landings of YFT are seasonally and spatially variable, reflecting changes in their availability…27 May, 2021
Gravity wave (GW) activities in the upper mesosphere (80–100 km) and their potential sources are investigated using meteor radar observations at King Sejong Station, Antarctica (KSS; 62.22°S, 58.78°W) during recent…
26 May, 2021 by Mervyn Freeman
We must be able to predict and mitigate against GIC effects to minimize socio‐economic impacts. This study employs the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF) to model the geomagnetic response over…25 May, 2021 by Louis-Alexandre Couston
Subglacial lakes are isolated, low-temperature and high-pressure water environments hidden under ice sheets. Here, we use two-dimensional direct numerical simulations in order to investigate the characteristic temperature fluctuations and velocities…
20 May, 2021 by Keith Nicholls, Peter Davis
Floating ice shelves are the Achilles’ heel of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. They limit Antarctica’s contribution to global sea level rise, yet they can be rapidly melted from beneath by…
20 May, 2021 by Peter Convey
Hydrocarbons can cause pollution to Antarctic terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, both through accidental release and the discharge of waste cooking oil in grey water. Such pollutants can persist for long…20 May, 2021 by John King, Tracy Moffat-Griffin
Atmospheric gravity waves (GWs) play an important role in atmospheric dynamics but accurately representing them in general circulation models (GCMs) is challenging. This is especially true for orographic GWs generated…
19 May, 2021 by Peter Convey
Two new mite species belonging to the genus Stereotydeus Berlese, 1901 were discovered from locations along the coast of Victoria Land, continental Antarctica. Previous records of this genus in the…
18 May, 2021 by Andrew Orr, Gareth Marshall, Hua Lu, Thomas Bracegirdle
This study quantifies differences among four widely used atmospheric reanalysis datasets (ERA5, JRA-55, MERRA-2, and CFSR) in their representation of the dynamical changes induced by springtime polar stratospheric ozone depletion…
17 May, 2021 by Michael McCarthy, Michael McCarthy
Glaciers in High Mountain Asia generate meltwater that supports the water needs of 250 million people, but current knowledge of annual accumulation and ablation is limited to sparse field measurements…Read more on Health and sustainability of glaciers in High Mountain Asia
16 May, 2021 by Mark Clilverd
For many years, it was believed that resonant interactions between electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves and radiation belt electrons were restricted to electron energies > 1 − 2 MeV. In…Read more on Evidence of sub‐MeV EMIC‐driven trapped electron flux dropouts from GPS observations
15 May, 2021 by Jakub Stocek
We propose an operator preconditioner for general elliptic pseudodifferential equations in a domain Ω, where Ω is either in Rn or in a Riemannian manifold. For linear systems of equations…Read more on Optimal operator preconditioning for pseudodifferential boundary problems.
13 May, 2021 by Deb Shoosmith
Hydrographic data are analyzed for the broad continental shelf of the Bellingshausen Sea, which is host to a number of rapidly‐thinning ice shelves. The flow of warm Circumpolar Deep Water…Read more on Ice‐shelf meltwater overturning in the Bellingshausen Sea
13 May, 2021 by David Barnes, Huw Griffiths, Simon Morley
Knowledge of life on the Southern Ocean seafloor has substantially grown since the beginning of this century with increasing ship-based surveys and regular monitoring sites, new technologies and greatly enhanced…
7 May, 2021 by Tracy Moffat-Griffin
Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (SSWs) could act as an important mediator in the vertical coupling of atmospheric regions and dramatic variations in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) in response to…6 May, 2021 by Peter Convey
Two cyanobacterial morphotypes isolated from Signy Island, South Orkney Islands, maritime Antarctica were characterised using a polyphasic approach combining morphological, cytological and molecular analyses. These analyses showed that the strains…
5 May, 2021 by Louise Sime
Improving the understanding of changes in the mean and variability of climate variables as well as their interrelation is crucial for reliable climate change projections. Comparisons between general circulation models…
5 May, 2021 by Philip Hollyman
Using growth rings observed in statoliths, the size-at-age relationship was modeled for waved whelk (Buccinum undatum) populations within the Mid-Atlantic Bight. A total of 45 sites in the Mid-Atlantic were…
5 May, 2021 by Robert Mulvaney
We present novel measurements of the carbon isotope composition of CFC-11 (CCl3F), CFC-12 (CCl2F2), and CFC-113 (CF2ClCFCl2), three atmospheric trace gases that are important for both stratospheric ozone depletion and…5 May, 2021 by Joseph Ulanowski
This paper presents measurements of mineral dust concentration in the diameter range from 0.4 to 14.0 µm with a novel balloon-borne optical particle counter, the Universal Cloud and Aerosol Sounding System…
1 May, 2021 by Povl Abrahamsen
Deploying long‐range autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) mid‐water column in the deep ocean is one of the most challenging applications for these submersibles. Without external support and speed over the ground…Read more on Terrain-aided navigation for long-range AUVs in dynamic under-mapped environments
1 May, 2021 by Jakob Thyrring, Lloyd Peck, Melody Clark
The Arctic is experiencing particularly rapid rates of warming, consequently invasive boreal species are now able to survive the less extreme Arctic winter temperatures. Whilst persistence of intertidal and terrestrial…Read more on Resilience in Greenland intertidal Mytilus: The hidden stress defense
1 May, 2021 by Hugh Venables, Alexander Brearley, Michael Meredith, Ryan Scott
Quantifying and understanding the processes driving turbulent mixing around Antarctica is key to closing the Southern Ocean’s heat budget, an essential component of the global climate system. In 2016, a…1 May, 2021 by Geraint Tarling, Gabriele Stowasser, Ryan Saunders, Sophie Fielding
Indicators of oxidative stress and metabolic capacity are key factors in understanding the fitness of wild populations. In the present study, these factors were evaluated in the pelagic Southern Ocean…1 May, 2021 by Peter Convey
We assessed the diversity of fungal DNA present in sediments of three lakes on Vega Island, north-east Antarctic Peninsula using metabarcoding through high-throughput sequencing (HTS). A total of 640,902 fungal…1 May, 2021 by Andrew Kavanagh, Ingrid Cnossen
Orbital data from the year 1967 onwards has allowed for historical observations of the thermosphere, and has shown a long-term decrease in atmospheric density at LEO altitudes of around -1.7…1 May, 2021 by Amy King, Dieter Tetzner
New ice-core records are being developed from the sub-Antarctic, a region previously lacking in paleoclimate archives. These records capture marine-sourced organic compounds that act as proxies for sea-ice concentration, and…Read more on Exploring novel ice-core proxies for paleoclimate reconstruction in the sub-Antarctic
28 April, 2021 by David Vaughan, Julien Bodart
Understanding the contribution of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) to past and future sea level has been a major scientific priority over the last three decades. In recent years,…
28 April, 2021 by Andrew Meijers, Dani Jones, Emma Boland
The Southern Ocean (SO) is a crucial region for the global ocean uptake of heat and carbon. There are large uncertainties in the observations of fluxes of heat and carbon…
28 April, 2021 by Ella Gilbert
The future surface mass balance (SMB) of Antarctic ice shelves has not been constrained with models of sufficient resolution and complexity. Here, we force the high‐resolution Modèle Atmosphérique Régional (MAR)…28 April, 2021 by Michael McCarthy, Michael McCarthy
Glacier albedo determines the net shortwave radiation absorbed at the glacier surface and plays a crucial role in glacier energy and mass balance. Remote sensing techniques are efficient means to…
27 April, 2021 by Andrew Kavanagh, Ingrid Cnossen
Increasing carbon dioxide causes cooling in the upper atmosphere and a secular decrease in atmospheric density over time. With the use of the Whole Atmospheric Community Climate Model with thermosphere…
27 April, 2021 by Mark Clilverd, Mervyn Freeman
Measurements from six longitudinally separated magnetic observatories, all located close to the 53⁰ mid-latitude contour, are analysed. We focus on the large geomagnetic 16 disturbance that occurred during 7 and…22 April, 2021 by Kayleigh Jones
Concerns have recently been raised as to whether small harbour seal pups found alone are genuine 'orphans', i.e. pups permanently separated from their mother. We present records of body mass…19 April, 2021 by Carlos Martin Garcia, Robert Mulvaney
The area near Dome C, East Antarctica, is thought to be one of the most promising targets for recovering a continuous ice-core record spanning more than a million years. The…
16 April, 2021 by Irena Vankova, Keith Nicholls
A phase‐sensitive radar (ApRES) was deployed on Totten Ice Shelf to provide the first in‐situ basal melt estimate at this dynamic East Antarctic ice shelf. Observations of internal ice dynamics…16 April, 2021 by Mark Clilverd
VLF radio propagation recordings are used to determine the characteristics of the nighttime polar lower D region of the ionosphere. Recordings of both VLF phase and amplitude in the Arctic…Read more on Quiet night Arctic ionospheric D region characteristics
15 April, 2021 by Geraint Tarling, Gabriele Stowasser, Richard Phillips, Ryan Saunders, Susan Gregory, Sophie Fielding
Biomagnification of mercury (Hg) in the Scotia Sea food web of the Southern Ocean was examined using the stable isotope ratios of nitrogen (δ15N) and carbon (δ13C) as proxies for…Read more on Mercury biomagnification in a Southern Ocean food web
9 April, 2021 by Kelly Hogan, Robert Larter
Thwaites Glacier is the most rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and adds large uncertainty to 21st century sea-level rise predictions. Here, we present the first direct…9 April, 2021 by Paul Anker
Icefin is a custom designed remotely or autonomously operated vehicle (ROV/AUV) for sub-ice deployments in polar environments with a primary focus on modularity for deploying multiple payloads throughout a season…Read more on Antarctic Deep Field Deployments and Design of the Icefin ROV
8 April, 2021 by Richard Horne
Severe space weather was identified as a risk to the UK in 2010 as part of a wider review of natural hazards triggered by the societal disruption caused by the…8 April, 2021 by Jakob Thyrring, Lloyd Peck
Whether global latitudinal diversity gradients exist in rocky intertidal a-diversity and across functional groups remains unknown. Using literature data from 433 intertidal sites, we investigated α-diversity patterns across 155° of…Read more on Global gradients in intertidal species richness and functional groups
5 April, 2021 by Scott Hosking
The most mature aspect of applying artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) to problems in the atmospheric sciences is likely post-processing of model output. This article provides some history and current…1 April, 2021 by Richard Phillips, William Mills
The non‐breeding period is critical for restoration of body condition and self‐maintenance in albatrosses, yet detailed information on diet and distribution during this stage of the annual cycle is lacking…
1 April, 2021 by Carrie Gunn, Richard Phillips
Young birds in cold environments face a range of age-specific thermal challenges. Studying the thermal biology of young birds throughout ontogeny may further our understanding of how such challenges are…1 April, 2021 by Oliver Marsh
Fox Glacier/Te Moeka o Tuawe is a fast-responding maritime glacier that has undergone multiple advance and retreat phases during recent decades. Here we use a combination of repeat photography, Structure…
1 April, 2021 by Hamish Pritchard, Steve Colwell
The seasonal snowpack is a globally important water resource that is notoriously difficult to measure. Existing instruments make measurements of falling or accumulating snow water equivalent (SWE) that are susceptible…1 April, 2021 by Gareth Marshall, Hua Lu, John King, John Turner, Steve Colwell, Tony Phillips
We present the first Antarctic-wide analysis of extreme near-surface air temperatures based on data collected up to the end of 2019 as part of the synoptic meteorological observing programs. We…
1 April, 2021 by Dominic Hodgson
Terrestrial biota in the Antarctic are more globally distinct and highly structured biogeographically than previously believed, but information on biogeographic patterns and endemism in freshwater communities is largely lacking. We…Read more on Diatoms define a novel freshwater biogeography of the Antarctic
1 April, 2021 by Povl Abrahamsen
Water-mass transformation by turbulent mixing is a key part of the deep-ocean overturning, as it drives the upwelling of dense waters formed at high latitudes. Here, we quantify this transformation…Read more on Mixing and transformation in a deep western boundary current: A case study
1 April, 2021 by Teal Riley
Late Triassic – Jurassic igneous rocks of the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia provide evidence for the evolution of the margin of southwestern Gondwana. We present new geochronological (LAICP-MS zircon U-Pb…
1 April, 2021 by Claire Allen, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Robert Larter
The Antarctic Peninsula’s Pacific margin is one of the best studied sectors of the Antarctic continental margin. Since the 1990s, several research cruises have targeted the continental rise with geophysical…
1 April, 2021 by Elaine Fitzcharles, Martin Collins, Philip Hollyman
Fishes of the genus Muraenolepis are regularly caught in commercial and research fishing in the waters around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, but for many years there has…1 April, 2021 by James France
The rising number of operational biogas plants in the UK brings a new emissions category to consider for methane monitoring, quantification and reduction. Minimising methane losses from biogas plants to…Read more on Quantification of methane emissions from UK biogas plants
1 April, 2021 by Alex Burton-Johnson
During evolution of the South Sandwich subduction zone, which has consumed South American Plate oceanic lithosphere, somehow continental crust of both the South American and Antarctic plates have become incorporated…
1 April, 2021 by Andrew Wood, Michael Dunn, Norman Ratcliffe, Philip Trathan, Stacey Adlard
Surveying seabirds in polar latitudes can be challenging due to sparse human populations, lack of infrastructure and the risk of disturbance to wildlife or damage to habitats. Counting populations using…1 April, 2021 by Richard Horne
The impact of radial diffusion in storm time radiation belt dynamics is well‐debated. In this study we quantify the changes and variability in radial diffusion coefficients during geomagnetic storms. A…1 April, 2021 by Mark Whiffin, Norman Ratcliffe
During the last 50 years, the breeding population of Continental Black-tailed Godwits Limosa limosa limosa in the United Kingdom has been relatively small (below 60 pairs) and largely concentrated in…Read more on Diagnosing the recent population decline of black-tailed godwits in the United Kingdom
31 March, 2021 by Kaitlin Naughten, Paul Holland
A potentially irreversible threshold in Antarctic ice shelf melting would be crossed if the ocean cavity beneath the large Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf were to become flooded with warm water from…Read more on Two-timescale response of a large Antarctic ice shelf to climate change
31 March, 2021 by Cameron Fox-Clarke, Camille Toscani, Claire Stainfield, Jaume Forcada
Allee effects play an important role in the dynamics of many populations and can increase the risk of local extinction. However, some authors have questioned the weight of evidence for…Read more on Evidence for an Allee effect in a declining fur seal population
28 March, 2021 by Louise Sime
Changes of the topography of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) can complicate the interpretation of ice core water stable isotope measurements in terms of temperature. Here, we use a set…
28 March, 2021 by Nigel Meredith, Richard Horne
We use data from eight satellites to statistically examine the role of chorus as a potential source of plasmaspheric hiss. We find that the strong equatorial (|λm| < 6o) chorus…
26 March, 2021 by Alex Brisbourne, Andy Smith, Sofia-Katerina Kufner
Microseismicity, induced by the sliding of a glacier over its bed, can be used to characterize frictional properties of the ice‐bed interface, which are a key parameter controlling ice stream…
25 March, 2021 by Adrian Jenkins, Louis-Alexandre Couston, Paul Holland
We report an idealized numerical study of a melting and freezing solid adjacent to a turbulent, buoyancy-affected shear flow, in order to improve our understanding of topography generation by phase…Read more on Topography generation by melting and freezing in a turbulent shear flow
25 March, 2021 by Peter Convey
The Antarctic Peninsula is under pressure from non-native plants and this risk is expected to increase under climate warming. Establishment and subsequent range expansion of non-native plants depend in part…Read more on Warming impacts potential germination of non-native plants on the Antarctic Peninsula
25 March, 2021 by Hugh Corr
Curvilinear channels on the surface of an ice shelf indicate the presence of large channels at the base. Modelling studies have shown that where these surface expressions intersect the grounding…24 March, 2021 by Fabian Haumann, Michael Meredith
The Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean is the world’s main production site of Antarctic Bottom Water, a water-mass that is ventilated at the ocean surface before sinking and entraining…Read more on Ventilation of the abyss in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean
22 March, 2021 by Emma Woodfield, Jade Reidy, Johnathan Ross, Mark Clilverd, Nigel Meredith, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert, Jade Reidy
Particle precipitation is a loss mechanism from the Radiation Belts whereby particles trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field are scattered into the loss cone due to wave‐particle interactions. Energetic electron…
20 March, 2021 by Emma Young, Simon Morley
While there is now strong evidence that many factors can shape dispersal, the mechanisms influencing connectivity patterns are species‐specific and remain largely unknown for many species with a high dispersal…19 March, 2021 by Maximilian Lowe
In this study, we present an estimate of the gravity signal of the slabs beneath the Alpine mountain belt. Estimates of the gravity effect of the subducting slabs are often…Read more on Gravity effect of Alpine slab segments based on geophysical and petrological modelling
17 March, 2021 by Robert Mulvaney
The spatial glaciochemical variability of snow samples collected along a transect from Zhongshan Station to Lambert Glacier Basin 69 (LGB69) in Antarctica was investigated. Sea-salt ion concentrations exponentially decreased with…
17 March, 2021 by Peter Convey
We assess the fungal diversity present in permafrost from different islands in the South Shetland Islands archipelago, maritime Antarctic, using next-generation sequencing (NGS). We detected 1,003,637 fungal DNA reads representing,…
16 March, 2021 by Richard Horne
Pc1 geomagnetic pulsations, equivalent to electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves in the magnetosphere, display a specific amplitude modulation, though the region of the modulation remains an open issue. To classify whether…
16 March, 2021 by Alexander Lozinski, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
Proton flux measurements from the Proton Telescope instrument aboard the CRRES satellite are revisited, and used to drive a radial diffusion model of the inner proton belt at 1.1 ≤…
16 March, 2021 by Sofia-Katerina Kufner
Break-off of part of the down-going plate during continental collision occurs due to tensile stresses built-up between the deep and shallow slab, for which buoyancy is increased because of continental-crust…Read more on The Hindu Kush slab break-off as revealed by deep structure and crustal deformation.
12 March, 2021 by Anna Jones, Alexandra Weiss, James France, Thomas Lachlan-Cope
The North Sea is Europe's key oil and gas (O&G) basin with the output currently meeting 3 %–4 % of global oil supply. Despite this, there are few observational constraints on the…Read more on Speciation of VOC emissions related to offshore North Sea oil and gas production
12 March, 2021 by Elaine Mawbey
Theory suggests that the ocean's biological carbon pump, the process by which organic matter is produced at the surface and transferred to the deep ocean, is sensitive to temperature because…
9 March, 2021 by Fausto Ferraccioli
We present a new magnetic compilation for Central Gondwana conformed to a recent satellite magnetic model (LCS-1) with the help of an equivalent layer approach, resulting in consistent levels, corrections…Read more on East Antarctica magnetically linked to its ancient neighbours in Gondwana
8 March, 2021 by Mark Clilverd
In recent years there has been a growing body of direct experimental evidence demonstrating electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves driving energetic electron precipitation (EEP) at unexpectedly low, sub‐MeV energies —…