Found 14035 items
11 February, 2013 by Fausto Ferraccioli, Tom Jordan
The Wilkes Subglacial Basin, in the hinterland of the Transantarctic Mountains, represents one of the least understood continental-scale features in Antarctica. Aeromagnetic data suggests that this basin may be imposed…11 February, 2013 by Fausto Ferraccioli, Hugh Corr, Philip Leat, Tom Jordan
The Weddell Sea Rift was a major focus for Jurassic extension and magmatism during the early stages of Gondwana break-up and underlies the Weddell Sea Embayment, which separates East Antarctica…Read more on Inland extent of the Weddell Sea Rift imaged by new aerogeophysical data
11 February, 2013 by Fausto Ferraccioli
A combination of 1555 magnetic susceptibility measurements from the Antarctic Peninsula between 65°S to 72°S (for which the raw data are made available), and petrological, structural and metamorphic data, has…8 February, 2013 by Howard Roscoe, Jonathan Shanklin
A long-term ozone loss time series is necessary to understand the evolution of ozone in Antarctica. Therefore, we construct the time series using ground-based, satellite and bias-corrected multi-sensor reanalysis (MSR)…Read more on Antarctic ozone loss in 1979-2010: first sign of ozone recovery
8 February, 2013 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, Robert Larter
Increasing evidence for an elaborate subglacial drainage network underneath modern Antarctic ice sheets suggests that basal meltwater has an important influence on ice stream flow. Swath bathymetry surveys from previously…Read more on Paleo ice flow and subglacial meltwater dynamics in Pine Island Bay, West Antarctica
7 February, 2013 by Robert Mulvaney
Volcanism is a natural climate forcing causing short-term variations in temperatures. Histories of volcanic eruptions are needed to quantify their role in climate variability and assess human impacts. We present…6 February, 2013 by Anna Jones, Eric Wolff, Neil Brough
To probe the spatial extent of tropospheric ozone depletion events during Antarctic spring, a network of 10 autonomous ozone monitors was established around the Dronning Maud Land sector of Antarctica…1 February, 2013 by Anna Jones, Neil Brough
There are few observations of speciated inorganic bromine in polar regions against which to test current theory. Here we report the first high temporal resolution measurements of Br2, BrCl and…Read more on High temporal resolution Br2, BrCl and BrO observations in coastal Antarctica
1 February, 2013 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, Robert Larter
Inter-ice stream areas cover significant portions of Antarctica's formerly glaciated shelves, but have been largely neglected in past geological studies because of overprinting by iceberg scours. Here, we present results…1 February, 2013 by Keith Nicholls
Under ice measurements by seals carrying a miniaturized conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) instrument fill an important gap in existing observations. Here the authors present data from an instrumented Weddell seal that spent…Read more on Wintertime water mass modification near an Antarctic ice front
1 February, 2013 by Keith Makinson
As Antarctic subglacial lake research progresses to in situ exploration an important topic is the lake’s probable gas concentration. Depending on hydrological setting, subglacial lakes may contain large amounts of…Read more on Estimating and managing blowout risk during access to subglacial Antarctic lakes
1 February, 2013 by Peter Convey
Bryophytes exhibit a decline in species richness with latitude across the sub-Antarctic islands, Antarctic Peninsula and Antarctic continent, but not within the Antarctic continent itself. We analyzed diversity and biogeographic…Read more on Diversity trends of Bryophytes in continental Antarctica
1 February, 2013 by Kevin Newsham
We investigated the effects of increased soil temperature, water and nutrient availability on soil bacterial communities at Wynn Knolls on Signy Island (60 °S) in the northern maritime Antarctic and…1 February, 2013 by Victoria Peck
The delivery of ice-rafted debris (IRD) from glaciated margins is a function of ice sheet dynamics. Shifts in supply and sourcing of IRD can therefore identify episodes of ice sheet…1 February, 2013 by Roger Worland, Melody Clark
The Arctic springtail, Megaphorura arctica, survives sub-zero temperatures in a dehydrated state via trehalose-dependent cryoprotective dehydration. Regulation of trehalose biosynthesis is complex; based in part on studies in yeast and…1 February, 2013 by Kevin Hughes, Michael Thorne, Roger Worland, Peter Convey
Antarctica is the continent least affected by invasive species, but climate change and increasing human activity are increasing this threat. Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems generally have low biodiversity with simple community…1 February, 2013 by Norman Ratcliffe, Philip Trathan
Krill consumption by natural predators represents a critical link between surveys and models of standing krill biomass and the design of a sustainable krill fishery for the Scotia Sea. Antarctic…1 February, 2013 by Helen Peat, Peter Convey
A small, inconspicuous lichen, Acarospora cf. badiofusca, was discovered colonizing ironstained quartz mica schists on the lower slope of Manhaul Rock, a recently exposed nunatak on the McLeod Glacier, Signy…Read more on Iron localization in Acarospora colonizing schist on Signy Island
1 February, 2013 by Chester Sands, David Barnes, Huw Griffiths, Katrin Linse
Ophiuroids are a conspicuous and often dominant component of the Antarctic continental shelf benthos. Here we report on the ophiuroids collected from the Burdwood Bank, off the Patagonian Shelf, through…Read more on Observations of the ophiuroids from the West Antarctic sector of the Southern Ocean
1 February, 2013
Despite the general view that the Antarctic intertidal conditions are too extreme to support obvious signs of macrofaunal life, recent studies have shown that intertidal communities can survive over annual…Read more on Zonation in a cryptic Antarctic intertidal macrofaunal community
30 January, 2013 by Andrew Meijers, Emily Shuckburgh, Jean-Baptiste Sallee, Thomas Bracegirdle, Tony Phillips
An assessment of the fifth Coupled Models Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) models' simulation of the near-surface westerly wind jet position and strength over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific sectors of the…30 January, 2013 by Simeon Hill
• The global summit on nutrition, health and human behaviour (GSNHHB) identified the objective of increasing “the availability of long chain Omega‐3 (especially docosahexaenoic acid) for human consumption in a…28 January, 2013
I review the hierarchy of approaches to complex systems, focusing particularly on stochastic equations. I discuss how the main models advocated by the late Benoit Mandelbrot fit into this classification,…24 January, 2013 by Emilie Capron, Eric Wolff, Robert Mulvaney
Efforts to extract a Greenland ice core with a complete record of the Eemian interglacial (130,000 to 115,000 years ago) have until now been unsuccessful. The response of the Greenland…Read more on Eemian interglacial reconstructed from a Greenland folded ice core
24 January, 2013 by Jaume Forcada, Michael Thorne, Philip Trathan
Background Transcriptomes are powerful resources, providing a window on the expressed portion of the genome that can be generated rapidly and at low cost for virtually any organism. However, because…21 January, 2013 by Kevin Hughes
Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) represent the highest level of area protection within the Antarctic Treaty area. To reduce environmental impacts, ASPA visitors must comply with the Area's management plan…21 January, 2013 by Richard Phillips
Seabird-fishery interactions are currently a major issue in marine conservation management. A common approach to quantifying the extent of interactions is to overlay density maps of seabird and fishing activities…Read more on Scaling down the analysis of seabird-fishery interactions
16 January, 2013 by Alistair Crame
The widespread assumption that the origin of polar marine faunas is linked to the onset of major global cooling in the Late Eocene – Early Oligocene is being increasingly challenged.…Read more on Early Cenozoic differentiation of polar marine faunas
11 January, 2013 by Geraint Tarling
Marine planktonic organisms that undertake active vertical migrations over their life cycle are important contributors to downward particle flux in the oceans. Acantharia, globally distributed heterotrophic protists that are unique…9 January, 2013 by Richard Phillips
Limited knowledge of year-round seabird distributions hinders efforts to assess consequences of anthropogenic threats and climate-induced changes in the marine environment. In particular, there is urgent need to understand how…6 January, 2013 by Richard Phillips
The use of miniature data loggers is rapidly increasing our understanding of the movements and habitat preferences of pelagic seabirds. However, objectively interpreting behavioural information from the large volumes of…1 January, 2013 by Eugene Murphy, Lloyd Peck, Thomas Bracegirdle
Stresses on Antarctic ecosystems result from environmental change, including extreme events, and from (other) human impacts. Consequently, Antarctic habitats are changing, some at a rapid pace while others are relatively…1 January, 2013 by Peter Convey
Environmental manipulation studies are integral to determining biological consequences of climate warming. Open Top Chambers (OTCs) have been widely used to assess summer warming effects on terrestrial biota, with their…1 January, 2013 by Thomas Bracegirdle
Statistical relationships between future and historical model runs in multimodel ensembles (MMEs) are increasingly exploited to make more constrained projections of climate change. However, such emergent constraints may be spurious…1 January, 2013 by Eric Wolff
This study evaluates the influence of plausible changes in East Antarctic Ice sheet (EAIS) thickness and the subsequent glacio-isostatic response as a contributor to the Antarctic warming indicated by ice…1 January, 2013 by Mark Clilverd
[1] Using six Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES) satellites that have carried the Space Environment Module-2 instrument package, a total of 436,422 individual half-orbits between 1998 and 2010 were inspected…1 January, 2013 by Richard Horne
The French government has committed to launch the satellite TARANIS to study transient coupling processes between the Earth’s atmosphere and near-Earth space. The prime objective of TARANIS is to detect…Read more on Energetic charged particles above thunderclouds
1 January, 2013 by David Vaughan, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, Robert Larter
Ice loss from the marine-based, potentially unstable West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) contributes to current sea-level rise and may raise sea level by ≤3.3 m or even ≤5 m in…Read more on Grounding-line retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from inner Pine Island Bay
1 January, 2013 by Chester Sands
A new brittle star attributable to the genus Ophiacantha is described from Antarctic waters, in the diffuse limits of the Antarctic Polar Front at Shag Rocks, South Georgia. The new…1 January, 2013 by Eugene Murphy, Emma Young, Geraint Tarling, Jonathan Watkins, Nadine Johnston, Philip Trathan, Peter Fretwell, Rachel Cavanagh, Sally Thorpe, Simeon Hill
The ocean ecosystems around the west Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia are two of the best described regional ecosystems of the Southern Ocean. They therefore provide a useful basis for…1 January, 2013 by Andrew Orr, Howard Roscoe, Scott Hosking, Thomas Bracegirdle
A model simulation forced by prescribed ozone depletion shows strong dynamical modulation of the springtime cooling of the polar stratosphere associated with the Antarctic ozone hole. The authors find that…1 January, 2013 by Katrin Linse
The Antarctic marine environment is extreme in its low temperatures and short periods of primary productivity. Invertebrates must therefore adapt to maximise reproductive output where low temperature and limited food…1 January, 2013 by Richard Phillips
Many marine species are threatened by high levels of incidental mortality in fisheries. This paper reviews the design of selected recent, detailed Ecological Risk Assessments (ERAs) of the effects of…1 January, 2013 by Lloyd Peck
This paper presents the findings of our fourth annual horizon-scanning exercise, which aims to identify topics that increasingly may affect conservation of biological diversity. The 15 issues were identified via…Read more on A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2013
1 January, 2013 by Claire Tancell, Geraint Tarling, Richard Phillips
There is an urgent need to identify key marine areas for conservation, particularly in the high seas. A range of techniques have been applied to tracking data from higher predators,…Read more on Comparison of methods for determining key marine areas from tracking data
1 January, 2013
Cephalopods are important prey for numerous seabird species. However, the physical mechanisms by which cephalopods (particularly species considered as deep-dwelling) become available to seabirds are poorly understood, and it has…1 January, 2013 by Robert Larter
Results are reported from seven heat flow stations in small basins of the southern part of the central Scotia Sea (CSS), undertaken in order to determine basement ages. The basins…1 January, 2013 by Peter Convey
The impacts of human activities are more apparent at present in the sub-Antarctic than in the Antarctic. The sub-Antarctic islands, despite their physical isolation in the Southern Ocean, are generally…1 January, 2013 by Jennifer Jackson
The Oceania population of humpback whales, comprising sub-stocks E2, E3, and F, was heavily depleted by whaling operations in the 20th century and is now classed as Endangered by the…1 January, 2013 by Huw Griffiths
The International Polar Year (IPY) was a unprecedented effort in polar research committing thousands of participants from many nations (Carlson 2010), with a common objective: to describe and understand complex…Read more on Connecting biodiversity data during the IPY: the path towards e-polar science
1 January, 2013
New feldspar lead isotope compositions of crystalline rocks from the Indian Ocean sector of East Antarctica, in conjunction with the review of data from elsewhere within the continent and from…1 January, 2013 by Simeon Hill
CCAMLR aims to develop a feedback approach to aid ecosystem-based management (EBM) of Antarctic krill fisheries. It is important to assess whether a feedback approach is likely to achieve the…1 January, 2013 by Simeon Hill
There is a global need to develop strategic frameworks for assessing uncertainty in ecosystem dynamics models. Such models have been used within CCAMLR to evaluate options for managing the Antarctic…1 January, 2013 by Jennifer Jackson
Humpback sub-stocks BSE1 (East Australia), BSE2 (New Caledonia), BSE3 (Tonga) and BSF2 (French Polynesia) show significant genetic differentiation, yet share common high latitude feeding grounds between 130E-100W and were subject…1 January, 2013
The western sector of Ria Formosa, a lagoon system in the south of Portugal, represents approximately 90% of the total tidal prism of the lagoon and includes three inlets. Two…1 January, 2013 by Philip Trathan, Susie Grant
Recent rapid climate change is now well documented in the Antarctic, particularly in the Antarctic Peninsula region. One of the most evident signs of climate change has been ice-shelf collapse;…21 December, 2012 by David Vaughan
Over the last two decades, the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) has been losing mass at an increasing rate, enhancing its contribution to sea-level rise (SLR). The recent increases in ice…20 December, 2012 by Richard Horne
In the current study we perform a comparative analysis of the gyroresonant interactions of whistler mode waves with radiation belt electrons in the magnetospheres of Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn. Our…19 December, 2012 by Thomas Bracegirdle
This study presents projections of twenty-first century wintertime surface temperature changes over the high-latitude regions based on the third Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP3) multi-model ensemble. The state-dependence of the…19 December, 2012 by David Newnham
Using a ground-based microwave radiometer at Troll Station, Antarctica (72°S, 2.5°E, L = 4.76), we have observed a decrease of 20–70% in the mesospheric ozone, coincident with increased nitric oxide,…19 December, 2012 by David Vaughan, Hamish Pritchard
We combined an ensemble of satellite altimetry, interferometry, and gravimetry data sets using common geographical regions, time intervals, and models of surface mass balance and glacial isostatic adjustment to estimate…Read more on A reconciled estimate of ice sheet mass balance
18 December, 2012 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand
Marine-based ice streams whose beds deepen inland are thought to be inherently unstable. This instability is of particular concern because significant portions of the marinebased West Antarctic and Greenland ice…18 December, 2012
Glaciers and ice sheets are melting in response to climate warming. Whereas the physical behaviour of glaciers has been studied intensively, the biological processes associated with glaciers and ice sheets…Read more on Biological processes on glacier and ice sheet surfaces
18 December, 2012 by Gareth Marshall
Recent changes in the summer climate of the Southern Hemisphere extra-tropics are primarily related to the dominance of the positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode. This shift in the…17 December, 2012 by Philip Trathan
Food web knowledge is a prerequisite for adequate resource management in the Antarctic ecosystem. Accurate dietary specifications for the major consumers within the Antarctic ecosystem are needed. Procellariid species are…17 December, 2012 by Andrew Clarke
The metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) predicts the effects of body size and temperature on metabolism through considerations of vascular distribution networks and biochemical kinetics. MTE has also been extended…17 December, 2012 by Emily Shuckburgh
The ocean plays an essential role in determining aspects of the climate through its influence on coupled processes involving the atmosphere, cyrosphere and biogeochemistry, including budgets of heat and carbon…15 December, 2012 by Gareth Marshall
Observations of extratropical Southern Hemisphere austral summer precipitation over recent decades show mid-latitude drying and high-latitude moistening. Here we show that the observed precipitation trends in two datasets are inconsistent…Read more on Human influence on extratropical Southern Hemisphere precipitation
13 December, 2012 by Andrew Wood
To examine the general population trends of large whales in South Georgia waters, 2 opportunistic data sets of sightings of large whales from 1991 to 2010 around South Georgia were…12 December, 2012 by Hilmar Gudmundsson
The stability of marine ice sheets grounded on beds that slope upwards in the overall direction of flow is investigated numerically in two horizontal dimensions. We give examples of stable…Read more on The stability of grounding lines on retrograde slopes
1 December, 2012 by Andrew Tait, Keith Makinson
The exploration of Subglacial Lake Ellsworth is a high profile project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. Clean access to the lake will be provided by a hot-water drilling…1 December, 2012 by Deb Shoosmith, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Robert Larter
Submarine gullies are the most common morphological features observed on Antarctic continental slopes. The processes forming these gullies, however, remain poorly constrained. In some areas, gully heads incise the continental…1 December, 2012 by Andrew Meijers, Emily Shuckburgh, Jean-Baptiste Sallee, Thomas Bracegirdle
The representation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) in the fifth Coupled Models Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) is generally improved over CMIP3. The range of modeled transports in the historical (1976–2006)…1 December, 2012 by Emma Woodfield, Richard Horne
In this paper we compare and contrast chorus, electron cyclotron harmonics (ECH), and Z mode emissions observed at Jupiter and Saturn and relate them to recent work on electron acceleration…27 November, 2012 by Howard Roscoe
Iodine compounds were measured above, below and within the sea ice of the Weddell Sea during a cruise in 2009, to make progress in elucidating the mechanism of local enhancement…Read more on Iodine emissions from the sea ice of the Weddell Sea
22 November, 2012 by Eric Wolff, Liz Thomas
We present an automated process for determining the annual layer chronology of an ice-core with a strong annual signal, utilising the hydrogen peroxide record from an Antarctic Peninsula ice-core as…Read more on Automated ice-core layer-counting with strong univariate signals
2 November, 2012 by Emma Woodfield
Long-term changes in the magnetic environment of the Earth are of interest to those studying climate change. To this end we examine long-term changes in daily variation as derived from…Read more on Long-term trends in geomagnetic daily variation
24 October, 2012 by Mark Clilverd
The Earth's magnetic field varies over many time scales. Whilst the slow secular variation of the strength and direction of the field over years to centuries is governed by processes…Read more on Geomagnetic and Solar Variability and Natural Climate Change
18 October, 2012 by David Vaughan
A high resolution surface topography Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is required to underpin studies of the complex glacier system on the Antarctic Peninsula. A complete DEM with better than 200m…16 October, 2012 by Emily Venables, Keith Makinson, Keith Nicholls
Hot-water drilled access holes were used to obtain oceanographic data from beneath two sites on Larsen C Ice Shelf, one in the north and one in the south. At both…Read more on Ocean circulation beneath Larsen C Ice Shelf, Antarctica from in situ observations