1 January, 2022 by Kevin Newsham
Background Invasive plants may displace native species. This is the case of Poa annua, the only non-native plant species successfully established in Maritime Antarctica. Nonetheless, it is uncertain which factors…1 January, 2022 by Peter Convey
The rhizosphere microbiome of the native Antarctic hairgrass Deschampsia antarctica from the central maritime Antarctic was investigated using 16S RNA metagenomics and compared to those of the second native Antarctic…1 January, 2022 by Felipe Simoes, Peter Convey
Los impactos del cambio climático están afectando fuertemente los ecosistemas, comunidades y especies terrestres y acuáticas de las regiones polares y subpolares. La ecorregión subantártica de Magallanes, debido a sus…
31 December, 2021 by Chester Sands, David Barnes
Climate change is strongly influencing regions of Antarctica but the consequences on microevolutionary processes have been little studied. Patterns of population genetic diversity were analysed in the Antarctic bivalve Nuculana…30 December, 2021 by Hua Lu, Thomas Bracegirdle
Climate model biases in the North Atlantic (NA) low-level tropospheric westerly jet are a major impediment to reliably representing variability of the NA climate system and its wider influence, in…21 December, 2021 by Hugh Venables, Michael Meredith, Simon Morley
The Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is a hotspot for environmental change and has a strong environmental gradient from North to South. Here, for the first time we used adult individuals…20 December, 2021 by David Barnes, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand
Where polar ice sheets meet the coast, they can flow into the sea as floating ice shelves. The seabed underneath is in complete darkness, and may be Earth’s least known…Read more on Richness, growth, and persistence of life under an Antarctic ice shelf
16 December, 2021 by Claire Allen, Dieter Tetzner, Liz Thomas
Volcanism can play a key role in modulating climate, however, a lack of historical records has limited our comprehension of Antarctic volcanism and its role on the cryosphere. Remote sensing…16 December, 2021 by Richard Horne
Whistler-mode chorus waves are critical for driving resonant scattering and loss of radiation belt relativistic electrons into the atmosphere. The resonant energies of electrons scattered by chorus waves increase at…Read more on Conjugate observation of magnetospheric chorus propagating to the ionosphere by ducting
16 December, 2021 by Andrew Orr
Peruvian glaciers are important contributors to dry season runoff for agriculture and hydropower, but they are at risk of disappearing due to climate change. We applied a physically based, energy…Read more on The energy and mass balance of Peruvian glaciers
16 December, 2021 by Alex Burton-Johnson
We present PetroChron Antarctica, a new relational database including petrological, geochemical and geochronological datasets along with computed rock properties from geological samples across Antarctica. The database contains whole-rock geochemistry with…Read more on PetroChron Antarctica: A geological database for interdisciplinary use
16 December, 2021 by Chester Sands, David Barnes, Gareth Flint, Louise Ireland, Simon Morley
Carbon-rich habitats can provide powerful climate mitigation if meaningful protection is put in place. We attempted to quantify this around the Tristan da Cunha archipelago Marine Protected Area. Its shallows…16 December, 2021 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Lara Perez Miguel
Early to Middle Miocene sea-level oscillations of approximately 40-60 m estimated from far-field records(1-3) are interpreted to reflect the loss of virtually all East Antarctic ice during peak warmth(2). This…Read more on A large West Antarctic Ice Sheet explains early Neogene sea-level amplitude.
14 December, 2021 by Peter Kirsch, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
With new satellite constellations being launched into low Earth orbit, the growing use of medium Earth orbit for radio-navigation and timing signals, slot region orbits for telecommunications and the introduction…Read more on The Satellite Risk Prediction and Radiation Forecast System (SaRIF)
13 December, 2021 by Chester Sands
The drivers behind evolutionary innovations such as contrasting life histories and morphological change are central questions of evolutionary biology. However, the environmental and ecological contexts linked to evolutionary innovations are…Read more on Evolutionary innovations in Antarctic brittle stars linked to glacial refugia
13 December, 2021 by Nigel Meredith
Extreme-ultraviolet images taken by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly make it possible to use deep vision techniques in the prediction of solar wind speed - a difficult, high-impact, and unsolved problem.…12 December, 2021 by Alexander Lozinski, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
Geomagnetically trapped protons forming Earth’s proton radiation belt pose a hazard to orbiting spacecraft. In particular, solar cell degradation is caused by non-ionising collisions with protons at energies of several…Read more on Modelling inner proton belt variability at energies 1 to 10MeV using BAS‐PRO
8 December, 2021 by Huw Griffiths, Katrin Linse
In 2018 RRS James Clark Ross investigated the marine benthic biodiversity of the Prince Gustav Channel area which separates the eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula from James Ross Island.…
8 December, 2021 by Eugene Murphy
The COVID-19 pandemic is the first serious test of how science can inform decision-making in the face of an immediate global threat, yielding important lessons on how science, society and…Read more on The global pandemic has shown we need an action plan for the ocean
8 December, 2021 by Jennifer Jackson
Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are a cosmopolitan species and perform long annual migrations between low-latitude breeding areas and high-latitude feeding areas. Their breeding populations appear to be spatially and genetically…7 December, 2021 by Jack Humby
C1–C4 perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) are highly persistent chemicals that have been found in the environment. To date, much uncertainty still exists about their sources and fate. The importance of the…
6 December, 2021 by Louise Sime
We discuss a series of artworks produced since 2009 including The Southern Ocean Studies (2012), The Northern Polar Studies (2014) and Carbon Topographies (2020). Through this work we explore how…Read more on The Data Imaginaries of Climate Art: The Manifest Data Project
4 December, 2021 by Peter Convey
Since the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, the continent has been pressurized by multiple anthropogenic activities, today including research and tourism, which have led to the emergence of phenol pollution.…
1 December, 2021 by Philip Trathan, Victoria Warwick-Evans
According to central place foraging theory, animals will only increase the distance of their foraging trips if more distant prey patches offer better foraging opportunities. Thus, theory predicts that breeding…1 December, 2021 by Geraint Tarling
In the North Atlantic, euphausiids (krill) form a major link between primary production and predators including commercially exploited fish. This basin is warming very rapidly, with species expected to shift…1 December, 2021 by Liz Thomas
The West Antarctic climate has witnessed large changes during the second half of the twentieth century including a strong and widespread continental warming, important regional changes in sea-ice extent and…1 December, 2021 by Iain Staniland, Richard Phillips
Identifying important sites for biodiversity is vital for conservation and management. However, there is a lack of accessible, easily-applied tools that enable practitioners to delineate important sites for highly mobile…1 December, 2021 by James Kirkham, Kelly Hogan, Robert Larter
Landforms produced beneath former ice sheets offer insights into inaccessible subglacial processes and present analogues for how current ice masses may evolve in a warming climate. Large subglacial channels cut…Read more on Tunnel valley infill and genesis revealed by high-resolution 3-D seismic data
1 December, 2021 by Elisabeth Biersma, Jennifer Jackson, Peter Convey
We investigated evolutionary relationships and biogeographical patterns within the genus Boeckella to evaluate (1) whether its current widespread distribution in the Southern Hemisphere is due to recent long-distance dispersal or…
1 December, 2021 by Peter Convey
Human- and animal-impacted sites in Antarctica can be contaminated with heavy metals, as well as areas influenced by underlying geology and naturally occurring minerals. The present study examined the relationship…Read more on Influence of heavy metals on the occurrence of Antarctic soil microalgae
1 December, 2021 by Iain Staniland, Norman Ratcliffe
Static (fixed-boundary) protected areas are key ocean conservation strategies, and marine higher predator distribution data can play a leading role toward identifying areas for conservation action. The Falkland Islands are…
1 December, 2021 by Peter Convey
Antarctic lakes have generally simple periphyton communities when compared with those of lower latitudes. To date, assessment of microbial diversity in Antarctica has relied heavily on traditional direct observation and…Read more on Periphyton diversity in two different Antarctic lakes assessed using metabarcoding
1 December, 2021 by Dave Munday
The transfer of momentum between the atmosphere and ocean is dependent upon the velocity difference between the seawater and overlying air. This is commonly known as relative wind, or ocean…Read more on Relative vs. absolute wind stress in a circumpolar model of the Southern Ocean.
1 December, 2021 by Huw Griffiths, Katrin Linse
Peracarid data were collected in the Southern Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean. Sampling was performed during nine different expeditions on board of RRS James Clark Ross and RV Polarstern, using…1 December, 2021 by Peter Convey
Knowledge of the biodiversity of the Thala Hills oasis (Enderby Land, East Antarctica) is very limited. Here, we integrate all information available since 1962, when the Russian ‘Molodyozhnaya’ station was…Read more on Eukarya biodiversity in the Thala Hills, East Antarctica
1 December, 2021 by Markus Frey
Anthropogenically driven changes in the cryosphere (mainly climate warming, but also land-use changes and increasing industrial and transportation activities) are changing how the cryosphere interacts with the atmosphere, which is,…1 December, 2021 by Dave Munday
Declining atmospheric CO2 concentrations are considered the primary driver for the Cenozoic Greenhouse-Icehouse transition, ~34 million years ago. A role for tectonically opening Southern Ocean gateways, initiating the onset of…Read more on Gateway-driven weakening of ocean gyres leads to Southern Ocean cooling
1 December, 2021 by Anne-Sophie Bonnet-Lebrun, Richard Phillips
Foraging site selection and site fidelity can have implications for many ecological processes. The degree of site fidelity differs greatly not just between species but also within populations. Some of…1 December, 2021 by Pierre Dutrieux
Widespread ice shelf thinning has been recorded in the Amundsen Sea in recent decades, driven by basal melting and intrusions of relatively warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) onto the continental…1 December, 2021 by Johnathan Ross, Nigel Meredith, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
The interactions between electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves and relativistic electrons are influential in diffusing radiation belt electrons into the loss code from which the electrons are lost into the…1 December, 2021 by John Turner
The polar regions are a critical component of the global climate system, with changes taking place at high latitudes having global implications. Anthropogenic activity is affecting both the Arctic and…1 December, 2021 by Peter Kirsch, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
Increasing numbers of satellites are orbiting through the Earth's radiation belts, and the range of orbits being commonly used is also growing. As a result, there is an increasing need…Read more on Evaluation of SaRIF high-energy electron reconstructions and forecasts
1 December, 2021 by Peter Convey
Mercury (Hg) is a heavy metal that can be released into the environmentthrough natural activity such as volcanic eruptions and release from vegetation during bushfires, and anthropogenic activities such as…30 November, 2021 by Fabian Haumann
The Southern Ocean is a critical component of Earth's climate system, but its remoteness makes it challenging to develop a holistic understanding of its processes from the small scale to…30 November, 2021 by Elisabeth Biersma, Kevin Newsham
Fungi are highly important biotic components of terrestrial ecosystems, but we still have a very limited understanding about their diversity and distribution. This data article releases a global soil fungal…Read more on The Global Soil Mycobiome consortium dataset for boosting fungal diversity research
29 November, 2021 by Norman Ratcliffe, Ryan Saunders
King penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) are an iconic Southern Ocean species, but the prey distributions that underpin their at-sea foraging tracks and diving behaviour remain unclear. We conducted simultaneous acoustic surveys…Read more on Using Predicted Patterns of 3D Prey Distribution to Map King Penguin Foraging Habitat
29 November, 2021 by Randolph Sliester
Supporting Antarctic scientific investigation is the job of the national Antarctic programmes, the government entities charged with delivering their countries’ Antarctic research strategies. This requires sustained investment in people, innovative…Read more on Icebreaking polar class research vessels: New Antarctic fleet capabilities
28 November, 2021 by Sofia-Katerina Kufner
The Pamir plateau protrudes ∼300 km between the Tajik- and Tarim-basin lithosphere of Central Asia. Whether its salient location and shape are caused by forceful indentation of a promontory of Indian…Read more on Structure and stress field of the lithosphere between Pamir and Tarim
26 November, 2021 by Richard Phillips
Seabirds are amongst the most mobile of all animal species and spend large amounts of their lives at sea. They cross vast areas of ocean that appear superficially featureless, and…26 November, 2021 by Robert Mulvaney
A 58 m long azimuthally oriented ice core has been collected from the floating lateral sinistral shear margin of the lower Priestley Glacier, Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica. The crystallographic preferred…23 November, 2021 by Peter Convey
Rice straw, an agricultural waste product generated in huge quantities worldwide, is utilized to remediate diesel pollution as it possesses excellent characteristics as a natural sorbent. This study aimed to…18 November, 2021 by Hannah Cubaynes, Jennifer Jackson, Penny Clarke, Peter Fretwell
The study of cetacean strandings was globally recognised as a priority topic at the 2019 World Marine Mammal Conference, in recognition of its importance for understanding the threats to cetacean…18 November, 2021 by Floortje Van Den Heuvel
The pandemic has badly affected the most diverse career stage in UK Earth sciences: early career researchers. Disrupted careers must be rescued with contingency plans, remote networks, a focus on…Read more on [Comment] Interventions to prevent pandemic-driven diversity loss
16 November, 2021 by Pierre Dutrieux
Ice-shelf basal channels form due to concentrated submarine melting. They are present in many Antarctic ice shelves and can reduce ice-shelf structural integrity, potentially destabilizing ice shelves by full-depth incision.…Read more on Ice‐shelf basal melt channels stabilized by secondary flow
15 November, 2021 by James France
The causes of methane's renewed rise since 2007, accelerated growth from 2014 and record rise in 2020, concurrent with an isotopic shift to values more depleted in 13C, remain poorly…Read more on Atmospheric methane and nitrous oxide: challenges along the path to Net Zero
15 November, 2021 by Charles Simpson, Scott Hosking
The 880 million agricultural workers of the world are especially vulnerable to increasing heat stress due to climate change, affecting the health of individuals and reducing labour productivity. In this…Read more on Regional disparities and seasonal differences in climate risk to rice labour
15 November, 2021 by Anna Jones
Introduction to discussion meeting issue. Methane is the second-most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. The atmospheric burden is rising rapidly. CH4 growth from about 720 ppb in pre-industrial times…Read more on Rising methane: is warming feeding warming? [Introduction]
14 November, 2021 by Peter Convey
An Antarctic soil bacterial consortium (reference BS14) was confirmed to biodegrade canola oil, and kinetic studies on this biodegradation were carried out. The purpose of this study was to examine…13 November, 2021 by Jenny Wong
We provide a systematic analysis of two related multiparty protocols, namely (Non-Interactive Fully) Distributed Verifiable Random Functions (DVRFs) and Decentralised Random Beacons (DRBs), including their syntax and definition of robustness…11 November, 2021 by Mark Clilverd
Solar flares increase the electron number concentration in the day-time ionosphere, potentially affecting radiowave propagation over several frequency ranges. In this study, we use ionospheric observations to determine both peak…Read more on Solar flare X‐ray impacts on long subionospheric VLF paths
11 November, 2021 by Huw Griffiths, Peter Convey
The polar regions provide valuable insights into the functioning of the Earth’s regulating systems. Conducting field research in such harsh and remote environments requires strong international cooperation, extended planning horizons,…11 November, 2021 by Katrin Linse
The Arctic and Antarctic oceans are undergoing changes in the extent of their sea-ice and ice-shelves (IPCC, in press). These have important impacts on the biodiversity, structure, and function of…Read more on Editorial: Effects of ice loss on marine biodiversity
11 November, 2021 by Anne-Sophie Bonnet-Lebrun, Derren Fox, Norman Ratcliffe
The rapidly changing climate in the Arctic is expected to have a major impact on the foraging ecology of seabirds, owing to changes in the distribution and abundance of their…10 November, 2021 by Lloyd Peck, Martin Collins, Melody Clark
Predicting the impacts of altered environments on future biodiversity requires a detailed understanding of organism responses to change. To date, studies evaluating mechanisms underlying marine organism stress responses have largely…
9 November, 2021 by Louise Sime, Maria Vittoria Guarino
The Hadley Centre Global Environment Model version 3 (HadGEM3) is the first coupled climate model to simulate an ice-free Arctic during the Last Interglacial (LIG), 127 000 years ago. This simulation…
2 November, 2021 by Anita Faul, Dani Jones, Erik Mackie
Oceanographic fronts are transitions between thermohaline structures with different characteristics. Such transitions are ubiquitous, and their locations and properties affect how the ocean operates as part of the global climate…Read more on Defining Southern Ocean fronts using unsupervised classification
1 November, 2021 by Iain Staniland
Mercury is a known potent neurotoxin. The biogeochemical cycle of mercury in the remote Antarctic region is still poorly understood, with Polar climate change contributing added complexity. Longitudinal biomonitoring of…Read more on Mercury levels in humpback whales, and other Southern Ocean marine megafauna
1 November, 2021 by Dani Jones, Eugene Murphy, Richard Phillips
Ocean circulation connects geographically distinct ecosystems across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales via exchanges of physical and biogeochemical properties. Remote oceanographic processes can be especially important for…1 November, 2021 by Alice Clement, Martin Collins, Mark Belchier, Philip Hollyman, Susan Gregory, Simeon Hill
Exploitation is one of the major drivers of change in marine ecosystems. Following discovery in 1775, South Georgia saw sequential overexploitation of living resources, including seals, whales, and fish. Although…1 November, 2021 by Lara Perez Miguel
Multibeam bathymetric imagery and acoustic sub-bottom profiles are used to reveal distribution patterns of sub-surface sedimentation in Dove Basin (Scotia Sea). The goals of the study are to determine the…
1 November, 2021 by Peter Convey
Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) provide the strongest environmental protection in Antarctica. However, they are not immune from anthropogenic pollution of marine or terrestrial origin. We document anthropogenic debris within…Read more on Anthropogenic debris in an Antarctic Specially Protected Area in the maritime Antarctic
1 November, 2021 by Peter Convey
We evaluated fungal and bacterial diversity in an established moss carpet on King George Island, Antarctica, affected by ‘fairy ring’ disease using metabarcoding. A total of 127 fungal and 706…
1 November, 2021 by Philip Trathan
Delimiting recently diverged species is challenging. During speciation, genetic differentiation may be distributed unevenly across the genome, as different genomic regions can be subject to different selective pressures and evolutionary…1 November, 2021 by Dominic Hodgson
Inter-hemispheric asynchrony of climate change through the last deglaciation has been theoretically linked to latitudinal shifts in the southern westerlies via their influence over CO2 out-gassing from the Southern Ocean.…Read more on Northward shift of the southern westerlies during the Antarctic Cold Reversal
1 November, 2021 by Liz Thomas
Recognition of how dynamic the Antarctic ice sheets and glaciers were during the late Holocene has grown in recent years. Proxy data suggests the presence of Neoglacial advances but few…1 November, 2021 by Lloyd Peck, Melody Clark
The classical heat shock response (HSR) with up-regulation of hsp70 in response to warming is often absent in Antarctic marine species. Whilst in Antarctic fish, this is due to a…Read more on Variable heat shock response in Antarctic biofouling serpulid worms
1 November, 2021 by Gareth Chisham, Mervyn Freeman
Measurements of vorticity in the Earth’s ionosphere enable the characterisation of turbulent structure in the ionospheric plasma flow and how it varies spatially in relation to large-scale magnetic field-aligned current…
1 November, 2021 by Teal Riley
Understanding the tectonic framework of the Antarctic Peninsula is hindered by a paucity of paleomagnetic data from key locations. In this study, we present paleomagnetic data from the South Shetland…
1 November, 2021 by Peter Convey
Since the nineteenth century, a ring-forming disease attacking Antarctic mosses has been reported. However, to date, only the effects on the mosses themselves are known. In this study, we used…1 November, 2021 by Alex Burton-Johnson
Tsikouras et al. (2021) interpret Miocene zircon U-Pb ages from ophiolitic rocks in Sabah, Malaysia, as magmatic ages related to southwest propagation of Sulu Sea spreading into onshore Borneo, even…1 November, 2021 by Thomas Caton Harrison
Low-level jets (LLJs) drive frequent emission of mineral dust in the central and western Sahara in boreal summer. A major hotspot for this process is central Algeria, northern Mali and…1 November, 2021 by Simon Morley
The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats…1 November, 2021 by John King, Steve Colwell
Two reports of Antarctic region potential new record high temperature observations (18.3 degrees C, 6 February 2020 at Esperanza station and 20.8 degrees C, 9 February 2020 at a Brazilian…
29 October, 2021 by Richard Phillips
The conservation of migratory marine species, including pelagic seabirds, is challenging because their movements span vast distances frequently beyond national jurisdictions. Here, we aim to identify important aggregations of seabirds…Read more on Multispecies tracking reveals a major seabird hotspot in the North Atlantic
29 October, 2021 by Anne-Sophie Bonnet-Lebrun, Richard Phillips
Every year, billions of birds undertake extensive migrations between breeding and non-breeding areas, facing challenges that require behavioural adjustments, particularly to flight timing and duration. Such adjustments in daily activity…29 October, 2021 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand
The importance of Antarctic sea ice and Southern Ocean warming has come into the focus of polar research during the last couple of decades. Especially around West Antarctica, where warm…
27 October, 2021 by Markus Frey
To fully decipher the role of nitrate photolysis on the atmospheric oxidative capacity in snow-covered regions, NOx flux must be determined with more precision than existing estimates. Here, we introduce…Read more on New estimation of the NOx snow-source on the Antarctic Plateau
27 October, 2021 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand
Technological advances in the study and dating of both land and marine glacial geologic features, combined with both glaciological and post-glacial isostatic rebound modelling, have developed knowledge and understanding of…Read more on Antarctic Ice Sheet changes since the Last Glacial Maximum
22 October, 2021 by David Vaughan
The Amundsen Sea Embayment of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet contains Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers, two of the most rapidly changing glaciers in Antarctica. To date, Pine Island and…22 October, 2021 by David Barnes
Seamounts and oceanic islands rise from the seafloor and provide suitable habitat for a diverse range of biological assemblages including Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs). Whilst they have been the focus…Read more on Benthic assemblage composition of South Atlantic seamounts
22 October, 2021 by Pierre Dutrieux
The spatial distribution of ocean-induced melting beneath buttressing ice shelves is often cited as an important factor controlling Antarctica’s sea-level contribution. Using numerical simulations, we investigate the relative sensitivity of…Read more on Ocean-induced melt volume directly paces ice loss from Pine Island Glacier
21 October, 2021 by Hugh Corr, Irena Vankova, Keith Nicholls
In-situ phase-sensitive radar measurements from the Ronne Ice Shelf (RIS) reveal evidence of intermittent basal accretion periods at several sites that are melting in the long-term mean. Periods when ice…
19 October, 2021 by Robert Mulvaney
We present an ice-penetrating radar data set which consists of 26 internal reflecting horizons (IRHs) that cover the entire Dome C area of the East Antarctic plateau, the most extensive…
19 October, 2021 by Alison Cleary, Jaume Forcada
Ice is one of the most important drivers of population dynamics in polar organisms, influencing the locations, sizes, and connectivity of populations. Antarctic fur seals, Arctocephalus gazella, are particularly interesting…19 October, 2021 by Adrian Jenkins, Antony Siahaan, Paul Holland
The physical interactions between ice sheets and the atmosphere and ocean around them are major factors in determining the state of the climate system, yet many current Earth System models…
19 October, 2021 by Victoria Peck
The Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR; 14.7 to 13 thousand years ago; ka) phase of the last deglaciation saw a pause in the rise of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperature, that…