5 June, 2019 by Lloyd Peck
Ocean acidification threatens many ecologically and economically important marine calcifiers. The increase in shell dissolution under the resulting reduced pH is an important and increasingly recognized threat. The biocomposites that…
5 June, 2019 by Alexander Tate, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, James Kirkham, Kelly Hogan, Robert Larter, Zoe Roseby
Basal hydrological systems play an important role in controlling the dynamic behaviour of ice streams. Data showing their morphology and relationship to geological substrates beneath modern ice streams are, however,…Read more on Subglacial hydrological control on flow of an Antarctic Peninsula palaeo-ice stream
4 June, 2019 by James Kirkham
Seasonal snow cover is an important source of melt water for irrigation and hydropower production in many regions of the world, but can also be a cause of disasters, such…Read more on A model setup for mapping snow conditions in high-mountain Himalaya
3 June, 2019 by Mark Clilverd
In this study we investigate and quantify the statistical changes that occur in the stratosphere and mesosphere during 37 sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events from 1989 to 2016. We consider…1 June, 2019 by Peter Convey
Fungi are microbes that play vital roles in nutrient cycling in natural environments and in symbiotic interactions with plants and other microbes. They thrive successfully even when challenged by various…1 June, 2019 by Peter Convey
Antarctica is not free from environmental pollutants although it is often perceived as the last pristine continent on Earth. Research stations represent one of the largest forms of anthropogenic activity…Read more on Heavy metal pollution in Antarctica and its potential impacts on algae
1 June, 2019 by Peter Convey
We hypothesised that the activation energy (Ea) of growth in a marine-derived tropical strain of Fusarium equiseti and polar strains of Pseudogymnoascus spp. grown for 10 days in a liquid…1 June, 2019 by Peter Convey
Phycobiliproteins, which include phycocyanin, allophycocyanin and phycoerythrin, are the group of coloured accessory photosynthetic pigments present in cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). Pseudanabaena is a genus of microscopic cyanobacteria, cosmopolitan in distribution…1 June, 2019 by Andrew Clarke
Growth involves two flows of energy: the chemical energy in the monomers used to construct the macromolecules that comprise tissue (proteins, nucleic acids, lipid membranes), and the metabolic energy used…1 June, 2019 by Rachael Turton
Dynamic global vegetation models are key tools for interpreting and forecasting the responses of terrestrial ecosystems to climatic variation and other drivers. They estimate plant growth as the outcome of…
1 June, 2019
Many UK medical curricula lack dedicated prehospital education other than first aid courses and basic life support training. In contrast, nonmedical mountain rescue team members receive advanced prehospital training addressing…Read more on Mountain rescue casualty care and the undergraduate medical elective
1 June, 2019 by Peter Convey
Due to its year-round accessibility and excellent on-site infrastructure, Kongsfjorden and the Ny-Ålesund Research and Monitoring Facility have become established as a primary location to study the impact of environmental…1 June, 2019 by Peter Convey
In this chapter, we review the available literature on the associations of invertebrates and fungi across the different environments of Antarctica, the diversity underlined by this type of association and…1 June, 2019 by Hugh Corr, Keith Nicholls
We describe an HF antenna design and implementation intended for ground penetrating radar applications in glaciology and hydrology. The HF antenna is based on modifications of a twin terminated folded…Read more on HF antenna prototype for geophysical ground penetrating radar
29 May, 2019 by Tracey Dornan, Ryan Saunders, Sophie Fielding, Tracey Dornan, Tracey Dornan
Within the twilight of the oceanic mesopelagic realm, 200–1000 m below sea level, are potentially vast resources of fish. Collectively, these mesopelagic fishes are the most abundant vertebrates on Earth,…Read more on Swimbladder morphology masks Southern Ocean mesopelagic fish biomass
29 May, 2019 by Hamish Pritchard
About 800 million people depend in part on meltwater from the thousands of glaciers in the high mountains of Asia. Water stress makes this region vulnerable to drought, but glaciers…Read more on Asia’s shrinking glaciers protect large populations from drought stress
28 May, 2019 by Philip Trathan
Penguins face a wide range of threats. Most observed population changes have been negative and have happened over the last 60 years. Today, populations of 11 of the 18 penguin…27 May, 2019 by Huw Griffiths
Assessments of the status and trends of habitats, species and ecosystems are needed for effective ecosystem-based management in marine ecosystems. Knowledge on imminent ecosystem changes (climate change impacts) set in…25 May, 2019 by Andrew Orr
Glaciers in the Satluj river basin are likely to lose 53% and 81% of area by the end of the century, if climate change followed RCP 8.5 scenario of CNRMCM5…
24 May, 2019 by Dani Jones
Representation of the drop size distribution (DSD) of rainfall is a key element of characterizing precipitation in models and observations, with a functional form necessary to calculate the precipitation flux…Read more on On the distinctiveness of oceanic raindrop regimes
22 May, 2019 by Andrew Fleming
The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) provides regular and systematic reference information on the physical and biogeochemical ocean and sea-ice state for the global ocean and the European regional…Read more on From observation to information and users: The Copernicus Marine Service perspective
22 May, 2019 by Kevin Newsham
Background The emergence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens has created an urgent need for novel antimicrobial treatments. Advances in next-generation sequencing have opened new frontiers for discovery programmes for natural products allowing…Read more on Microbial community drivers of PK/NRP gene diversity in selected global soils
21 May, 2019 by Amelie Kirchgaessner, John King, Thomas Lachlan-Cope
Antarctic tropospheric clouds are investigated using the radar-lidar DARDAR (raDAR/liDAR)-MASK products. The cloud fraction is divided into the supercooled liquid water (SLW)-containing clouds and the all-ice clouds. The low-level SLW…20 May, 2019 by Peter Convey
Biodiversity is threatened by climate change and other human activities [1], but to assess impacts, we also need to identify the current distribution of species on Earth. Predicting abundance and…
17 May, 2019 by Hayley Allison, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
Observations of the electron radiation belts have shown links between increases in the low-energy seed population and enhancements in the >1-MeV flux. During active times, low-energy electrons are introduced to…
16 May, 2019 by Geraint Tarling, Jennifer Freer, Martin Collins
Aim: Lanternfish (Myctophidae) are one of the most abundant and ecologically important families of pelagic teleosts, yet how these species will respond to climate change is unclear, especially within polar…
15 May, 2019 by Luca Telesca
ecent developments in genomics are advancing our understanding of the processes shaping population structure in wild organisms. In particular, reduced representation sequencing has facilitated the generation of dense genetic marker…14 May, 2019 by Kelly Hogan, Robert Larter
Bathymetric data of unprecedented resolution are used to provide insights into former ice dynamics and glacial processes in a western Antarctic Peninsula embayment. An assemblage of submarine glacial landforms, which…8 May, 2019 by Melody Clark, Tejaswi Yarra
The physiological processes driving the rapid rates of calcification in larval bivalves are poorly understood. Here, we use a calcification substrate‐limited approach (low dissolved inorganic carbon, CT) and mRNA sequencing…4 May, 2019 by Andrew Meijers, Dani Jones, Emily Shuckburgh, Harry Holt
The Southern Ocean has complex spatial variability, characterized by sharp fronts, steeply tilted isopycnals, and deep seasonal mixed layers. Methods of defining Southern Ocean spatial structures traditionally rely on somewhat…Read more on Unsupervised clustering of Southern Ocean Argo float temperature profiles
1 May, 2019 by Kevin Newsham
Our understanding of the diversity and community dynamics of soil fungi has increased greatly through the use of DNA‐based identification. Community characterisation of metabolically active communities via RNA sequencing has…1 May, 2019 by Jaume Forcada
Despite an increasing appreciation of the importance of host‐microbe interactions in ecological and evolutionary processes, the factors shaping microbial communities in wild populations remain poorly understood. We therefore exploited a…1 May, 2019 by Robert Larter
Lack of foraminiferal carbonate in marine sediments deposited at high latitudes results in traditional oxygen isotope stratigraphy not playing a central role in Quaternary age control for a large portion…1 May, 2019 by Philip Trathan, Richard Phillips
There have been efforts around the globe to track individuals of many marine species and assess their movements and distribution, with the putative goal of supporting their conservation and management.…Read more on Translating marine animal tracking data into conservation policy and management
1 May, 2019 by Emma Cross, Lloyd Peck
Organisms with long generation times require phenotypic plasticity to survive in changing environments until genetic adaptation can be achieved. Marine calcifiers are particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification due to dissolution…1 May, 2019 by Peter Convey, Rolf Maslen
Nematodes are one of the key organisms in the terrestrial ecosystems of Antarctica. Their exceptional cryptobiotic adaptations against freezing and desiccation stress have attracted significant research attention. However, even today,…1 May, 2019 by Philip Trathan, Peter Fretwell
Satellite imagery is used to show that the world's second largest emperor penguin colony, at Halley Bay, has suffered three years of almost total breeding failure. Although, like all emperor…Read more on Emperors on thin ice: three years of breeding failure at Halley Bay
1 May, 2019 by Simeon Hill
Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba Dana, 1850) exemplifies the key role of marine crustaceans in fisheries, foodwebs, and biogeochemical cycles. Ecological understanding and policy decisions require information on population trends. We…1 May, 2019 by Claire Allen, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, Thomas Williams
Most conceptual models of ocean circulation during past glacial periods invoke a shallowed North Atlantic‐sourced water mass overlying an expanded, poorly ventilated Southern Ocean (SO)‐sourced deep water mass (Southern Component…1 May, 2019 by David Newnham, Mark Clilverd
Diurnal very low frequency (VLF) sub‐ionospheric radiowave phase measurements show a night‐to‐day transition pattern. During this sunrise transition a phase perturbation, which consist of a phase overshoot followed by a…Read more on The effect of ozone shadowing on the D region ionosphere during sunrise
1 May, 2019 by Liz Thomas
High‐spatial resolution surface mass balance (SMB) over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) spanning 1800‐2010 is reconstructed by means of ice core records combined with the outputs of the European…Read more on A new 200‐year spatial reconstruction of West Antarctic surface mass balance
1 May, 2019 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand
Variations in clay mineral assemblages have been widely used to understand changes in sediment provenance during glacial and interglacial periods. Smectite clay minerals, however, have a range of various elemental…1 May, 2019 by Simon Morley
The species of the genus Aequiyoldia Soot-Ryen, 1951, previously known as Yoldia, are common, soft-substratum, sareptid bivalves. In the Southern Ocean, Aequiyoldia eightsii (Jay, 1839) was originally described from the…29 April, 2019 by Keith Nicholls
Ice–ocean interactions at the bases of Antarctic ice shelves are rarely observed, yet have a profound influence on ice sheet evolution and stability. Ice sheet models are highly sensitive to…Read more on Basal melting of Ross Ice Shelf from solar heat absorption in an ice-front polynya
28 April, 2019 by Caroline Holmes, Paul Holland, Thomas Bracegirdle
Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) climate models simulate a wide range of historical sea ice areas. Even models with areas close to observed values may contain compensating errors,…28 April, 2019 by John Turner
Satellite observations have shown that the largest and most prolonged Maud Rise open‐ocean polynya since the 1970s appeared on 14 September 2017 (~9.3 × 103 km2) within the seasonal sea‐ice…Read more on Recent reoccurrence of large open‐ocean polynya on the Maud Rise Seamount
25 April, 2019 by Emilie Capron
During the last glacial period, proxy records throughout the Northern Hemisphere document a succession of rapid millennial-scale warming events, called Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events. A range of different mechanisms has been…Read more on Decadal-scale progression of Dansgaard-Oeschger warming events
24 April, 2019 by Geraint Tarling
Hyperiid amphipods are predatory pelagic crustaceans that are particularly prevalent in high-latitude oceans. Many species are likely to have co-evolved with soft-bodied zooplankton groups such as salps and medusae, using…15 April, 2019 by Philip Trathan
Robust evidence highlights major shifts in the abundance and distribution of penguins (Adélie, chinstrap, gentoo, emperor, king, and macaroni) breeding on the Antarctic Peninsula and across the Scotia Arc in…15 April, 2019 by Alison Ming
The circulation of the stratosphere, also known as the Brewer–Dobson circulation, transports water vapor and ozone, with implications for radiative forcing and climate. This circulation is typically quantified from model…15 April, 2019 by Lloyd Peck, Sabrina Heiser, Simon Morley
Aim To test if physiological acclimation can buffer species against increasing extreme heat due to climate change. Location Global. Time period 1960 to 2015. Major taxa studied Amphibians, arthropods, brachiopods,…10 April, 2019 by Richard Hindmarsh, Richard Hindmarsh
ice core, Ross Ice Shelf, West Antarctica. The core adds information on past accumulation changes in an otherwise poorly constrained sector of Antarctica. The timescale was constructed by identifying annual…1 April, 2019 by Connor Bamford, Hannah Cubaynes, Jennifer Jackson, Laura Gerrish, Peter Fretwell
Large‐bodied animals such as baleen whales can now be detected with very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery, allowing for scientific studies of whales in remote and inaccessible areas where traditional…Read more on Whales from space: Four mysticete species described using new VHR satellite imagery
1 April, 2019 by Kevin Newsham, Lloyd Peck, Peter Convey
Snow algae are found in snowfields across cold regions of the planet, forming highly visible red and green patches below and on the snow surface. In Antarctica, they contribute significantly…Read more on Snow algae communities in Antarctica – metabolic and taxonomic composition
1 April, 2019 by Andrew Meijers, Paul Holland
The top 2000 m of the Southern Ocean has freshened and warmed over recent decades. However, the high-latitude (south of 50°S) southeast Pacific was observed to be cooler and fresher…1 April, 2019 by Will Goodall-Copestake
Control and mitigation of disease in wild ungulate populations are one of the major challenges in wildlife management. Despite the importance of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes for immune…Read more on First assessment of MHC diversity in wild Scottish red deer populations
1 April, 2019 by Philip Trathan, Victoria Warwick-Evans
In order to understand and mitigate for the potential impacts of anthropogenic disturbance on marine predators, it is fundamental to gain insight into the drivers behind the temporal variation in…1 April, 2019 by Hugh Venables, Lloyd Peck, Michael Meredith
The west Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region has undergone significant changes in temperature and seasonal ice dynamics since the mid-twentieth century, with strong impacts on the regional ecosystem, ocean chemistry and…1 April, 2019 by Geraint Tarling, Gabriele Stowasser
Total and organic mercury concentrations were determined for males, females and juveniles of Euphausia superba collected at three discrete locations in the Scotia Sea (South Orkney Islands, South Georgia and…1 April, 2019 by Adrian Jenkins
The interaction between ice shelves and the ocean is an important process for the development of marine ice sheets. However, it is difficult to model in full detail due to…1 April, 2019 by Amy King, Liz Thomas
Many atmospheric organic compounds are long-lived enough to be transported from their sources to polar regions and high mountain environments where they can be trapped in ice archives. While inorganic…1 April, 2019 by Cecilia Liszka, Clara Manno, Geraint Tarling, Gabriele Stowasser
Zooplankton faecal pellets (FPs) are important conduits of carbon from the surface to the deep ocean, as shown by their presence in deep-sea sediment traps. Zooplankton themselves are thought to…1 April, 2019 by Kelly Hogan
Understanding the sedimentary and geophysical archive of glaciated margins is a complex task that requires integration and analysis of disparate sedimentological and geophysical data. Their analysis is vital for understanding…Read more on Glaciated margins: the sedimentary and geophysical archive
29 March, 2019 by Xin Yang
Improvements are made to two areas of the United Kingdom Chemistry and Aerosol (UKCA) module, which forms part of the Met Office Unified Model (UM) used for weather and climate…28 March, 2019 by Gareth Marshall, Scott Hosking, John Turner, Liz Thomas, Thomas Lachlan-Cope, Tony Phillips, Holly Winton
Antarctic snowfall consists of frequent clear‐sky precipitation and heavier falls from intrusions of maritime airmasses associated with amplified planetary waves. We investigate the importance of different precipitation events using the…Read more on The dominant role of extreme precipitation events in Antarctic snowfall variability
28 March, 2019 by Richard Horne
Using observations from the Van Allen Probes EMFISIS instrument, coupled with ray tracing simulations, we determine the fraction of chorus wave power with the conditions required to access the plasmasphere…27 March, 2019 by Emilie Capron
Several recent studies from both Greenland and Antarctica have reported significant changes in the water isotopic composition of near‐surface snow between precipitation events. These changes have been linked to isotopic…26 March, 2019 by David Pearce
It was once a long-held view that the Antarctic was a pristine environment with low biomass, low biodiversity and low rates of microbial activity. However, as the intensity of scientific…Read more on Spatial variability of antarctic surface snow bacterial communities
23 March, 2019 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Kelly Hogan, Robert Larter
Trough mouth fans (TMFs) are sediment depocentres that form along high-latitude continental margins at the mouths of some cross-shelf troughs. They reflect the dynamics of past ice sheets over multiple…22 March, 2019 by Peter Convey
Seven species of springtail (Collembola) are present in Victoria Land, Antarctica and all have now been sequenced at the DNA barcoding region of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I…18 March, 2019 by Gareth Chisham
The Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) is a network of high-frequency (HF) radars located in the high- and mid-latitude regions of both hemispheres that is operated under international cooperation.…18 March, 2019 by Mark Clilverd
Ground VLF observations have often been used to infer VLF activity in the magnetosphere, however, they are not an unbiased measure of activity at satellite altitudes due to transionospheric absorption…14 March, 2019 by Christian Buckingham, Alexander Brearley
In this study we demonstrate the many strengths of scale analysis: we use it to evaluate the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean model skill in representing sea surface…13 March, 2019 by Andrew Clarke, Lloyd Peck
This article briefly reviews the simple structure of polar marine food webs in the context of limited environmental temperature variability, but extreme seasonality of light, ice, and primary productivity. It…12 March, 2019 by Mai Mai Lam, Mervyn Freeman
We show that a THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) white‐light all‐sky imager (ASI) can estimate Pedersen conductance with an uncertainty of 3 mho or 40%.…12 March, 2019 by Richard Hindmarsh, Richard Hindmarsh
Earth's extant ice sheets are of great societal importance given their ongoing and potential future contributions to sea-level rise. Numerical models of ice sheets are designed to simulate ice-sheet behaviour…8 March, 2019 by Fabian Haumann
From 1.25 million to 700,000 years ago, the ice age cycle deepened and lengthened from 41,000- to 100,000-year periodicity, a transition that remains unexplained. Using surface- and bottom-dwelling foraminifera from…Read more on The residence time of Southern Ocean surface waters and the 100,000-year ice age cycle
7 March, 2019 by Daniel Ashurst, Julius Rix, Robert Mulvaney
The British Antarctic Survey Rapid Access Isotope Drill is an innovative new class of electromechanical ice drill, which has recently been used to drill the deepest dry hole drilled by…Read more on Development of the British Antarctic Survey Rapid Access Isotope Drill
1 March, 2019 by Richard Phillips
Variation in morphological structures may indicate the existence of ecological differences between species or sexes. In birds, the bill is one of the structures most affected by selection pressures because…1 March, 2019 by Peter Convey
The extreme conditions of life in Antarctica pose challenges to many organisms. Bryophytes comprise the main vegetation of the continent and they endure many adversities, thriving in an environment hostile…1 March, 2019 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand
The first low‐temperature thermochronological data from Thurston Island, West Antarctica, provide insights into the poorly constrained thermo‐tectonic evolution of the paleo‐Pacific margin of Gondwana since the Late Paleozoic. Here we…1 March, 2019 by Amy King, Liz Thomas
The majority of atmospheric compounds measured in ice cores are inorganic, while analysis of their organic counterparts is a less well developed field. In recent years, understanding of formation, transport…1 March, 2019 by Louise Sime
Greenland ice cores provide excellent evidence of past abrupt climate changes. However, there is no universally accepted theory of how and why these Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events occur. Several mechanisms have…1 March, 2019 by Anna Jones
Atmospheric methane grew very rapidly in 2014 (12.7±0.5 ppb/yr), 2015 (10.1±0.7 ppb/yr), 2016 (7.0± 0.7 ppb/yr) and 2017 (7.7±0.7 ppb/yr), at rates not observed since the 1980s. The increase in…1 March, 2019 by David Newnham, Mark Clilverd
The Ku-band microwave frequencies (10.70–14.25 GHz) overlap emissions from ozone (O3) at 11.072 GHz and hydroxyl radical (OH) at 13.441 GHz. These important chemical species in the polar middle atmosphere respond strongly to…1 March, 2019 by Steve Colwell
We examined long-term aerosol optical depth (AOD) trends over 53 sites across the globe which comprise 49 sites from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) and 4 sites from the Sky…1 March, 2019 by Luca Telesca
Cultivated bivalves are hugely important not only because of their economic value, but also due to their impacts on natural ecosystems. The Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) is the world's most…