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…1 March, 2019 by Peter Convey
In recent years, studies on psychrophilic lipases have become an emerging area of research in the field of enzymology. The study described here focuses on the cold-adapted organic solvent tolerant…1 March, 2019 by Fausto Ferraccioli
The lithospheric structure of Antarctica is still under‐explored. Moho depth estimate studies are in disagreement by more than 10 km in several regions, including for example the hinterland of the…Read more on Moho depths of Antarctica: comparison of seismic, gravity, and isostatic results
1 March, 2019 by Eugene Murphy, Geraint Tarling, Sally Thorpe
Larval recruitment in Antarctic krill is known to be episodic and regional. We consider the importance of a range of recruitment factors using an environmentally driven model of larval development…1 March, 2019 by Fausto Ferraccioli
Reconstructions of the bedrock topography of Antarctica since the Eocene‐Oligocene Boundary (approximately 34 Ma) provide important constraints for modeling Antarctic ice sheet evolution. This is particularly important in regions where…1 March, 2019 by Sophie Fielding
Recent technology developments have turned present-day unmanned systems into realistic alternatives to traditional marine animal survey methods. Benefits include longer survey durations, improved mission safety, mission repeatability, and reduced operational…Read more on A review of unmanned vehicles for the detection and monitoring of marine fauna
1 March, 2019 by Mark Clilverd
This paper describes the use of a class of non‐linear smoothers for the identification of interesting phenomena in narrowband very low frequency (VLF) transmission phase caused by perturbation events in…1 March, 2019 by Andrew Fleming
Copernicus is the European programme for monitoring the Earth. It consists of a set of systems that collect data from satellites and in-situ sensors, process this data and provide users…Read more on From Copernicus Big Data to Extreme Earth Analytics
28 February, 2019 by Gillian Young, Thomas Lachlan-Cope
Secondary ice production (SIP) commonly occurs in coastal Antarctic stratocumulus, affecting their ice number concentrations (Nice) and radiative properties. However, SIP is poorly understood and crudely parametrized in models. By…Read more on Radiative effects of secondary ice enhancement in coastal Antarctic clouds
25 February, 2019 by Kevin Newsham
Terrestrial ecosystems in the maritime Antarctic experienced rapid warming during the latter half of the 20th century. While warming ceased at the turn of the millennium, significant increases in air…23 February, 2019 by Luca Telesca
Environmental change is a major threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Understanding the key biological processes and environmental factors mediating spatial and temporal species’ responses to habitat alterations underpins our ability…21 February, 2019 by Anna Belcher, Clara Manno, Geraint Tarling, Louise Ireland, Peter Fretwell, Sally Thorpe, Simeon Hill
The biological carbon pump drives a flux of particulate organic carbon (POC) through the ocean and affects atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. Short term, episodic flux events are hard to…19 February, 2019 by Hugh Venables, Michael Meredith
Biogenic dimethylsulfide (DMS) is a significant contributor to sulfur flux from the oceans to the atmosphere, and the most significant source of aerosol non sea-salt sulfate (NSS-SO42−), a key regulator…16 February, 2019 by David Pearce, Peter Convey
In recent years, studies on psychrophilic lipases have been an emerging area of research in the field of enzymology. This study focuses on bacterial strains isolated from anthropogenically-influenced soil samples…15 February, 2019 by Kevin Hughes, Peter Convey
The distribution of terrestrial biodiversity within Antarctica is complex, with 16 distinct biogeographic regions (Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions) currently recognised within the Antarctic continent, Peninsula and Scotia Arc archipelagos of…15 February, 2019 by Sandra McInnes, Sandra McInnes
14 February, 2019 by Peter Ward
The potential impact of global warming on plankton populations and processes in the Southern Ocean is cause for concern. Greatest attention has concentrated on Antarctic krill, a keystone macroplankton species…Read more on Mesozooplankton of the Scotia Sea: present, past and future
14 February, 2019 by Andy Smith, Dominic Hodgson, David Vaughan, Kelly Hogan, Peter Fretwell, Samuel Seddon, Tom Jordan
The recent rapid growth of rifts in the Brunt Ice Shelf appears to signal the onset of its largest calving event since records began in 1915. The aim of this…12 February, 2019 by Cecilia Liszka
The biological carbon pump (BCP) exerts an important control on climate, exporting organic carbon from the ocean surface to interior. Zooplankton are a key component of the BCP and may…6 February, 2019 by Kaitlin Naughten
Government policies currently commit us to surface warming of three to four degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100, which will lead to enhanced ice-sheet melt. Ice-sheet discharge was not…Read more on Global environmental consequences of 21st century ice sheet melt
2 February, 2019
The British Antarctic Survey Medical Unit works in a very remote area of the world, with several Antarctic bases receiving only a single annual resupply of consumable goods. Pharmaceuticals supplied…2 February, 2019 by Lloyd Peck
Our first horizon scan, conducted in 2009, aimed to identify novel but poorly known issues with potentially significant effects on global conservation of biological diversity. Following completion of the tenth…Read more on Ten years on: A review of the first global conservation horizon scan
1 February, 2019 by Peter Convey
Understanding the physiology of non-native species in Antarctica is key to elucidating their ability to colonise an area, and how they may respond to changes in climate. Eretmoptera murphyi is…1 February, 2019 by Clara Manno, Victoria Peck
Pteropods have been a key focus of ocean acidification studies during the last decade due to their fragile aragonite shells and key role they play in polar ecosystems. Pteropods collected…Read more on Impact of preservation techniques on pteropod shell condition
1 February, 2019 by Harriet Clewlow, Norman Ratcliffe
1.Interspecific competition can drive niche partitioning along multidimensional axes, including allochrony. Competitor matching will arise where the phenology of sympatric species with similar ecological requirements respond to climate change at…1 February, 2019 by Ali Massey, Janet Silk, Kevin Hughes, Richard Phillips
Despite their importance in ecosystems, population sizes and trends are unknown for many seabirds, including in the Antarctic. Here we report on the first comprehensive survey of south polar skuas…1 February, 2019 by Peter Convey
The vegetation of many terrestrial habitats across Antarctica is dominated by poikilohydric symbiotic lichens. Terrestrial habitats generally are characterised by extended exposure to desiccation and high irradiation. Physiological adaptation mechanisms…1 February, 2019 by Fausto Ferraccioli, Hugh Corr, Tom Jordan
The Recovery subglacial basin, with its largest glacier Recovery Glacier, has been identified as potentially the biggest contributor to future sea level rise from East Antarctica. Subglacial lakes along the…1 February, 2019 by Alex Burton-Johnson, Tom Jordan
Tectonic strain commonly overprints magmatic fabrics in AMS (Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility) data for plutonic rocks produced by both compressional and extensional regimes. Mt Kinabalu, Borneo, is a composite pluton…1 February, 2019 by Teal Riley
Low NbTa rhyolites from the Permian Tarim Large Igneous Province (LIP) represent the melting products of continental crust above a mantle plume. Zircon UPb dating reveals that the Kuchehe and…30 January, 2019 by Alessandro Cavallo, Lloyd Peck, Michael Thorne, Melody Clark
The pre-conditioning of adult marine invertebrates to altered conditions, such as low pH, can significantly impact offspring outcomes, a process which is often referred to as transgenerational plasticity (TGP). This…30 January, 2019 by Kelly Hogan
A glaciated margin is a continental margin that has been occupied by a large ice mass, such that glacial processes and slope processes conspire to produce a thick sedimentary record.…Read more on An introduction to glaciated margins: the sedimentary and geophysical archive
29 January, 2019 by Kelly Hogan
Major glaciations or ‘ice ages’ are known to have affected the Earth's surface over the past three billion years. The best preserved records of these glaciations are often found in…29 January, 2019 by Adrian Jenkins, Chen Cheng, Paul Holland
Persistent outflow of supercooled ice-shelf water (ISW) from beneath McMurdo Ice Shelf creates a rapidly growing sub-ice platelet layer (SIPL) with a unique crystallographic structure under the sea ice in…28 January, 2019 by Andrew Meijers, Eugene Murphy, Emma Young, Mark Belchier, Michael Meredith
In a recent Article, Cristofari et al.1 discuss the impact that movements of the Antarctic Polar Front have had on historical king penguin populations, and make future projections based on…Read more on The role of ocean dynamics in king penguin range estimation
24 January, 2019 by Clara Manno
In this study, carbonate system properties were measured in the western Ross Sea (Antarctica) over the 2005–2006 and 2011–2012 austral summers with the aim of analysing their sensitivity to physical…22 January, 2019
Post-seismic deformation and glacial isostatic adjustment are two processes by which the Earth deforms viscoelastically. In both cases, the details of the deformation depend on the rheological structure of the…21 January, 2019 by Geraint Tarling, Laura Gerrish, Simeon Hill
High-latitude ecosystems are among the fastest warming on the planet1. Polar species may be sensitive to warming and ice loss, but data are scarce and evidence is conflicting2,3,4. Here, we…17 January, 2019 by David Barnes, Michael Dunn, Simon Morley
Understanding the mechanisms which determine the capacity of any species to adapt to changing environmental conditions is one of the foremost requirements in accurately predicting which populations, species and clades…Read more on Predicting which species succeed in climate-forced polar seas
17 January, 2019 by Richard Phillips
Differences in habitat use of sympatric species are influenced by variability in functional morphology and life history trade-offs and are expected to shape species resilience to environmental change. To determine…15 January, 2019 by Louise Sime
The 8.2 ka event is a well-known cooling event in the Northern Hemisphere, but is poorly understood in Madagascar. Here, we compare paleoclimate data and outputs from paleoclimate simulations to…
14 January, 2019
During the monsoon season, pollutants emitted by large coastal cities and biomass burning plumes originating from Central Africa have complex transport pathways over Southern West Africa (SWA). The Dynamics–Aerosol–Chemistry–Cloud–Interactions in…7 January, 2019 by Anna Belcher, Geraint Tarling, Ryan Saunders
Mesopelagic fish have recently been highlighted as an important, but poorly studied component of marine ecosystems, particularly regarding their role in the marine pelagic food webs and biogeochemical cycles. Myctophids…4 January, 2019 by Gabriele Stowasser
In recent years, pelagic tunicates (mostly salps, but potentially doliolids, appendicularians and pyrosomes as well) have been used in isotopic studies as a baseline consumer (trophic position 2) when recreating…Read more on Utility of salps as a baseline proxy for food web studies
4 January, 2019 by Kira Rehfeld
The pace of the transition to a low-carbon economy – especially in the fuels sector – is not high enough to achieve the 2 ∘C target limit for global warming by…Read more on ESD Ideas: Photoelectrochemical carbon removal as negative emission technology
1 January, 2019 by Claire Waluda, Jennifer Jackson, Jaume Forcada, Michael Dunn, Philip Trathan
Gentoo penguins Pygoscelis papua breed at a number of sites at the West Antarctic Peninsula, including Goudier Island, Port Lockroy—the longest studied location for tourist-penguin interactions in the Antarctic. These…1 January, 2019 by Peter Convey
Knowledge of the life cycles of non-native species in Antarctica is key to understanding their ability to establish and spread to new regions. Through laboratory studies and field observations on…1 January, 2019 by Harriet Clewlow, Norman Ratcliffe, Philip Trathan, Victoria Warwick-Evans
Tracking individual marine predators can provide vital information to aid the identification of important activity (foraging, commuting, rafting, resting, etc.) hotspots and therefore also to delineate priority sites for conservation.…1 January, 2019 by Clara Manno
Natural gradients of pH in the ocean are useful analogues for studying the projected impacts of Ocean Acidification (OA) on marine ecosystems. Here we document the in situ impact of…Read more on Condition of pteropod shells near a volcanic CO2 vent region
1 January, 2019 by Mervyn Freeman
We study how the probability distribution functions of power input to the magnetosphere Pα and of the geomagnetic ap and Dst indices vary with averaging timescale, τ, between 3 hours…1 January, 2019 by Richard Phillips, Thomas Clay, Thomas Clay
Divergent foraging strategies may emerge within a population due to a combination of physiological and environmental factors; yet to persist, neither strategy should offer a consistent selective advantage over the…1 January, 2019 by Liz Thomas
Changes in accumulated snowfall over the Antarctic Ice Sheet have an immediate and time-delayed impact on global mean sea level. The immediate impact is due to the instantaneous change in…1 January, 2019 by Alex Brisbourne, Andy Smith, David Vaughan
In the Amundsen sector of West Antarctica, the flow of glaciers accelerates when intrusion of warm ocean water onto the continental shelf induces strong melting beneath ice shelves and thinning…1 January, 2019 by Peter Davis
The southward freshwater flux though Nares Strait is an important component of the Arctic's freshwater budget. On short time scales, flow through the strait is dominated by the tides, and…Read more on Propagation and vertical structure of the tidal flow in Nares Strait
1 January, 2019 by David Newnham, Mark Clilverd, Tracy Moffat-Griffin
The subionospheric very low frequency (VLF) radio wave technique provides the possibility of investigating the response of the ionospheric D‐region to a diversity of transient and long‐term physical phenomena originating…1 January, 2019 by Keith Nicholls, Tun Jan Young
Temporal variations in ice sheet flow directly impact the internal structure within ice sheets through englacial deformation. Large‐scale changes in the vertical stratigraphy within ice sheets have been previously conducted…1 January, 2019 by Dominic Hodgson
Mumiyo deposits form in the vicinity of snow petrel (Pagodroma nivea) nesting sites and consist of fossil stomach oil (mumiyo), guano, and minerogenic material. Here we evaluate mumiyo deposits from…1 January, 2019 by Lloyd Peck
We present the results of our tenth annual horizon scan. We identified 15 emerging priority topics that may have major positive or negative effects on the future conservation of global…Read more on A horizon scan of emerging issues for global conservation in 2019
1 January, 2019 by Richard Phillips
Biological communities are shaped by competition between and within species. Competition is often reduced by inter- and intraspecific specialization on resources, such as differencet foraging areas or time, allowing similar…1 January, 2019 by Jaume Forcada
Background Restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RADseq) has revolutionized the study of wild organisms by allowing cost-effective genotyping of thousands of loci. However, for species lacking reference genomes, it can be…1 January, 2019 by Norman Ratcliffe
Habitat management to restore or create breeding sites may allow metapopulations to increase in size and reduce the risk of demographic stochasticity or disasters causing metapopulation extinction. However, if newly…1 January, 2019 by Lloyd Peck, Melody Clark
The evolution of antifreeze glycoproteins has enabled notothenioid fish to flourish in the freezing waters of the Southern Ocean.Whereas successful at the biodiversity level to life in the cold, paradoxically…Read more on Adaptation of proteins to the cold in Antarctic fish: A role for Methionine?
1 January, 2019 by David Vaughan