1 December, 2022 by Jeremy Wilkinson
Understanding and predicting Arctic change and its impacts on global climate requires broad, sustained observations of the atmosphere-ice-ocean system, yet technological and logistical challenges severely restrict the temporal and spatial…Read more on Emerging Technologies and Approaches for In Situ, Autonomous Observing in the Arctic
1 December, 2022 by Alex Burton-Johnson, Teal Riley
This paper applies magnetic fabric analyses to plutons of the East Pacific continental arc. Continental arc magmatism is strongly episodic, with voluminous granitic magma addition occurring during discrete high-flux events…1 December, 2022 by Dennis Mayk, Lloyd Peck
Heavy metals in coastal waters are a great environmental concern in the North Sea since the middle of the 20th century. Regulatory efforts have led to a significant reduction in…1 December, 2022 by Peter Convey
Twenty cyanobacterial strains of eight morphospecies isolated from deep-frozen (-15 °C) mat samples originally collected on Ross Island, in Victoria Land, and on the McMurdo Ice Shelf were screened for…1 December, 2022 by Andrew Wood, Elizabeth Pearmain, Richard Phillips
Bycatch is a conservation concern for marine biodiversity, including seabirds. Analyses of spatio-temporal overlap are an important tool for identifying areas and periods where birds are most at risk, but…1 December, 2022
We present the migrating tidal winds decomposed jointly from multiple meteor radars in four longitudinal sectors situated in the equatorial mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT). The radars are located in…1 December, 2022 by Elisabeth Biersma, Jennifer Jackson, Peter Convey
Two main hypotheses have been proposed to explain the contemporary distribution of Antarctic terrestrial biota. We assess whether the current distribution of maritime Antarctic populations of the freshwater copepod Boeckella…30 November, 2022 by Dominic Hodgson, Peter Fretwell, Tom Jordan, Teal Riley
The presence of subglacial lakes and subglacial hydrological networks under the East and West Antarctic ice sheets is now relatively well understood, whilst their influence on ice dynamics is the…27 November, 2022 by Tracy Moffat-Griffin
The solar tides of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) show great variability on timescales of days to years, with significant variability at interannual timescales. However, the nature and causes…25 November, 2022 by Kate Hendry
Glacier meltwater supplies silicon (Si) and iron (Fe) sourced from weathered bedrock to downstream ecosystems. However, the extent to which these nutrients reach the ocean is regulated by the nature…Read more on Benthic dissolved silicon and iron cycling at glaciated Patagonian fjord heads
25 November, 2022 by David Barnes
Ice shelves cover ~1.6 million km2 of the Antarctic continental shelf and are sensitive indicators of climate change. With ice-shelf retreat, aphotic marine environments transform into new open-water spaces of…Read more on Antarctic Seabed Assemblages in an Ice-Shelf-Adjacent Polynya, Western Weddell Sea
23 November, 2022 by Dave Munday, Alexander Brearley, Laura Gerrish, Michael Meredith
Ocean mixing around Antarctica exerts key influences on glacier dynamics and ice shelf retreats, sea ice, and marine productivity, thus affecting global sea level and climate. The conventional paradigm is…Read more on Internal tsunamigenesis and ocean mixing driven by glacier calving in Antarctica
23 November, 2022 by David Barnes, Huw Griffiths
Systematic long-term studies on ecosystem dynamics are largely lacking from the East Antarctic Southern Ocean, although it is well recognized that they are indispensable to identify the ecological impacts and…21 November, 2022 by Johnathan Ross, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
Efforts to model and predict energetic electron fluxes in the radiation belts are highly sensitive to local wave-particle interactions. In this study, we use multi-point measurements of precipitating and trapped…17 November, 2022 by Huw Griffiths
When pelagic organisms die and fall onto the deep-sea floor they create food falls, parcels of organic enrichment that subsidize deep benthic scavenging communities. The diversity and quantities of food…Read more on Food falls in the deep northwestern Weddell Sea
17 November, 2022 by Olivia Hicks
Animal-borne tagging (bio-logging) generates large and complex datasets. In particular, accelerometer tags, which provide information on behaviour and energy expenditure of wild animals, produce high-resolution multi-dimensional data, and can be…16 November, 2022
The use of cephalopod beaks in ecological and population dynamics studies has allowed major advances of our knowledge on the role of cephalopods in marine ecosystems in the last 60 years.…Read more on The significance of cephalopod beaks as a research tool: An update
12 November, 2022 by Peter Convey
Phenol is an important pollutant widely discharged as a component of hydrocarbon fuels, but its degradation in cold regions is challenging due to the harsh environmental conditions. To date, there…10 November, 2022 by Kevin Newsham, Marta Misiak
The climate of maritime Antarctica has altered since the 1950s. However, the effects of increased temperature, precipitation and organic carbon and nitrogen availability on the fungal communities inhabiting the barren…9 November, 2022 by Millie Bond
The absolute number density of ground state oxygen atoms, O(3P), present in a 100 mTorr oxygen plasma has been determined as a function of operating power using cavity ringdown spectroscopy…8 November, 2022 by Philip Trathan, Victoria Warwick-Evans
The west Antarctic Peninsula is an important breeding and foraging location for marine predators that consume Antarctic Krill (Euphasia superba). It is also an important focus for the commercial fishery…6 November, 2022 by Danielle Buss, Jennifer Jackson
Investigating resource partitioning of marine predators is essential for understanding coexistence of sympatric species and the functional role they play in marine ecosystems. Baleen whales are a key component of…5 November, 2022 by Michael McCarthy, Michael McCarthy
Supraglacial debris strongly modulates glacier melt rates and can be decisive for ice dynamics and mountain hydrology. It is ubiquitous in High-Mountain Asia, yet because its thickness and supply rate…Read more on Supraglacial debris thickness and supply rate in High-Mountain Asia
4 November, 2022 by Teal Riley
Apatite (U-Th)/He and apatite fission track thermochronology is used to constrain the cooling and uplift history of the southern Antarctic Peninsula where easterly-directed subduction of the Phoenix Plate, including ridge-trench…Read more on Thermal history of the southern Antarctic Peninsula during Cenozoic oblique subduction
4 November, 2022 by Keith Nicholls, Peter Davis, Pierre Dutrieux
Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf (FRIS) is the world’s largest ice shelf by volume. It helps regulate Antarctica’s contribution to global sea level rise, and water mass transformations within the sub-ice-shelf cavity…3 November, 2022 by Peter Convey
While diversity studies and screening for enzyme activities are important elements of understanding fungal roles in the soil ecosystem, extracting and purifying the target enzyme from the fungal cellular system…2 November, 2022 by Peter Convey
Littorinid snails are present in most coastal areas globally, playing a significant role in the ecology of intertidal communities. Laevilitorina is a marine gastropod genus distributed exclusively in the Southern…1 November, 2022 by Kevin Newsham
Fungi are highly diverse organisms, which provide multiple ecosystem services. However, compared with charismatic animals and plants, the distribution patterns and conservation needs of fungi have been little explored. Here…Read more on Global patterns in endemicity and vulnerability of soil fungi
1 November, 2022 by Jennifer Jackson, Philip Trathan, Sophie Fielding, Victoria Warwick-Evans
Following the cessation of whaling, the southwest Atlantic humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) population is thought to be close to pre-exploitation size, reversing 20th century changes in abundance. Using a model-based…1 November, 2022 by Simeon Hill
With rapid, sector-specific climatic changes impacting the Southern Ocean, we need circumpolar-scale biomass data of its plankton taxa to improve food web models, blue carbon budgets and resource management. Here,…1 November, 2022 by Bjorg Apeland, Clara Manno, Geraint Tarling, Gabriele Stowasser, Sophie Fielding
Estimating the amount of organic carbon leaving the upper water column and becoming sequestered in the deep ocean is a major challenge in our understanding the oceanic C cycle. This…1 November, 2022 by Geraint Tarling, Jennifer Freer, Martin Collins
Lanternfishes (Myctophidae) are one of the most species-rich families of mid-water fishes. They inhabit the mesopelagic zone, where physical barriers to dispersal and gene flow are permeable. Thus, modes of…1 November, 2022 by David Pearce
Parts of the Antarctic are experiencing dramatic ecosystem change due to rapid and record warming, which may weaken biogeographic boundaries and modify dispersal barriers, increasing the risk of biological invasions.…1 November, 2022 by Jennifer Freer, Philip Trathan, Sophie Fielding, Victoria Warwick-Evans
We used 22 years of seasonally and spatially consistent monitoring data to explore marine predator–prey numerical response relationships. Specifically, we tested whether indices of offspring performance (e.g. offspring mass near the…1 November, 2022 by Michael Meredith
Southern Ocean phytoplankton are especially subjected to pronounced seasonal and interannual changes in light availability. Although previous studies have examined the role of light in these environments, very few combined…1 November, 2022 by Mark Clilverd
Ground-based very low frequency (VLF) radio propagation in the Earth-ionosphere waveguide has enabled extensive electron number densities in the D region of the Earth’s ionosphere to be determined, by day…
27 October, 2022 by Anna Jones, Ella Gilbert, Oliver Marsh
26 October, 2022 by Jaume Forcada
The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a group of genes comprising one of the most important components of the vertebrate immune system. Consequently, there has been much interest in characterising…19 October, 2022 by Andrew Wood, Richard Phillips
Advances in biologging techniques and the availability of high-resolution fisheries data have improved our ability to understand the interactions between seabirds and fisheries and to evaluate mortality risk due to…19 October, 2022 by Michael Meredith
Waters cooled below freezing point adjacent to Cape Darnley, Antarctica generate subsurface ice and produce dense waters that flood the global ocean abyss.Read more on Underwater Ice Boosts Production of the World Oceans’ Densest Waters
19 October, 2022 by Gareth Marshall
The vegetation at and beyond the northern edge of the world's boreal forest plays an important though imperfectly understood role in the climate system. This is particularly true within Russia,…18 October, 2022 by Katrin Linse
Gastropoda is the most speciose class in Mollusca, the second largest animal phylum, whose internal relationships remain largely unsettled, partly due to the insufficient data from key deep-water endemic lineages,…16 October, 2022 by Ingrid Cnossen
Climate change in the upper atmosphere (∼90 − 500 km altitude) has important impacts on practical applications. To prepare for these, realistic projections of future climate change are needed. The…Read more on A realistic projection of climate change in the upper atmosphere into the 21st century
15 October, 2022 by Bjorg Apeland, Clara Manno, Elisa Bergami, Peter Enderlein, Rad Sharma
Marine plastic pollution is a global and pervasive environmental issue. Knowledge on plastic degradation in natural settings is still very limited due to current technological limitations, hampering our understanding of…14 October, 2022 by Geraint Tarling, Helen Peat, Petra Ten Hoopen, Peter Ward
Global access to accurate biodiversity data is a prerequisite to our progress in understanding biodiversity dynamics in ecosystems and any changes that are occurring. Despite recent major advancements in sharing…Read more on Polar biodiversity data: from a national marine platform to a global data portal
14 October, 2022 by Geraint Tarling, Petra Ten Hoopen, Peter Ward
Scientific sampling of zooplankton in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean has been undertaken since the 1920s but few analysed datasets are available to the research community. We provide…14 October, 2022 by Richard Hindmarsh, Richard Hindmarsh
The BRITICE-CHRONO consortium of researchers undertook a dating programme to constrain the timing of advance, maximum extent and retreat of the British–Irish Ice Sheet between 31 000 and 15 000 years before present.…13 October, 2022 by Johnathan Ross, Nigel Meredith, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
Kinetic wave-particle interactions in Earth's outer radiation belt energize and scatter high-energy electrons, playing an important role in the dynamic variation of the extent and intensity of the outer belt.…Read more on Temporal variability of quasilinear pitch-angle diffusion
13 October, 2022
Meteor radars have become widely used instruments to study atmospheric dynamics, particularly in the 70 to 110 km altitude region. These systems have been proven to provide reliable and continuous…12 October, 2022 by Peter Convey
The presence of marine vertebrates in dense reproductive colonies and other aggregations contributes to the input of organic matter and nutrients into the local environment and it is believed that…10 October, 2022 by Iain Staniland
The Southeast Pacific (SEP) or Chilean blue whale population is largely distributed between Northern Chilean Patagonia and the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Off South Georgia (SG), the majority of blue whales…10 October, 2022 by Hugh Corr, Keith Nicholls
Ice shelves play a key role in the stability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet due to their buttressing effect. A loss of buttressing as a result of increased basal melting…7 October, 2022 by Michael McCarthy, Michael McCarthy
The current Chilean megadrought has led to acute water shortages in central Chile since 2010. Glaciers have provided vital fresh water to the region’s rivers, but the quantity, timing and…Read more on Glacier contributions to river discharge during the current Chilean megadrought
7 October, 2022 by Adrian Jenkins, Antony Siahaan
The Antarctic Ice Sheet will play a crucial role in the evolution of global mean sea level as the climate warms. An interactively coupled climate and ice sheet model is…4 October, 2022 by Irena Vankova, Keith Nicholls
Fourteen phase-sensitive radars (ApRES) were deployed on the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf (FRIS) to measure variability in its basal melt rate. Melt rates from sites along the Ronne Depression vary seasonally,…4 October, 2022 by Michael Meredith
The Southern Ocean encircles Antarctica and extends north to abut the subtropics at ~30-35°S. The Southern Ocean is a difficult place to collect measurements because it is far from many…Read more on The warming of the Southern Ocean and its significance
2 October, 2022 by Claire Allen, Victoria Peck
Antarctica is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change on Earth and studying the past and present responses of this polar marine ecosystem to environmental change is a…Read more on Ancient marine sediment DNA reveals diatom transition in Antarctica
1 October, 2022 by Norman Ratcliffe
A wide range of biologging devices are now commonly deployed to study the movement ecology of birds, but deployment of these devices is not without its potential risks and negative…1 October, 2022 by Jasmine Lee
Antarctic biodiversity faces an unknown future with a changing climate. Most terrestrial biota is restricted to limited patches of ice-free land in a sea of ice, where they are adapted…1 October, 2022 by Peter Convey
Polar and alpine regions are changing rapidly with global climate change. Yet the impacts on biodiversity, especially on the invertebrate ectotherms which are dominant in these areas, remain poorly understood.…1 October, 2022 by Peter Convey
We report the first formal record of the Indian meal moth Plodia interpunctella from a location within the Antarctic Treaty area, with the capture of a live adult male within…1 October, 2022 by Peter Convey
We detected the fungal assemblages present in lake sediments on James Ross Island, Antarctica, using DNA metabarcoding. A total of 132 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were assigned, dominated by taxa…1 October, 2022 by Kevin Newsham
Mineral extraction is known to affect soil fungi in polar environments, but it is unknown how long these effects persist. Here, by amplifying the internal transcribed spacer regions of rRNA…1 October, 2022 by Mervyn Freeman
Nearly all studies of impulsive geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs, also known as magnetic perturbation events MPEs) that can produce dangerous geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) have used data from the northern hemisphere.…1 October, 2022 by Mark Clilverd, Richard Horne
Intervals of Pulsations of Diminishing Periods (IPDPs) are a subtype of Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron (EMIC) waves that can be triggered by substorm onset. Pi1B waves are Ultra Low Frequency (ULF)…1 October, 2022 by Matthew Chadwick
Past warm periods serve as an analog for the impacts of future warming. Reconstructions of Antarctic sea ice from 130,000 years ago show a reduction in sea-ice extent relative to…Read more on Reconstructing Antarctic sea ice from 130,000 years ago
1 October, 2022 by Dominic Hodgson, Louise Sime, Richard Phillips
Where snow petrels forage is predominantly a function of sea ice. They spit stomach oil in defence, and accumulated deposits at nesting sites are providing new opportunities to reconstruct their…Read more on Snow petrel stomach-oil deposits as a new biological archive of Antarctic sea ice
1 October, 2022 by Louise Sime
The 16 models that simulated the Last Interglacial climate as part of the CMIP6/PMIP4 exercise consistently produce a smaller Arctic summer sea-ice area compared to the pre-industrial period, but their…30 September, 2022
At high-latitudes, diurnal and semidiurnal variations of temperature and neutral wind velocity can originate both in the lower atmosphere (UV or infrared absorption) or in the thermosphere-ionosphere (ion convection, EUV…25 September, 2022 by Johnathan Ross, Nigel Meredith, Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert
The banded structure of Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron (EMIC) wave spectra and their resonant interactions with radiation belt electrons depend on the cold ion composition. However, there is a great deal…Read more on The importance of ion composition for radiation belt modeling
23 September, 2022 by Andrew Orr
Regional climate models (RCMs) and reanalysis datasets provide valuable information for assessing the vulnerability of ice shelves to collapse over Antarctica, which is important for future global sea level rise…19 September, 2022 by Hamish Pritchard
Seasonal melting of glaciers and snow from the western Third Pole (TP) plays important role in sustaining water supplies downstream. However, the future water availability of the region, and even…16 September, 2022 by Markus Frey
Previous Antarctic summer campaigns have shown unexpectedly high levels of oxidants in the lower atmosphere of the continental plateau and at coastal regions, with atmospheric hydroxyl radical (OH) concentrations up…16 September, 2022 by Diana Vladimirova, Jack Humby, Liz Thomas
In this study, we used the stable water isotope record (δ18O) from an ice core drilled in Palmer Land, southern Antarctic Peninsula (AP). Utilizing δ18O we identified two climate regimes…16 September, 2022 by Thomas Bauska
Here we use high-precision carbon isotope data (δ13C-CO2) to show atmospheric CO2 during Marine Isotope Stage 4 (MIS 4, ~70.5-59 ka) was controlled by a succession of millennial-scale processes. Enriched…15 September, 2022 by Xin Yang
Bromine explosion events (BEEs) are important processes that influence the atmospheric oxidation capacity, especially in the polar troposphere during spring. Although sea ice surface is thought to be a significant…Read more on Study of an Arctic blowing snow-induced bromine explosion event in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard
15 September, 2022 by Louise Sime
Southern Ocean bathymetry constrains the path of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), but the bathymetric influence on the coupled ocean–atmosphere system is poorly understood. Here, we investigate this impact by…12 September, 2022 by Anne-Sophie Bonnet-Lebrun, Norman Ratcliffe
Density-dependent prey depletion around breeding colonies has long been considered an important factor controlling the population dynamics of colonial animals. Ashmole proposed that as seabird colony size increases, intraspecific competition…Read more on Foraging range scales with colony size in high-latitude seabirds
12 September, 2022 by Hugh Venables
Tides significantly affect polar coastlines by modulating ice shelf melt and modifying shelf water properties through transport and mixing. However, the effect of tides on the marine carbonate chemistry in…10 September, 2022 by Robert Mulvaney
The response of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet to past intervals of oceanic and atmospheric warming is still not well constrained but is critical for understanding both past and future…9 September, 2022 by Alexander Bradley, David Bett, Paul Holland, Pierre Dutrieux
The combination of the Pine Island Ice Shelf (PIIS) draft and a seabed ridge beneath it form a topographic barrier, restricting access of warm Circumpolar Deep Water to a cavity…Read more on The influence of Pine Island Ice Shelf calving on basal melting
8 September, 2022 by Nadia Frontier
1. Climate change can alter ecological communities both directly, by driving shifts in species distributions and abundances, and indirectly by influencing the strength and direction of species interactions. Within benthic…7 September, 2022 by Gareth Marshall, John King, Steve Colwell, Tony Phillips
We use meteorological measurements from three drifting buoys to evaluate the performance of the ERA-Interim and ERA5 atmospheric reanalyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts over the Weddell…6 September, 2022 by Rob Shore
The response of the Earth’s magnetotail current sheet to the external solar wind driver is highly time-dependent and asymmetric. For example, the current sheet twists in response to variations in…6 September, 2022 by Michael McCarthy, Michael McCarthy
Glaciers are key components of the mountain water towers of Asia and are vital for downstream domestic, agricultural, and industrial uses. The glacier mass loss rate over the southeastern Tibetan…5 September, 2022 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, Kelly Hogan, Robert Larter
Understanding the recent history of Thwaites Glacier, and the processes controlling its ongoing retreat, is key to projecting Antarctic contributions to future sea-level rise. Of particular concern is how the…Read more on Rapid retreat of Thwaites Glacier in the pre-satellite era
1 September, 2022 by Joseph Ulanowski
Cloud representation is one of the largest uncertainties in the current weather and climate models. In this article, the observations and modeling of the radiative effect on (cloud) microphysics (REM)…Read more on The Radiative Effect on Cloud Microphysics from the Arctic to the Tropics
1 September, 2022 by Peter Convey
Snow is an important driver of ecosystem processes in cold biomes. Snow accumulation determines ground temperature, light conditions, and moisture availability during winter. It also affects the growing season's start…Read more on Winters are changing: Snow effects on Arctic and alpine tundra ecosystems
1 September, 2022 by Richard Phillips
1. Timing of breeding, an important driver of fitness in many populations, is widely studied in the context of global change, yet despite considerable efforts to identify environmental drivers of…1 September, 2022 by Claire Allen, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, Kelly Hogan, Robert Larter, Zoe Roseby
Following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; ca. 23-19 calibrated [cal.] kyr before present [BP]), atmospheric and oceanic warming, together with global sea-level rise, drove widespread deglaciation of the Antarctic Ice…1 September, 2022 by Philip Trathan
Direct observation of foraging behavior is not always possible, especially for marine species that hunt underwater. However, biologging and tracking devices have provided detailed information about how various species use…1 September, 2022 by Lara Perez Miguel, Robert Larter
The present-day morpho-stratigraphy of the Ross Sea is the result of Cenozoic tectonic and cryospheric events, and constitutes a key record of Antarctica's cryospheric evolution. An enduring problem in interpreting…1 September, 2022 by Jane Francis
The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) annual Medals and Awards recognise achievements in researching, communicating and teaching a wide range of geographical knowledge. The speeches and citations are a record…Read more on Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Medals and Awards celebration 2022 [Speech]
1 September, 2022 by Claire Allen, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, Kelly Hogan, Robert Larter, Zoe Roseby
Reconstructing the advance and retreat of past ice sheets provides important long-term context for recent change(s) and enables us to better understand ice sheet responses to forcing mechanisms and external…