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Life found deep under Antarctic ice for first time?
7 February 2013
Last week, the US WISSARD team found and collected microbes in a lake hidden under more than a half-mile of ice.Among other things, the discovery may shed light on what lies under the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
The newfound life-forms have little connection to life on the earth's surface and many apparently survive by "eating rocks," team member Brent Christner said in an interview from the U.S. McMurdo Station, after spending several weeks working at a remote field site at Lake Whillans. That may explain how life on other celestial objects — such as on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn — survive in the absence of available carbon.
"The conditions faced by organisms in Lake Whillans are quite parallel to what we think it would be like on those icy moons," Christner said. "What we found tells us a lot about extreme life on Earth," and how similar life beyond Earth might survive.
For further details, read the article on the National Geographic - Daily News website or visit the WISSARD Project website.
The change of winds
6 February 2013
As the combined effects of Antarctic stratospheric ozone depletion and climate warming have forced the westerly surface winds in the Southern Hemisphere to shift toward the pole, mixing between the upper ocean and deeper waters has also changed.
Waugh et al. now show that water originating at the surface at subtropical latitudes is mixing into the deeper ocean at a higher rate than 20 years ago, while the reverse is true for those originating at higher latitudes. The summer westerly winds that blow in the Southern Hemisphere have shifted toward the South Pole over the past several decades, but why?
Lee and Feldstein show that greenhouse gas forcing and ozone depletion impart different signatures to wind patterns and conclude that ozone depletion has been responsible for more than half of the observed shift.
For further details on both studies, please see the Science website:
Waugh et al - Vol. 339 no. 6119 pp. 568-570; DOI: 10.1126/science.1225411
Lee & Feldstein - Vol. 339 no. 6119 pp. 563-567; DOI: 10.1126/science.1225154
WISSARD team successfully retrieve lake samples
30 January 2013
A US National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research team has successfully drilled through 800 metres (2,600 feet) of Antarctic ice to reach a subglacial lake and retrieve water and sediment samples that have been isolated from direct contact with the atmosphere for many thousands of years.
Scientists and drillers with the interdisciplinary Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling project (WISSARD) announced on 28 January local time that they had used a customized clean hot-water drill to directly obtain samples from the waters and sediments of subglacial Lake Whillans.
For further details, visit the WISSARD Project website.
Cameras reveal penguins' efficient hunting techniques
22 January 2013
Details of Adelie penguin feeding behaviour have been filmed by Japanese scientists.
Using video cameras and accelerometers attached to free-swimming penguins, researchers have gained a unique insight into the birds' hunting techniques. Adelie penguins adopted different strategies depending on whether they were hunting fish or krill. The findings are published in the journal PNAS.
Lead scientist Dr Yuuki Watanabe from the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo, Japan, told BBC Nature: "Foraging is the most basic activity of animals, but details of foraging behaviour are poorly known, especially in marine animals."
For more details, please see the article on the BBC Nature News website.
An expert judgement assessment of future sea level rise from the ice sheets
17 January 2013
A major gap in predictive capability concerning the future evolution of the ice sheets was identified in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a consequence, it has been suggested that the AR4 estimates of future sea-level rise from this source may have been underestimated. A recent study used a formalized pooling of expert views on uncertainties in the future contributions of melting ice sheets to sea-level rise, with a structured elicitation approach. Expert opinion is shown to be both very uncertain and undecided on the key issue of whether recent ice-sheet behaviour is a long-term trend or due to natural variability.
For further information, please read the article in Nature Climate Change.
US Report on Future Science Opportunities in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean
8 January 2013
The report "Future Science Opportunities in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean" suggests actions for the United States to achieve success for the next generation of Antarctic and Southern Ocean science. The report highlights important areas of research by encapsulating each into a single, overarching question. The questions fall into two broad themes: (1) those related to global change, and (2) those related to fundamental discoveries. In addition, the report identifies key science questions that will drive research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in coming decades, and highlights opportunities to be leveraged to sustain and improve the US research efforts in the region.
The report is highly relevant to the planned SCAR Horizon Scanning Activity on Future Directions of Antarctica and Southern Ocean Science.
A PDF version of the full report can be retrieved from the National Academies Press website.
Study shows rapid warming on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
3 January 2013
| In a discovery that raises further concerns about the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise, a new study finds that the western part of the ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought.
The temperature record from Byrd Station, a scientific outpost in the center of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), demonstrates a marked increase of 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4 degrees Celsius) in average annual temperature since 1958 — that is, three times faster than the average temperature rise around the globe. This temperature increase is nearly double what previous research has suggested, and reveals — for the first time — warming trends during the summer months of the Southern Hemisphere (December through February), said David Bromwich, Professor of Geography at Ohio State University and senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center. For more information, please see the items on the BBC News - Science and Environment website or the EurekAlert website, or read the original article in Nature Geoscience. |
mean temperatures at Byrd and the annual mean temperatures at every other grid point in Antarctica. The correlations are computed using ERA-Interim 2-metre temperature time series from 1979 to 2011. The star symbol denotes the location of Byrd Station/AWS. The filled black circles denote the locations of permanent research stations with long-term temperature records (FV, Faraday/Vernadsky) |
Invasive insects changing Antarctic landscape
3 January 2013
An invasive species has the potential to drastically alter Antarctic ecosystems that have been isolated for millions of years, research suggests. A species of midge was able to release large volumes of nutrients into the soil, changing the way native species had lived and evolved, a UK team found. They added that the species was well-suited to thrive in the extreme conditions.
"In terms of function, their job is litter turnover - they help things decay in the soil - and the population density of this thing in the area where it has been introduced is responsible for more litter turnover than the community that was already there," explained co-presenter of the research Peter Convey, of the British Antarctic Survey and co-chief officer of SCAR's EBA programme. "So basically it is bringing a function into an ecosystem that is not very active already. In principle, it can be a fundamental change in the way that ecosystem works."
For further details, please see the news item on the BBC News - Science and Environment website.
2012
Seismic measurement devices deployed in Antarctic
20 December 2012
As part of the Alfred Wegener's Institute Polarstern station programme in the Antarctic, ten ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) are currently being positioned to record micro earthquakes in the coming twelve months. The geophysicists on board are confident that the ocean bottom seismometers will safely reach the sea floor.
For more information, please see the news item on the Hydro International website.
Life abounds in Antarctic lake
3 December 2012
It is permanently covered by a massive cap of ice up to 27 metres thick, is six times saltier than normal sea water, and at −13 °C is one of the coldest aquatic environments on Earth — yet Lake Vida in Antarctica teems with life.
Scientists drilling into the lake have found abundant and diverse bacteria. "Lake Vida is not a nice place to make a living in," says Peter Doran, an Earth scientist from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a member of the team that has been exploring the lake — the largest of a number of small bodies of water in the McMurdo Dry Valleys Antarctic desert. "It is quite remarkable that something wants to live in that cold, dark and salty environment at all."
Doran and his colleagues have drilled into Lake Vida twice: once in 2005 and again in 2010. The remarkable array of microbial life that they found is described today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Lake Vida is an exceptional environment: because it is ice-sealed, it is likely to be very different in terms of geochemistry and biology from Antarctica's numerous subglacial rivers and lakes, which have been under several-kilometre-thick parent ice for millions of years. But efforts are under way to sample three subglacial lakes in various parts of the frozen continent.
Over the next two months, British, US and Russian teams plan to drill into and probe lakes Ellsworth, Whillans and Vostok. These waters may yield clues as to what conditions are needed to support life on Earth and other planets, the teams hope.
Although Lake Vida has not been isolated for nearly as long as the subglacial lakes, the discovery of diverse microbial life below its ice is significant in its own right, says Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Bristol, UK, who is leading the British Antarctic Survey's expedition to Lake Ellsworth.
"It is another extreme place where life is found and it provides evidence of a different set of boundary conditions in which life can exist," he says. "Lake Vida's extreme saltiness, too, marks a likely difference — although in truth we'll only know that for sure next month."
For more information on the Lake Vida project, please read the article on the BBC News - Science and Environment website or see the original paper in PNAS. For more information on subglacial lake drilling, please see the article in Nature News.
Winds of Change
19 November 2012
Antarctica's fate is not as simple as that of an ice cube melting in the sun, scaled up a trillionfold.
Jane Qiu discusses the role of Antarctica in the global climate in an article in the journal Science.
Poles apart: satellites reveal why Antarctic sea ice grows as Arctic melts
12 November 2012
The mystery of the expansion of sea ice around Antarctica, at the same time as global warming is melting swaths of Arctic sea ice, has been solved using data from US military satellites. Two decades of measurements show that changing wind patterns around Antarctica have caused a small increase in sea ice, the result of cold winds off the continent blowing ice away from the coastline.
This summer saw a record low in Arctic sea ice since satellite measurements began 30 years ago. In their paper, Holland and Kwok show the changing pattern of sea ice at both poles would also affect global ocean circulation, with unknown effects. They note that while Antarctic sea ice was growing, the Antarctic ice cap – the glacier and snow pack on the continent – was losing mass, with the fresh water flowing into the ocean.
The research on Antarctic sea ice, published in Nature Geoscience, revealed large regional variations. In places where warm winds blowing from the tropics towards Antarctica had become stronger, sea ice was being lost rapidly. Holland stated, "The Arctic is losing sea ice five times faster than the Antarctic is gaining it, so, on average, the Earth is losing sea ice very quickly. There is no inconsistency between our results and global warming."
For more information, see the item on the Guardian - Environment website or read the full article in Nature GeoScience.
Workshop on the 'Climatic Effects of Ozone Depletion in the Southern Hemisphere'
8 November 2012
WCRP is organising a Special Workshop on the "Climatic Effects of Ozone Depletion in the Southern Hemisphere: Assessing the Evidences and Identifying the Gaps in Current Knowledge". This is a cross-cutting, interdisciplinary workshop whose aim is to promote an enriching exchange from multiple perspectives on the consequences of ozone depletion upon the climate of the Southern Hemisphere.
Registration Deadline: 15 January 2013
Venue: Buenos Aires, Argentina from 25 February to 1 March 2013
The abstract submission deadline has been extended to 30th November 2012. For more information, please visit the Workshop website.
SIPEX II produces first 3D map of Antarctic sea ice
22 October 2012
Scientists from eight countries (Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand and the United States) have created the first detailed 3D map of the underside of sea ice in Antarctica.
Working aboard the Australian Antarctic Division's Aurora Australis under SIPEX II (the 2nd Sea Ice Physics and Ecosystem eXperiment, a long-term mission to map Antarctic sea ice), the team deployed an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to map the topography of the ice from below. Using multibeam sonar, the robot submarine was able to create a clear picture of the inverted 'mountains and valleys' in the sea ice, giving a clearer picture of its volume and thickness.
By combining this with data from satellites and helicopter surveys, the scientists are getting a better understanding how the sea ice is changing over time due to the changing climate. This in turn will give insight into how climate change is affecting not only the sea ice and the ocean, but also the ecosystems influenced by sea ice and the biota that inhabit them. Changes in sea ice thickness also influence the formation of cold, salty Antarctic bottom water, which drives the global thermohaline circulation and influences global climate.
For more details, watch the video on youtube or read the news item on the Australian Antarctic Division's website.
Antarctic molluscs 'switch sex'
11 September 2012
Antarctic bivalves have surprised scientists who have discovered that the animals switch sex.
The reproduction of Lissarca miliaris was studied in the 1970s and the species was first described in 1845. But their hermaphrodite nature had remained unknown until they were studied by scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.
Researchers suggest the molluscs could switch between the sexes to efficiently reproduce in the extremely cold ocean.
For further details, see the item on the BBC Nature News website or read the full article in Polar Biology.
Decline in breeding chinstrap penguins in Antarctic Peninsula confirmed
3 September 2012
In a paper published in the journal Polar Biology, researchers from the Antarctic Site Inventory confirm significant declines in the breeding population of chinstrap penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula.
New results and analyses stem from fieldwork conducted in December 2011 at Deception Island, one of the most frequently visited locations in Antarctica. The Inventory has been collecting and analyzing Antarctic Peninsula-wide penguin population data since 1994, and these new findings have important implications both for the advancement of Antarctic science and the management of Antarctica by the Antarctic Treaty nations.
For further details, see the article on the ScienceDaily website or read the full article in Polar Biology.
Large methane reservoirs beneath Antarctic Ice Sheet
3 September 2012
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The Antarctic Ice Sheet could be an overlooked but important source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, according to a report in the August 30 issue of Nature by an international team of scientists.
The new study demonstrates that old organic matter in sedimentary basins located beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet may have been converted to methane by micro-organisms living under oxygen-deprived conditions. The methane could be released to the atmosphere if the ice sheet shrinks and exposes these old sedimentary basins. If substantial methane hydrate and gas are present beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet, methane release during episodes of ice-sheet collapse could act as a positive feedback on global climate change during past and future ice-sheet retreat. For further details, see the items on the BBC News - Science and Environment and ScienceDaily websites or read the full article in Nature. |
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Above: A conceptual model of biogeochemical processes in a sub-Antarctic marine sediment/till complex. White arrows indicate methane diffusion. In parts of the ice sheet where frozen basal conditions prevail, zone A is likely to extend to the ice/sediment interface. |
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Antarctica warmth 'unusual, but not unique'
23 August 2012
The recent Antarctic Peninsula temperature rise and associated ice loss is unusual but not unprecedented, according to research. Analysis of a 364m-long ice core containing several millennia of climate history shows the region previously basked in temperatures slightly higher than today. However, the peninsula is now warming rapidly, threatening previously stable areas of ice, the study warns.
Analysis revealed that 15,000-12,000 years ago, the Antarctic Peninsula experienced significant warming, becoming about 1°C warmer than today. The region then cooled markedly around 2,500 years ago, and temperatures remained relatively stable. Around 600 years ago, the peninsula started to warm once more - slowly at first, but then, from around 1920, much more rapidly.
For further details, see the item on the BBC News - Science and Environment website or read the full Nature article.
Palm trees in Antarctica
8 August 2012
In a recent article in Nature, Pross and co-authors discuss how during the early Eocene period, about 53 million years ago, Antarctic winter temperatures exceeded 10°C, while summers may have reached 25°C. The early Eocene - often referred to as the Eocene greenhouse - has been a subject of increasing interest in recent years as a "warm analogue" of the current Earth.
For further details, see the item on the BBC News - Science and Environment website or read the full Nature article.
Challenges to the future conservation of the Antarctic
17 July 2012
One hundred years ago, when the great explorers such as Scott, Mawson and Amundsen made the Antarctic come alive in the public mind, Antarctica was rightly considered a distant and isolated continent. Now the situation, if not the perception of isolation, has changed. Human activities in the region and the consequences of human development elsewhere that have extended into the region are largely responsible for this situation.
In a Policy Forum article published by Science, Professor Steven Chown, and a group of international colleagues, with a broad range of expertise, set out the major conservation challenges facing the region both now and over a 50 year period.
For further details, read the full Science article.
IceCube catches high-energy neutrino oscillations
15 June 2012
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a telescope at the South Pole that detects the subatomic particles known as neutrinos, has measured the highest-energy neutrino oscillations yet.
IceCube was designed primarily to study neutrinos streaming from astrophysical objects such as supernovae and γ-ray bursts. But the detection of neutrino oscillations — the transformation of one type of neutrino into another — represents new scientific territory for the experiment, an area that falls under the umbrella of particle physics.
For more information, please see the full article in Nature News
Biosecurity on thin ice in Antarctica
11 June 2011
Since the establishment of the protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol) in 1991, visitor numbers to the continent have increased almost 10-fold bringing with them alien marine invertebrates, terrestrial weeds, and animal diseases. Worryingly, the Aliens in Antarctica survey, which was undertaken as part of the International Polar Year (IPY), reveals that, on a per capita basis, it is scientific personnel rather than tourists who pose the highest risk of introducing alien species on their clothes and equipment.
The Antarctic Treaty System is often cited as a flagship example illustrating that the international community can satisfactorily govern the commons. It is time to put this into practice by moving beyond documenting biological invasions and toward managing the problem. The IPY data provide the first continent-wide evidence that knowledge of impacts has not kept pace with the high rates of species introductions. The difficulty in eradicating established invasive alien species in these pristine environments demands a greater emphasis on risk prevention rather than minimization to be urgently adopted in existing management plans.
Read the full article in Science Letters
Climate scientists discover new weak point of the Antarctic ice sheet
14 May 2012
The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf fringing the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, may start to melt rapidly in this century and no longer act as a barrier for ice streams draining the Antarctic Ice Sheet. These predictions are made by climate researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association in the coming issue of the British science magazine Nature. They refute the widespread assumption that ice shelves in the Weddell Sea would not be affected by the direct influences of global warming due to the peripheral location of the Sea.
The results of the climate modellers from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) will come as a surprise to the professional world with the majority of experts assuming that the consequences of global warming for Antarctica would be noticeable primarily in the Amundsen Sea and therefore in the western part of Antarctica. "The Weddell Sea was not really on the screen because we all thought that unlike the Amundsen Sea its warm waters would not be able to reach the ice shelves. But we found a mechanism which drives warm water towards the coast with an enormous impact on the Fichner-Ronne Ice Shelf in the coming decades", says Dr. Hartmut Hellmer, oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute and lead author of the study.
For more information, please see the AWI press release or read the full article in Nature Letters.
Modelling ice-sheet flow
9 May 2012
As discussed in Science this week, the great Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are the "wild cards" in projections of sea-level change. Early models of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system treated the ice sheets as static white mountains. Observations since then have shown that ice sheets can change quickly: in some places, the tides strongly modulate coastal ice flow; in others, warming-induced ice-shelf loss has caused the flow speed of the subsequently unbuttressed inland ice to increase almost 10-fold within a few weeks. A new generation of full-stress ice-sheet models incorporates the physics needed to reproduce such processes. Including full stresses does improve ice-flow simulations. Well-validated, robust projections of ice-sheet behaviour under climate change nevertheless remain a challenge, as they will require an ensemble of model ice sheets coupled to the rest of the climate system.
For further details, please see the full article by Alley and Joughin in Science.
Warm ocean driving Antarctic ice loss
30 April 2012
Most of the ice being lost from Antarctica is going as a result of warm water eating the fringes of the continent, scientists say.
Researchers used a satellite laser to measure the thinning occurring on ice shelves - the floating tongues of ice that jut out from the land. The team's analysis found the shelves' shrinkage could not be attributed simply to warmer air. Rather, it is warm water getting under the floating ice to melt it from below. This is leading to a weakening of the shelves, permitting more and more ice to drain from the continent's interior through tributary glaciers.
Previous studies have already indicated that warmer waters are being driven towards the continent by stronger westerly winds in the Southern Ocean. The researchers say the new understanding has major implications for their ability to reliably project future sea-level rises as a result of Antarctic ice loss.
Read the full article on the BBC News - Science and Environment website or see the related news item on the Scripps Institute of Oceanography website, or watch NASA's animation of ocean current circulation, or read the full paper in Nature Letters.
Amount of Antarctic Bottom Water decreasing for decades
27 March 2012
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A layer of Antarctic Bottom Water colder than 0ºC (colours, |
Scientists have found a large reduction in the amount of the coldest deep ocean water, called Antarctic Bottom Water, all around the Southern Ocean using data collected from 1980 to 2011. These findings, in a study now online will likely stimulate new research on the causes of this change. Two oceanographers from NOAA and the University of Washington find that Antarctic Bottom Water has been disappearing at an average rate of about eight million metric tons per second over the past few decades, equivalent to about fifty times the average flow of the Mississippi River or about a quarter of the flow of the Gulf Stream in the Florida Straits. "Because of its high density, Antarctic Bottom Water fills most of the deep ocean basins around the world, but we found that the amount of this water has been decreasing at a surprisingly fast rate over the last few decades," said lead author Sarah Purkey, graduate student at the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle. "In every oceanographic survey repeated around the Southern Ocean since about the 1980s, Antarctic Bottom Water has been shrinking at a similar mean rate, giving us confidence that this surprisingly large contraction is robust." Antarctic Bottom Water is formed in a few distinct locations around Antarctica, where seawater is cooled by the overlying air and made saltier by ice formation. The dense water then sinks to the sea floor and spreads northward, filling most of the deep ocean around the world as it slowly mixes with warmer waters above it. The world's deep ocean currents play a critical role in transporting heat and carbon around the planet, thus regulating our climate. While previous studies have shown that the bottom water has been warming and freshening over the past few decades, these new results suggest that significantly less of this bottom water has been formed during that time than in previous decades. Read the full article in the Journal of the American Meteorological Society |
Aliens in Antarctica
20 March 2012
Invasive alien species are among the primary causes of biodiversity change globally, with the risks thereof broadly understood for most regions of the world. They are similarly thought to be among the most significant conservation threats to Antarctica, especially as climate change proceeds in the region. However, until now no comprehensive, continent-wide evaluation of the risks to Antarctica posed by such species has been undertaken.
Steven Chown of Stellenbosch University in Matieland, South Africa, and colleagues vacuumed the clothes and bags of some 33,000 tourists and 7100 scientists who visited Antarctica between 2007 and 2008. They found an average of 10 plant seeds on each visitor. Many had visited other cold places, so they were carrying species like the Arctic poppy that were likely to survive in Antarctica's chilly climate. Scientists, especially field scientists, were five times seedier than tourists.
Most seeds were grasses or dandelions, which make good invaders, especially as global warming makes Antarctica more hospitable. Poa annua, an annual bluegrass, is already spreading around four research stations.
Antarctica has a lot of unique biodiversity, Chown says. "Colonising species could transform these landscapes to the detriment of indigenous species," he says, besides making them drably similar to landscapes elsewhere. While colonisation happens naturally, he says, humans raise the rate and carry species that wouldn't arrive on their own.
Why does this matter? "People would notice if we added a few random spots of bright pink paint to a Rubens," observes Chown. "Yet many blithely do the equivalent to natural systems without a hint of regret – who cares if we have Poa annua and rats everywhere?"
Read the full paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1119787109
How to say 'in your face' like a penguin
20 March 2012
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A white-flippered penguin's triumph |
Like a football player who just scored a touchdown, male white-flippered penguins (Eudyptula minor albosignata) perform triumph displays after defeating an opponent. Now, researchers in New Zealand have found that those victory dances, complete with a braying, donkeylike call and flipper waving, make it less likely that nearby penguins will challenge the winner.
"Scientists have spent a lot of time studying antagonistic interactions, but quite often, they turn the camera off after the fight, so they miss a lot," says Tom Sherratt, an evolutionary ecologist at Carleton University in Ottawa, who was not involved in the current study. Researchers have investigated the effects of triumph displays on the loser, but because this is a fairly recent field of study, the new research is probably the first published account of its effects on nearby birds, he added. Explanations for the function of triumph displays include browbeating an opponent so that he doesn't forget who beat him and signalling to an audience not to mess with you. |
For more information, see the Science Now news article or read the full Science paper.
Russian entry into Lake Vostok
9 February 2012
Russian scientists are reporting success in their quest to retrieve a water sample from Lake Vostok, a huge body of liquid water buried under the Antarctic ice. Researchers believe Vostok can give them some fresh insights into the frozen history of Antarctica. It is the first time such a breakthrough has been made into one of the more than 300 sub-glacial lakes known to exist on the White Continent. They also hope to find microbial lifeforms that are new to science.
Contact with the subglacial water was made at a depth of 3769.3 m with 39-40 litres of water being retrieved for analysis.
For further information, see the official Press Release.
Strangely moving Antarctic lakes surprise researchers
6 February 2012
Researchers recently uncovered a startling phenomenon — a set of teardrop-shaped lakes in Antarctica that mysteriously move, jogging along at a pace as fast as five feet (1.5 metres) per day. The lakes sit atop the George VI ice shelf — a massive floating plain of ice larger than Vermont, composed of the mingled fronts of glaciers that flow off the edge of the continent and rest on the ocean.
Researcher Doug MacAyeal said they had expected the lakes to move over time, but only because the ice shelf underneath them also moves, as ice flows from the interior of the continent out to sea. Instead, "we found a subset of lakes that defied this in a spectacularly curious and interesting way, by moving parallel to a coastline of the George VI ice shelf," MacAyeal said.
Read the full article in Science on msnbc
The Southern Ocean's role in carbon exchange during the last deglaciation
6 February 2012
The concentration of atmospheric CO2 rose by ∼80 parts per million (ppm), from ∼190 to 270 ppm, during the last deglaciation. It is widely believed that the primary source of that CO2 was the deep Southern Ocean. Burke and Robinson present a 25,000-year-long record of the radiocarbon content of deep-sea corals collected from the Southern Ocean, which shows evidence of the 14C-depletion that must have accompanied CO2 sequestration. 14C depletion and ocean stratification ended between 15,000 and 14,000 years ago, in a manner consistent with the transfer of large amounts of CO2 from the deep Southern Ocean to the atmosphere. The observed 14C drop can explain the atmospheric CO2 rise between 17,500 and 14,500 years ago, adding support to the existing model of deglacial CO2 dynamics.
Read the full Science article.
Antarctic lake drilling mission edges closer
24 January 2012
An ambitious plan to explore a vast lake trapped beneath the Antarctic ice is a step closer to becoming reality.
An advance party has braved freezing temperatures to set up vital equipment and supplies at Lake Ellsworth. The project by UK engineers to drill through the two-mile-thick ice-sheet is scheduled for the end of the year. The aims are to search for signs of life in the waters and to extract sediments from the lake floor to better understand the past climate. It is is one of the most challenging scientific projects for years. The task is so complex that preparations have had to be spread over two Antarctic summer seasons.
Read the full article on the BBC News - Science and Environment website and find out more about the project on the Lake Ellsworth website.
Giant dino lived in Antarctica
16 January 2012
Before penguins ruled Antarctica, dinosaurs roamed across what was then a forested continent, migrating over from Australia and other land masses that were connected to it at the time. Several Antarctic dinosaurs have already been found, including an armoured ankylosaur and a handful of birdlike dinosaurs. But researchers working on James Ross Island off the Antarctic Peninsula have now reported the discovery of what may be the biggest dino yet: a fossil from the tailbone of a sauropod, a giant, four-legged dinosaur with a long neck and tail. As they write in Naturwissenschaften this week, the researchers believe this plant-eating beast lived during the Cretaceous period, which lasted until about 65 million years ago.
For more information, see the ScienceShot on the Science website or read the full Naturwissenschaften article.
New species discovered around Antarctic hydrothermal vents
9 January 2012
Scientists have discovered huge numbers of new marine species clustered in the hot, dark environment surrounding hydrothermal vents on the deep sea floor near Antarctica.
The findings include a new species of yeti crab, an unidentified octopus, an undescribed seven-armed sea-star, starfish, barnacles, limpets and sea anemones. The UK-led team made its discovery after exploring the East Scotia Ridge on the sea floor off the coast of South Georgia in the Southern Ocean, using a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) called Isis.
Read the full story on the NERC Planet Earth website.
Tracking the magnetic south pole
5 January 2012
Return to Scott's Antarctic camp marks 100-year anniversary
Two scientists from New Zealand are in Antarctica in a quest to continue a 100-year-long record of Earth's magnetic field: a record begun by British explorer Robert Scott at the start of his ill-fated expedition to the geographic south pole (see Turning the world upside down).
Record-keeping is necessary because the magnetic poles move about, thanks to the complex circulation of Earth's fluid outer core. During the past century, both magnetic poles have been moving northwest: the north pole from Canada towards Siberia, as fast as 60 kilometres per year, and the south pole towards Australia at 10–15 km per year. "It's quite an astonishing rate," says Stewart Bennie of GNS Science in Avalon, one of the two scientists due to head to the Antarctic on 28 December. The movement is thought to be a normal feature of the planet's magnetic wobble, and could change direction at any time.
Precise ground measurements of Earth's magnetic field are used to help calibrate satellite measurements and inform global models, such as the World Magnetic Model, which is used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and national departments of defence. That model is updated every 5 years, with the current version covering 2010–14.
For further details, read the full Nature news article
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