It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Is Antarctica a country? The future of the world's least understood continent
Lilit Marcus, CNN • Published 17th July 2021
Antarctica: The globe's least inhabited continent has long filled travelers with curiosity. David Tipling/UIG/Getty Images
(CNN) — As long as humans have known of its existence, they have wanted to visit Antarctica.
It is the world's least visited, least populated continent. On the best day, it is extremely hard to get to. And yet, the appeal of the unknown and the desire to set foot on every continent have encouraged travelers to try and make their way to the South Pole.
Still, for the obsessive catalogers of the world, Antarctica is difficult to classify. It's not a country, so can you cross it off a bucket list? Who controls it? If it had a capital city, where would it be? What would be the native language?
A national flag for a nation-less place
These were among the questions that Evan Townsend posed to himself when he signed up for the first of two stints working at McMurdo Station, the US-run base in Antarctica.
Townsend, an elementary school teacher in Boston, knew he had a strict baggage limit when going to Antarctica to work as a support staffer -- everyone is limited to 85 pounds, he says, which has to include clothes, toiletries, medicine, electronics and anything else they might want or need during their stay.
As one of his duties would be managing the arts and crafts room on base, he wanted to bring some decorations with him, but knew he needed to keep it light. Townsend chose the Pride flag -- it weighed almost nothing, but its significance was heavy.
One day, Townsend and a few colleagues took the Pride flag outside and snapped photos of themselves to post on social media. The photos ended up becoming an international story, with many news outlets saying the outing was Antarctica's first-ever Pride parade.
"That was when I realized the power of flags," Townsend says. "On one hand, I'm completely isolated at the end of the Earth. And on the other hand, I'm part of this global community."
The "True South" flag Townsend designed to represent Antarctica Courtesy Evan Townsend/True South
Despite not having a background in design, Townsend identifies as a longtime "flag nerd" and began to toy with the idea of creating a flag to represent Antarctica.
He went with dark blue for the Southern Ocean waters and white for the landscape, with an isosceles triangle in the center to represent Antarctica's icy peaks.
"I wanted it to be a neutral flag, for sure," Townsend says. "It's a distinct design, it's a distinct color, to make sure that it's not affiliated with any particular group or nationality. I wanted it to be something that had a lot of symbolism, but that was simple enough that people could apply their own perception of Antarctic and their own understanding of the continent to the flag."
Swedish nurse Johanna Davidsson didn't set out for the South Pole aiming for a world record -- but she walked away with one anyway.
The name of the flag project, True South, also has its own significance.
"'True south' literally means the direction toward the geographic south pole, as opposed to magnetic south which would lead to the magnetic south pole," Townsend explains. "it's meant to represent the shared goals and values by which the Antarctic community can orient itself."
And Townsend has no plans to trademark or copyright the flag's design, as he believes it should belong to the whole world.
"The best flags are flags that get their meaning and their power from the people that fly them," he adds. Who's in charge here, anyway?
Townsend is just one of the many people around the globe who are transfixed by Antarctica, even if they are never able to visit and see the place for themselves.
So, what is it about the southernmost continent that continues to entrance people?
In a world that's more interconnected than ever, Antarctica remains one of the few places that most people don't know anything about.
There is no indigenous population in Antarctica, and human activity there is still relatively recent. The only permanent installations are a handful of scientific stations, which only employ scientists and their support staff -- a term comprising anyone from chefs and maintenance workers to electricians and airport managers.
It's common for people to multitask. Townsend worked in food service, as a bartender and as a craft room manager during his tenure. At its peak, the number of human Antarctic residents is approximately 10,000.
In 1959, 12 countries -- including Japan, South Africa, France, the United Kingdom, Argentina and what was then the USSR -- signed the Antarctic Treaty in Washington, DC.
Among the items they agreed on was that that Antarctica should "be used for peaceful purposes only" and that science would be at the forefront of any development or settlement there. Members of the military are allowed to be there, but only in support roles.
Although few people live there, Antarctica's scope of influence is massive. Climate change has caused the continent to shrink. And despite the treaty's existence, world politics have changed and new power players -- namely China -- have emerged in Antarctica.
The True South flag flies alongside the flags of the original 12 Antarctic Treaty Signatories at the ceremonial South Pole.
Courtesy Lisa Minelli/True South
Klaus Dodds, professor of Geopolitics at the University of London, is the author of several books about the polar regions, most recently "The Arctic: A Very Short Introduction," published in June 2021. "Stuff just keeps being taken from Antarctica. Information, ice, resources like seals and whales and fish," he says. "Antarctica's fragility, I think, represents the fragility of the wider world." While climate change is the biggest influence on Antarctica, there's another major factor that will only grow more significant as the pandemic ebbs -- tourism.
About 90% of tourists to Antarctica come by boat. These trips are expensive, and most travelers spend only a few hours actually on the land before getting back on the ships and turning around. Currently, the United States is the single largest source of Antarctic tourism, but China is quickly rising into second place, and Dodds believes within in a decade it will top the list. Some destinations, like Argentina resort town Ushuaia and Australia's Hobart, make money from these tourists due to their location as final pre-Antarctic ports of call. Dodds predicts that the next decade will see multiple cruise ship companies open up Antarctica itineraries and more travel companies invest in the continent's infrastructure.
Just as countries jockey for power with military bases and political maneuvers, Antarctica has become another site for their rivalries -- and fears -- to play out.
"Nobody can answer the question (of) who owns Antarctica," Dodds says.
"I think the Antarctic represents, in essence, not just the idealism that the treaty represents, but it also represents the supreme contradictory nature of humanity more generally. So for all the things we wish to celebrate in Antarctica, there's also the ugliness of humanity."
He points to a few major successes: Antarctica was the first continent to be completely free of nuclear weapons. It is also demilitarized.
Another example of the continent's potential for beauty and unity? The True South flag, which Dodds admires.
"(It) is a well-intentioned reminder that Antarctica is a marvel. Antarctica should represent the very best in all of us."
Monday, February 17, 2020
UN: Antarctic high temp records will take months to verify
In this undated file photo, a lonely penguin appears in Antarctica during the southern hemisphere's summer season. The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice, and penguins. The reading was taken Thursday, Feb. 5, 2020 at an Argentine research base and still needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Jana, File)
Record high temperatures reportedly measured in Antarctica will take months to verify, the U.N. weather agency said Sunday.
A spokesman for the World Meteorological Organization said the measurements made by researchers from Argentina and Brazil earlier this month have to undergo a formal process to ensure that they meet international standards.
"A formal decision on whether or not this is a record is likely to be several months away," said Jonathan Fowler, the WMO spokesman.
Scientists at an Argentine research base measured a temperature of 18.3 degrees Celsius (nearly 65 degrees Fahrenheit) Feb. 6 on a peninsula that juts out from Antarctica toward the southern tip of South America. The previous record there was 17.5 degrees celsius (63.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in March 2015.
Last week, researchers from Brazil claimed to have measured temperatures of 20.75 degrees Celsius on an island off the peninsula —beating the record for the entire Antarctic region of 19.8 Celsius in January 1982.
Fowler said both of the new measurements would need to be transmitted to Prof. Randall Cerveny, a researcher at Arizona State University who examines reported temperature records for WMO.
Cerveny then shares the data with a wider group of scientists who "will carefully evaluate the available evidence (including comparisons to surrounding stations) and debate the merits and problems of the observation," said Fowler.
The evaluation normally takes six to nine months, after which Cerveny would "formally either accept or reject the potential extreme," giving official WMO approval to the new record, he said.
Climate change is causing the Arctic and the Antarctic to warm faster than other parts of the planet.
Argentina’s Esperanza base in Antarctica reported a record high temperature this week. Vanderlei Almeida/AFP via Getty Images
The Antarctic region has set another stunningly high temperature record: 69.35 degrees Fahrenheit (20.75°C).
Brazilian scientists detected the balmy temperature on February 9 on Seymour Island, just off the tip of the Trinity Peninsula, the section of Antarctica closest to South America, first reported by The Guardian.
“We are seeing the warming trend in many of the sites we are monitoring, but we have never seen anything like this,” said Carlos Schaefer, a Brazilian government scientist who studies the Antarctic, told The Guardian.
The new record came less than two days after a temperature of 64.9 degrees F (18.3°C) was recorded on the continent — which broke the previous record set in 2015.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that Esperanza, Argentina’s research base on the Trinity Peninsula, detected the previous balmy temperature spike on February 7. The record prior to that, 63.5 degrees, in 2015.
Esperanza Base at the Northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula reported a daily high temperature of 18.3 °C (65 °F).
“The record appears to be likely associated (in the short term) with what we call a regional ‘foehn’ event over the area: a rapid warming of air coming down a slope/mountain,” said Randall Cerveny, WMO’s weather and climate extremes rapporteur, in a statement.
Animation of T850 in °C (temperature at 850hPa) showing this heat wave over the Antarctic Peninsula. This will be followed tomorrow by an interesting foehn event according to GFS. https://t.co/IbZ2KFKuxMpic.twitter.com/J195ZAw1lY— Xavier Fettweis (@xavierfettweis) February 7, 2020
Shortly after the heat spike, the European Space Agency reported that a 120 square mile chunk of ice had broken off the the Pine Island Glacier, one of the continent’s most endangered glaciers.
❄️ The Pine Island glacier calving event was captured by #Sentinel2 ️ in true colour yesterday, 11 February, where many large icebergs are clearly visible.
“Pine Island glacier, like its neighbouring Thwaites Glacier, has been dramatically losing ice over the last 25 years,” according to the WMO.
It’s currently summer in the southern hemisphere, and even icy Antarctica starts to warm up as it receives uninterrupted sunlight through the season. However, temperatures usually don’t get much higher than 50 degrees.
On this rapidly warming planet of ours, the polar regions are heating up faster than the rest. Earth has warmed up by just over 1.8 degrees on average since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, when humans began spewing heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. But the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 5.4 degrees in just the last 50 years.
That rising heat is particularly worrying because it’s fueling loss in the world’s largest reservoir of ice: the Antarctic ice sheets. If all the ice in Antarctica were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by 190 feet. It’s hard to know exactly how much Antarctica’s ice is contributing to global sea-level rise right now, but several estimates show that this ice could add upward of 16 inches of sea-level rise by the end of the century based on current rates.
The latest science also shows an acceleration in ice melt. Between 1979 and 2017, the annual rate of ice loss increased sixfold. This cold freshwater flowing into the ocean in turn is influencing weather patterns around the world in ways that scientists are still trying to understand.
Last month, 50-year-old climate activist Lewis Pugh swam in a river formed beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet to highlight the impacts of warming.
The opposite end of the world is also warming rapidly. In 2018, the Arctic experienced its heat wave in winter for the third year in a row. Together, these events show that a lot more heat and change are in store for the coolest parts of the world.
Antarctica registers record temperature of over 20 C
Glaciers are pictured in Antarctica's Chiriguano Bay in November 2019
Scientists in Antarctica have recorded a new record temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius (69.35 Fahrenheit), breaking the barrier of 20 degrees for the first time on the continent, a researcher said Thursday.
"We'd never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica," Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP.
He cautioned that the reading, taken at a monitoring station on an island off the continent's northern tip on February 9, "has no meaning in terms of a climate-change trend," because it is a one-off temperature and not part of a long-term data set.
But news that the icy continent is now recording temperatures in the relatively balmy 20s is likely to further fuel fears about the warming of the planet.
The reading was taken at Seymour Island, part of a chain off the peninsula that curves out from the northern tip of Antarctica.
The island is home to Argentina's Marambio research base.
Schaefer, a soil scientist, said the reading was taken as part of a 20-year-old research project on the impact of climate change on the region's permafrost.
The previous high was in the 19s, he said.
"We can't use this to anticipate climatic changes in the future. It's a data point," he said.
"It's simply a signal that something different is happening in that area."
Glaciers are pictured at Chiriguano Bay at night in Antarctica in November 2019
Map of Antarctica locating Seymour Island which recorded its hottest ever temperature on February 9.
A Half Moon Island iceberg is pictured in Antarctica in November 2019
Still, he added, a temperature that high had never been registered in Antarctica.
Accelerating melt-off from glaciers and especially ice sheets in Antarctica is helping drive sea level rises, threatening coastal megacities and small island nations.
The news came a week after Argentina's National Meteorological Service recorded the hottest day on record for Argentine Antarctica: 18.3 degrees Celsius at midday at the Esperanza base, located near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.
The previous record stood at 17.5 degrees on March 24, 2015, it said. It has been recording Antarctic temperatures since 1961.
The past decade has been the hottest on record, the United Nations said last month, with 2019 the second-hottest year ever, after 2016.
And 2020 looks set to continue the trend: last month was the hottest January on record.
UN assesses if Antarctica temperature reading is record high
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
The U.N. weather agency said Friday that an Argentine research base on the northern tip of Antarctica is reporting a temperature that, if confirmed, could be a record high for the icy continent. World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis, citing figures from Argentina's national weather service, said the Esperanza base recorded 18.3 degrees C elsius ( 64.9 Fahrenheit) on Thursday—topping the former record of 17.5 degrees tallied in March 2015.
The WMO's committee that draws on the agency's weather and climate archives is now expected to verify whether the reading would amount to a new record.
"Everything we have seen thus far indicates a likely legitimate record but we will of course begin a formal evaluation of the record once we have full data from SMN and on the meteorological conditions surrounding the event," said WMO's Weather and Climate Extremes rapporteur, Randal Cerveny, referring to the acronym for Argentina's weather service.
"The record appears to be likely associated (in the short term) with what we call a regional 'foehn' event over the area," Cerveny said, defining it as a rapid warming of air coming down a slope or mountain.
WMO says the Antarctic Peninsula, on the continent's northwest tip near South America, is among the fastest warming regions on Earth—at almost 3 degrees Celsius over the last half-century.
Some 87 percent of glaciers along the west coast of the peninsula have retreated over that 50-year span, with most showing "an accelerated retreat" over the last 12 years, WMO said.Argentine Antarctica has hottest day on record
It’s T-Shirt Weather in Antarctica as Temperature Breaks Record Laura Millan Lombrana
(Bloomberg) -- The temperature at one research base in Antarctica reached a record-breaking 18.3 degrees Celsius (65 Fahrenheit) on Thursday, almost a full degree above the previous high set five years ago.
Cape Folger on the Budd Coast on January 11, 2008 in
the Australian Antarctic Territory.
Argentine scientists on the Esperanza base who confirmed the reading said that wasn’t the only record broken this week. The nation’s Marambio site registered the highest temperature for the month of February since 1971. Thermometers there hit 14.1 Celsius, above the previous February 2013 reading of 13.8 Celsius.
The reports are shocking, but not surprising, said Frida Bengtsson, who is leading a expedition to the Antarctic for the environmental group Greenpeace.
“We’ve been in the Antarctic for the last month, documenting the dramatic changes this part of the world is undergoing as our planet warms,” she said in an email. “In the last month, we’ve seen penguin colonies sharply declining under the impacts of climate change in this supposedly pristine environment.”
Antarctica is among the fastest-warming regions in the planet, with the Antarctic Peninsula, where the Argentine bases are located, warming particularly quickly, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Average temperatures on the continent have risen almost 3 degree Celsius over the past 50 years, and during that time glaciers along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated.
WMO experts will now investigate whether the warm event recorded by Argentine scientists is a weather phenomenon known as foehn. That is a common event in Alpine regions that often involves high winds at altitude and the rapid warming of air as it heads down slopes or peaks, driven by significant air pressure differences, the WMO said in a statement.
The WMO will also determine whether the temperature extreme is a new record for the entire Antarctic landmass. The Signy island in the Antarctic region, which includes everywhere south of 60 degrees latitude, recorded an all-time high temperature of 19.8 Celsius in January 1982. The average annual temperature ranges from about -10 Celsius on the Antarctic coast to -60 Celsius at the highest points of the interior.
(Updates with ongoing research by the World Meteorological Organization.)
Antarctica appears to have broken a heat record
by Christina Larson
In this undated file photo, a lonely penguin appears in Antarctica during the southern hemisphere's summer season. The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice, and penguins. The reading was taken Thursday, Feb. 5, 2020 at an Argentine research base and still needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Jana, File)
The temperature in northern Antarctica hit nearly 65 degrees (18.3 degrees Celsius), a likely heat record on the continent best known for snow, ice and penguins.
The reading was taken Thursday at an Argentine research base and still needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization.
"Everything we have seen thus far indicates a likely legitimate record," Randall Cerveny, who researches records for the organization, said in a statement. He added that he is waiting for full data to confirm.
The research base, called Esperanza, sits on a peninsula that juts up toward the southern tip of South America. The peninsula has warmed significantly over the past half century—almost 5.4 degrees (3 C), according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Cerveny said the unusually high temperature was likely due, in the short term, to a rapid warming of air coming down from a mountain slope.
The previous record of 63.5 degrees (17.5 C) was set in March 2015.
Climate change is heating up Antarctica and the Arctic—the Earth's polar regions—faster than other regions of the planet.
The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the globe, according to an annual report published in December by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There is no similar yearly report for Antarctica.
Global warming to blame for hottest day in Argentine Antarctica
At Argentina's Esperanza military base, pictured in March 2014, temperatures reached the highest on record
Global warming is to blame for Argentine Antarctica recording its hottest day since readings began, Greenpeace said on Friday.
Temperatures climbed to 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit) at midday Thursday at the research station Esperanza base, the highest temperature on record since 1961, according to the National Meteorological Service.
The previous record stood at 17.5 degrees on March 24, 2015.
The new record is "of course shocking but unfortunately not surprising because Antarctica is warming up with the rest of the planet," said Frida Bengtsson, marine environment specialist for Greenpeace, in a statement.
At Marambio, another Argentine base in Antarctica, temperatures reached 14.1 degrees Celsius on Thursday, the hottest temperature for a day in February since 1971.
The news comes after a decade of record temperatures on the planet and a 2019 that was the second hottest year since registers have been kept.
And the new decade has begun along the same tendency, with last month the hottest January on record.
The effects of global warming have already seen ocean levels rise due to melting ice caps.
The two largest ice caps on the planet, in Antarctica and Greenland, have already lost an average of a combined 430 billion tons a year since 2006.
According to UN climate experts, the oceans rose 15 centimeters during the 20th century.
It's a threat to coastal towns and small islands the world over.
One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is the Thwaites glacier, which is the size of Britain.
Scientists say that if it melted it would raise sea levels by 65 centimeters.
"Over the last 30 years, the amount of ice melting off Thwaites and adjacent glaciers has nearly doubled," said the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration group of scientists in a statement.
Argentina has had a presence in Antarctica for the past 114 years, including several scientific research bases, and is also a signatory of the Antarctic Treaty, which came into force in June 1961 and prohibits any militarization of the continent.
Antarctica is the remotest part of the world, but it is a hub of scientific discovery, international diplomacy and environmental change. It was officially discovered 200 years ago, on Jan. 27, 1820, when members of a Russian expedition sighted land in what is now known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf on the continent's east side.
Early explorers were drawn there by the mythology of Terra Australis, a vast southern continent that scholars imagined for centuries as a counterweight to the Northern Hemisphere. Others sought economic bounty from hunting whales and seals, or the glory of conquering the planet's last wilderness. Still others wanted to understand Earth's magnetic fields in order to better navigate the seas.
I am a geologist who specializes in understanding the timing and extent of past ice ages. Much of my work focuses on the glacial history of Antarctica, and I've been privileged to conduct five field seasons of research there.
For the next two years I'll be working with a field team made up entirely of undergraduate students from Vanderbilt University to determine whether the East Antarctic Ice Sheet changes flow patterns as it changes shape. All of the research these budding scientists conduct will be done under the auspices of the Antarctic Treaty, a global agreement that promotes scientific cooperation and environmental protection.
A flight to Victoria Land, as part of Operation IceBridge, snapped this image showing an iceberg floating in Antarctica's McMurdo Sound. (Image credit: Operation IceBridge) Frozen but abundant
Antarctica separated from South America 35 million years ago, and its climate started to change. It began to grow ice sheets — masses of glacial land ice covering thousands of square miles. As plate tectonics shifted other continents, Antarctica became colder and drier. For the past 14 million years, it has been the frigid continent that persists today.
Antarctica is the only continent that was literally discovered, because it has no native human population. British explorer Sir James Cook circumnavigated the continent in 1772-1775, but saw only some outlying islands. Cook concluded that if there were any land, it would be "condemned to everlasting regidity by Nature, never to yield to the warmth of the sun."
Cook also reported that Antarctic waters were rich with nutrients and wildlife. This drew sealers and whalers, mainly from England and the United States, who hunted the region's fur seals and elephant seals to near-extinction in the following decades. This hunting spree led to the discovery of the Antarctic mainland and its ice sheets, the largest in the world. Reading the ice
Today, the combined East and West Antarctic ice sheets hold 90% of the world's ice, enough to raise global sea levels by roughly 200 feet (60 meters) if it all melted. Antarctica is the coldest, highest, driest, windiest, brightest, and yes, iciest continent on Earth. And 200 years of research has shown that it is a key component of Earth's climate system.
Despite the appearance that it is an unchanging, freeze-dried landscape, my research and work by many others has shown that the East Antarctica Ice Sheet does slowly thin and thicken over millions of years. Interestingly, my data also suggest that as the ice advances and retreats, it moves in the same patterns each time. Put another way, the ice flows over the same land each time it advances.
While East Antarctica adds and loses ice slowly, it is so large that it is a major contributor to sea level rise. Understanding how the ice has changed in the past is key to predicting how much and how fast it will melt in the coming years.
These questions are especially important in West Antarctica, where the bottom of the ice sheet is below sea level, making it very susceptible to changes in sea level and ocean temperature. By itself, the West Antarctic ice sheet has the potential to raise sea level by 16 feet (5 meters) if it collapses.
As climate change raises global sea levels, parts of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, such as the Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers, are particularly vulnerable to collapse. At the end of the last ice age, parts of West Antarctica thinned by an average of 1.5 to 3 feet (0.5 - 1 meters) per year. Today with GPS, satellite and airborne measurements, scientists are seeing parts of West Antarctica thin by 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters) per year.
We also know from the geological record that this ice sheet is capable of rapid collapses, and has sometimes thinned at rates in excess of 30 feet (10 meters) per year. Recent models show sea level could rise by 1 meter by 2100 and 15 meters by 2500 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at current rates and the ice sheet experiences a rapid collapse, as it has in the past.
This image shows the two cracks captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite on Sept. 14, 2019. (Image credit: ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
Finding inspiration in scientific diplomacy
Despite the potential for environmental disaster in Antarctica, the continent also offers evidence that nations can collaborate to find solutions. The Antarctic Treaty System is the world's premier example of peaceful and scientific international cooperation.
This landmark accord, signed in 1961, sets aside Antarctica for peaceful and scientific purposes and recognizes no land claims on the continent. It also was the first non-nuclear accord ever signed, barring use of Antarctica for nuclear weapons testing or disposal of radioactive waste.
The great Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton said that "optimism is true moral courage," and the authors of the Antarctic Treaty were certainly courageous optimists. They were encouraged by the success of the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year, a worldwide program of scientific research during which 12 countries built over 50 bases in Antarctica, including McMurdo Station and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
Under the treaty, scientists from North Korea, Russia and China can freely visit U.S. research stations in Antarctica. Researchers from India and Pakistan willingly share their data about Antarctic glaciers.
Thanks to the Antarctic Treaty, 10% of Earth's land surface is protected as a wildlife and wilderness refuge. I have set foot in places in Antarctica where I know no one has ever been before, and the treaty sets areas aside that no one will ever visit. Antarctica's landscapes are unlike anywhere else on Earth. The best comparison may be the Moon.
Yet in these stark environments, life finds a way to persist — showing that there are solutions to even the most daunting challenges. If Antarctica has taught us anything in 200 years, it's that we can cooperate and collaborate to overcome problems. As Ernest Shackleton once said, "Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all."
Scientists say they have recorded the continent's first heat wave after a spike in temperatures in late January. Researchers expressed concern about the damage the phenomenon could have on flora and fauna
Scientists have recorded Antarctica's first documented heat wave, warning that animal and plant life on the isolated continent could be drastically affected by climate change.
Australian Antarctic Program researchers recorded the heat wave event at Casey research station in East Antarctica during the 2019-2020 southern hemisphere summer.
Findings by the team were published in the Global Change Biology journal on Tuesday, with authors warning that the changes could affect global weather patterns.
Between January 23 and 26, a research team at Casey — directly south of Perth in western Australia — recorded the highest maximum and minimum temperatures ever seen at the base.
During the period, minimum temperatures were higher than zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) while the maximums peaked above 7.5 degrees.
On January 24, the Casey team recorded a record high temperature of 9.2 degrees Celsius, 6.9 degrees higher than the station's mean maximum
Almost 21 degrees in Antarctica
Heat waves are classified as three consecutive days where very high maximum and minimum temperatures are recorded.
The authors of the study said the local effects of climate change could have a global impact.
"Antarctica may be isolated from the rest of the continents by the Southern Ocean, but it has worldwide impacts," they said.
"It drives the global ocean conveyor belt, a constant system of deep-ocean circulation which transfers oceanic heat around the planet, and its melting ice sheet adds to global sea-level rise."
Co-author Dana Bergstrom said the hot summer could affect local populations positively at first, but could also lead to drought and heat stress on species adapted for the cold.
"Most life exists in small ice-free oases in Antarctica, and depends on melting snow and ice for their water supply," said Bergstrom, a principal scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division.
While an increase in meltwater flooding associated with higher temperatures could provide extra water to such ecosystems – helping them on a short-term basis - it could also dislodge plants and radically change the composition of communities of invertebrates and microbes.
"Based on our experience from previous anomalous hot summers in Antarctica we can expect a multitude of biological impacts to be reported in coming years, illustrating how climate change is impacting even the most remote areas of the planet," the study said.
Contributors to the research came from Australia's University of Wollongong, the University of Tasmania and the government agency Australian Antarctic Division
A team of scientists from two US universities set sail on an Antarctic expedition at the start of this year. During several weeks at sea, they studied the impact of climate change on the remote region. More specifically, they wanted to assess how many chinstrap penguins are left in Western Antarctica compared to the last survey of their population in the 1970s.
Tame and curious
Chinstrap penguins inhabit the islands and shores of the Southern Pacific and Antarctic Oceans. They are named after the narrow black band on the underside of their heads. Even before the scientists can hear the birds' loud, harsh calls, a pungent smell of penguin excrement indicates that a colony is nearby. Penguins have not learned to fear humans, so they mostly ignore th\eir visitors.
Shocking results
The scientists used manual and drone surveying techniques to count the chinstrap penguins. Their findings revealed that some colonies had experienced a drop of up to more than 70%. "The declines that we've seen are definitely dramatic," Steve Forrest, a conservation biologist who was part of the expedition, told Reuters.
Food chain is declining Chinstrap penguins feed on small fish, like krill, shrimp and squid. They can swim up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) offshore each day to obtain their food. Their tightly packed feathers work like a waterproof coat and enable them to swim in freezing waters. But climate change is decreasing the abundance of krill, which is making it harder for the birds to survive.
Reproduction challenges
Chinstraps choose to nest in particularly inaccessible and remote places. When they procreate, they build circular nests from stones and lay two eggs. Both male and female work in shifts of around 6 days each to incubate the eggs. But as global warming is causing ice sheets to melt and is driving food abundance down, reproduction is becoming less successful.
Broader implications of a changing environment
There are an estimated eight million chinstrap penguins globally, which is why there hasn't been much concern about them thus far. But in the past 50 years, their population on the Antarctic Peninsula has declined by more than half. Chinstraps aren't in imminent danger of extinction, but the decline of their populations is a stark warning about broad environmental changes taking place.
Author: Anne-Sophie Brändlin
FASCINATING ANTARCTICA: ICY FACTS ABOUT THE MOST SOUTHERN REGION IN THE WORLD
Continent of extremes
Antarctica is the coldest continent on Earth, with the lowest temperature measured reading -98.6 degrees Celsius (-145,48 degrees Fahrenheit). But that's not all: as it never rains or snows, the continent is also the driest and windiest in the world, with wind speeds reaching in excess of 250 kmph (155 mph).
No sense of time
Antarctica comprises the continent and the southern polar sea. The Antarctic Polar Front forms the boundary, where the northern extension of the Southern Ocean separates the cold surface water in the south from the warmer water in the north. Antarctica is located on all longitudes and extends over all time zones. Most research stations operate on the time in their home country.
Temporary residents The Antarctic population is made up of the international research teams. In summer about 4000 scientists live on the continent, and during the harsh Antarctic winter only about 1000. There are 80 research stations that they can stay in, which are currently operated by almost 30 countries. Pictured is the German Neumayer Station III of the Alfred Wegener Institute.
Real locals With a length of just seven millimetres, these little guys are considered to be the largest land animals permanently living in Antarctica: the Antartic midge (Belgica antarctica). The development of the larva into an adult takes about two years. Most of the time, the larvae are frozen in the ice – real survivors!
Oh, hi! Finally: no, contrary to some fictional depictions, there are no polar bears in the Antarctic – they live in the Arctic Circle at the other end of the Earth. But there are penguins in Antarctica. However, only four of the 17 known penguin species are native to Antarctica. This small emperor penguin is just one of them.
West Antarctic ice sheet has not reached its tipping point towards irreversible collapse – yet, new research finds
There is a limited window of time before large-scale, irreversible ice loss in the Antarctic starts, according to new research from Northumbria University
In the first study of its kind, researchers from Northumbria University examined the current state of the Antarctic ice sheet, which reveals no evidence that a tipping point towards large-scale, irreversible collapse has been crossed – yet.
However, researchers found even with no additional global warming, an irreversible collapse of some regions of the West Antarctic ice sheet is possible.
While ice loss in Antarctica is expected to continue, authors say these studies give slight hope it might be possible to avoid or delay the tipping point, but with urgent action.
There is a limited window of time before large-scale, irreversible ice loss in the Antarctic starts, according to new research from Northumbria University.
For the first time, two collaborative papers published today in The Cryosphere journal, examined whether the Antarctic ice sheet has already reached a tipping point towards permanent unstoppable retreat.
The ongoing ice loss in Antarctica has raised concerns that the West Antarctic ice sheet might already be destabilised and ‘past the point of no return’.
However, researchers have now systematically analysed this question and found there is no evidence that it has already reached its tipping point.
The modelling study – carried out by Northumbria University and several research institutions across Europe – used three different computer models to run a series of simulations to conduct a thorough inspection looking for signs of irreversible retreat of the Antarctic ice sheet in its present form.
Authors of the study say whilst ice loss in Antarctica will continue in the future, these results give slight hope that it might still be possible to avoid or delay crossing the tipping point, if urgent action is taken.
Dr Emily Hill, Research Fellow at Northumbria University and report co-author, said: “The implications are profound. We used three different numerical models which all showed that we have not yet crossed a tipping point that leads to irreversible ice loss in Antarctica.
“Using several models makes our findings even more convincing, and it is reassuring to know that we haven’t yet passed the point of no return.”
However, the researchers also ran hypothetical simulations to investigate how the ice sheet might evolve if current climate conditions stay as they are. They found that even with no additional global warming, an irreversible collapse of some marine regions of West Antarctica’s ice sheet is possible in the future.
One of their models shows the earliest that this could happen is within 300-500 years under current conditions, warning that accelerating climate change is likely to shorten this timescale further.
Antarctica’s ice masses store enough water to raise sea levels by several metres around the globe and remain one of the greatest uncertainties in future projections of the effects of climate change.
Dr Ronja Reese, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at Northumbria University and report co-author, said:“Accelerated ice loss at the margins of the ice sheet could signal a collapse of larger marine regions. Our experiments show that an irreversible collapse in some marine regions in West Antarctica is possible for the current climate conditions.
“Importantly, this collapse is not happening yet, as our first study shows, and it evolves over thousands of years. But we would expect that further climate warming in the future will speed this up substantially.”
The research forms part of a major £4 million EU-funded study on Tipping Points in Antarctic Climate Components (TiPACCs) bringing together experts from the UK, Norway, Germany and France to investigate the likelihood of abrupt changes in the movement of ice in the Antarctic region.
Petra Langebroek, Research Director at the Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), and Scientific Coordinator of the European TiPACCs Project, said:“I am very proud to see this work published. This tight collaboration across different European institutes has resulted in major progress in our understanding of Antarctic ice sheet stability and tipping points.
“This is somewhat good news. We have not yet crossed these tipping point in Antarctica, which – in theory – means that the ongoing ice loss can be reduced or even stopped. Unfortunately, our research also shows that with ongoing climate change, we are headed to crossing tipping points in West Antarctica.”
Northumbria University is home to one of the world’s leading groups in the studies of the interactions between ice sheets and oceans. The team of researchers are working to explore the future of ice sheets and glaciers worldwide in a warming world. This involves understanding the causes of ongoing changes in Antarctica, Greenland and alpine areas, as well as assessing future changes and resulting impacts on human environments globally.
Pre-prints of the papers are available as follows:
1The stability of present-day Antarctic grounding lines – Part 2: Onset of irreversible retreat of Amundsen Sea glaciers under current climate on centennial timescales cannot be excluded.Ronja Reese, Julius Garbe, Emily A. Hill, Benoît Urruty, Kaitlin A. Naughten, Olivier Gagliardini, Gaël Durand, Fabien Gillet-Chaulet, G. Hilmar Gudmundsson, David Chandler, Petra M. Langebroek, and Ricarda Winkelmann. https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-105/
2The stability of present-day Antarctic grounding lines – Part 1: No indication of marine ice sheet instability in the current geometry. Emily A. Hill, Benoît Urruty, Ronja Reese, Julius Garbe, Olivier Gagliardini, Gaël Durand, Fabien Gillet-Chaulet, G. Hilmar Gudmundsson, Ricarda Winkelmann, Mondher Chekki2, David Chandler, and Petra M. Langebroek.https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-104/
3 Other research partners include: l'Institut des Géosciences de l'Environnement (IGE) at the Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE)
JOURNAL
The Cryosphere
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Computational simulation/modeling
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
The stability of present-day Antarctic grounding lines – Part 1: No indication of marine ice sheet instability in the current geometry.
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
7-Sep-2023
Stability inspection for West Antarctica shows: marine ice sheet is not destabilized yet, but possibly on a path to tipping
POTSDAM INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE IMPACT RESEARCH (PIK)
Antarctica’s vast ice masses seem far away, yet they store enough water to raise global sea levels by several meters. A team of experts from European research institutes has now provided the first systematic stability inspection of the ice sheet’s current state. Their diagnosis: While they found no indication of irreversible, self-reinforcing retreat of the ice sheet in West Antarctica yet, global warming to date could already be enough to trigger the slow but certain loss of ice over the next hundreds to thousands of years.
“With more and more ice being lost in Antarctica over the last years, concerns have been raised whether a tipping point has already been crossed and an irreversible, long-term collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has already been initiated,” explains Ronja Reese from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Northumbria University, Newcastle. “The results of our studies deliver two messages: First, while a number of glaciers in Antarctica are retreating at the moment, we find no indication of irreversible, self-reinforcing retreat yet, which is reassuring. However, our calculations also clearly indicate that an onset of an irreversible retreat of the ice sheet in West Antarctica is possible if the current state of the climate is sustained.”
The main driver of ice loss in West Antarctica is relatively warm ocean water that amplifies melting underneath the ice shelves, which are the floating extensions of the grounded ice sheet. Melting of these ice shelves can enhance ice loss as it speeds up the grounded sections of the ice sheet. That is why the Antarctic margin with its grounding lines – the zone where the grounded and the floating ice are connected – is a key indicator of ice sheet health. An accelerated retreat of the grounding lines could indicate a forthcoming collapse of large marine regions of West Antarctica’s ice sheet - those parts of the ice sheet that are grounded below sea level.
Evolving over 10,000 years, triggered today: irreversible ice-loss and sea-level rise
Using state-of-the-art ice sheet models, the researchers not only conducted a thorough inspection of signs of irreversible retreat of marine sectors of the Antarctic ice sheet at present, they also ran simulations to investigate how the ice sheet would evolve over the next 10,000 years if current conditions remained unchanged. These hypothetical experiments indicate that even with no additional warming beyond what we have already experienced today, an irreversible collapse of some marine regions of West Antarctica’s ice sheet is possible. Because the ice reacts to changes in temperature very slowly, the authors find that collapse occurs in their simulations at the earliest in 300 to 500 years from now, under current climate forcing. A full collapse would take centuries to millennia.
“The thing with sea-level rise from Antarctica is not that changes would happen overnight as an immediate threat to coastal communities. The process of melting would happen over hundreds or thousands of years. However, the cause could be human actions today, as they have the power to trigger and commit a future of 10,000 years to several meters of global sea-level rise. And stronger warming in the future would even speed up this process,” Julius Garbe from PIK stresses.
Changes in ice discharge from Antarctica remain one of the greatest uncertainties in future projections of global sea-level rise. “The Antarctic ice is our ultimate heritage of the past, millions of years old and often coined ‘eternal’ ice. But our work shows: while current ice loss may still be reversible, a destabilization of marine sectors of the ice sheet could initiate a long-term ice loss that is slow but certain. Climate change today could already be enough to tip the scales, that is concerning. Yet, with West Antarctica not destabilized yet there is still a chance to mitigate at least some of the risk by ambitious climate action,” Ricarda Winkelmann from PIK concludes.
Emily A. Hill, Benoît Urruty, Ronja Reese, Julius Garbe, Olivier Gagliardini, Gaël Durand, Fabien Gillet-Chaulet, G. Hilmar Gudmundsson, Ricarda Winkelmann, Mondher Chekki, David Chandler, Petra M. Langebroek (2023): The stability of present-day Antarctic grounding lines – Part 1: No indication of marine ice sheet instability in the current geometry, The Cryosphere, 17, 3739–3759 [DOI: 10.5194/tc-17-3739-2023]
Ronja Reese, Julius Garbe, Emily A. Hill, Benoît Urruty, Kaitlin A. Naughten, Olivier Gagliardini, Gaël Durand, Fabien Gillet-Chaulet, G. Hilmar Gudmundsson, David Chandler, Petra M. Langebroek, Ricarda Winkelmann (2023): The stability of present-day Antarctic grounding lines – Part 2: Onset of irreversible retreat of Amundsen Sea glaciers under current climate on centennial timescales cannot be excluded, The Cryosphere, 17, 3761–3783 [DOI: 10.5194/tc-17-3761-2023]
The world saw another year full of extreme weather events resulting from climate change in 2022, from intense storms to soaring temperatures and rising sea levels. Antarctica was no exception, according to new research published this week.
In the 33rd annual State of the Climate report, an international assessment of the global climate published Sept. 6 in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, CU Boulder researchers report that the planet’s coldest and driest continent experienced both an unprecedented heatwave and extreme precipitation last year.
“My hope is that the public starts to see both the fragility and complexity of these polar regions,” said Rajashree Tri Datta, a research associate in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences who contributed to sections of the report related to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
While Antarctica may seem isolated from the rest of the world, changes to the icy continent could significantly impact the rest of the world.
“Most of the planet’s fresh water is held on the ice sheet of Antarctica. What happens there ends up affecting coasts across the world, and what affects coasts across the world impacts everything from agriculture to migration patterns,” Datta said.
In recent years, scientists have observed rapid sea ice decline and enhanced warming there. Regions of Antarctica, such as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, have started to lose ice rapidly, contributing to sea level rise.
Datta and her team report that for six days last March, a large region of East Antarctica experienced temperatures exceeding 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) above the historic March average from 1991 to 2020. The temperature recorded at a weather station in the interior of East Antarctica reached a record-breaking 14.7 F (-9.6C) on March 16, 2022, more than 79 F (44 C) higher than the average March temperature at that location.
Normally, March marks the transition from summer to winter in Antarctica, and the temperature drops rapidly. Following the heatwave, the Conger Ice shelf, a floating tongue of ice the size of Rome, collapsed in East Antarctica. This ice shelf had become increasingly vulnerable over the years. The collapse of floating ice shelves can often hasten the loss of upstream glaciers, resulting in ice loss and sea level rise.
As people around the world also experienced more frequent and intense heatwaves in 2022, Datta said the team’s research provides an opportunity to communicate with the public about climate change in Antarctica in a way that resonates with them.
“They know what a heatwave means. They experience it in their daily lives, and it is impacting Antarctica as well, although in very different ways” Datta said.
Unprecedented snowfall too
East Antarctica also saw an unprecedented amount of snowfall last March, tripling the month’s mean precipitation in some locations compared with the March average between 1991 and 2020. As a result, the annual balance of snow and ice retained on the surface of the ice sheet reached the highest value in the 40 years since the observational data became available.
“The strong precipitation this year is very interesting, because it offsets the ice loss around the margins of Antarctica,” Datta said. “The snowfall this year actually protected the world against sea level rise.”
Weather phenomena called atmospheric rivers—much like those that fueled record flooding in California this year—contributed to both the heatwave and the record precipitation, Datta said. These storms pull moisture from lower latitudes and delivered warm air and a large amount of precipitation to Antarctica in 2022.
While precipitation in Antarctica typically takes the form of snow, changes in these atmospheric rivers could bring enough heat to contribute to more surface melt or bring rain instead in the future, driving sea levels higher and impacting billions of people around the world, she said. Greenland, which is much warmer than Antarctica, is already experiencing many of these impacts.
The State of the Climate report, a collaboration of more than 570 international scientists, also reported that Earth’s greenhouse gas concentrations reached a new record last year. The global annual average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was 50% greater than the pre-industrial level, the highest measured amount in modern observational records. The amount of heat stored in the ocean continued to increase, as did global sea levels, reaching about 4 inches on average above the 1993 mean.
In another section of the report, Twila Moon, the deputy lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at CU Boulder, reported that weather pattern shifts are also affecting the planet’s other pole.
"Observations over the past forty-plus years show a transition to a wetter Arctic, with seasonal shifts and widespread disturbances influencing the flora, fauna, physical systems, and peoples of the Arctic," Moon and her team wrote.
"The report adds pieces to the larger puzzle of how climate change can impact Antarctica,” Datta said. “Many of these dramatic events in 2022, and further research into their causes and effects, can arm us with a better understanding of our potential future.”
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