Showing 11506 items
29 January, 2025 by Isobel Rowell, Jack Humby, Louise Sime, Robert Mulvaney
The fate of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the largest cause of uncertainty in long-term sea-level projections. In the last interglacial (LIG) around 125,000 years ago, data suggest…Read more on The Ronne Ice Shelf survived the last interglacial
29 January, 2025 by Irene Malmierca Vallet, Louise Sime, Rahul Sivankutty, Sentia Goursaud
The Last Interglacial (LIG) period, approximately 130,000 to 115,000 years ago, represents one of the warmest intervals in the past 800,000 years. Here we simulate water isotopes in precipitation in…28 January, 2025 by Megan Malpas
Stable boundary layers (SBLs) commonly form during the Arctic polar night, but their correct representation poses a major challenge for numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems. To enable detailed model verification,…28 January, 2025 by Anna Jones, Floortje Van Den Heuvel, Markus Frey, Thomas Lachlan-Cope
In order to reduce the uncertainty of aerosol radiative forcing in global climate models, we need to better understand natural aerosol sources which are important to constrain the current and…28 January, 2025 by Rosie Williams, James Byrne, Scott Hosking, Robert Arthern
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is losing ice and its annual contribution to sea level is increasing. The future behaviour of WAIS will impact societies worldwide, yet deep uncertainty…27 January, 2025 by Jasmine Lee, Peter Convey
Antarctica is one of Earth's most untouched, inhospitable, and poorly known regions. Although knowledge of its biodiversity has increased over recent decades, a diverse, wide-ranging, and spatially explicit compilation of…Read more on The biodiversity of ice-free Antarctica database [Data paper]
26 January, 2025 by Qinggang Gao
Precessional forcing is a key driver of quaternary climate change. Based on 24 experiments covering a full precession cycle, this study explores spatio-temporal variations of both climate and isotope signals…Read more on Precession Controls on Climate and Water Isotope Signals in Northern Africa
25 January, 2025 by Thomas Caton Harrison
=The Central England Temperature (CET) series is one of the longest instrumental climate records in the world. The CET record from 1659 represents a roughly triangular area of England extending…Read more on An Update to the Central England Temperature Series— HadCET v2.1
24 January, 2025 by Joanne Johnson
Unambiguous identification of past episodes of ice sheet thinning below the modern surface and grounding line retreat inboard of present requires recovery and exposure dating of subglacial bedrock. Such efforts…22 January, 2025 by Lloyd Peck
Just and fair transitions to low-carbon and nature-positive ways of living need to occur fast enough to limit and reverse the climate and nature crises, but not so fast that…22 January, 2025 by Dani Jones
Submesoscale eddies are important features in the upper ocean where they mediate air-sea exchanges, convey heat and tracer fluxes into ocean interior, and enhance biological production. However, due to their…22 January, 2025 by Jose Marques Queiros, Mark Belchier, Philip Hollyman
Food-webs are a major component of ecosystems and determinant for their functioning and structure. The food chain length (FCL) is a key feature of food-webs and it is crucial for…22 January, 2025 by Cameron Trotter, Huw Griffiths, Rowan Whittle
The analysis of image data for benthic biodiversity monitoring is now commonplace within the domain of marine ecology. Whilst advances in imaging technologies have allowed for the collection of vast…Read more on Surveying the deep: A review of computer vision in the benthos
22 January, 2025 by Dominic Hodgson, Kevin Hughes, Peter Convey
Antarctica, Earth’s least understood and most remote continent, is threatened by human disturbances and climate-related changes, underscoring the imperative for biodiversity inventories to inform conservation. Antarctic ecosystems support unique species…21 January, 2025 by Alistair Monteath
Anthropogenic climate warming is degrading permafrost across Interior Alaska. Information from past warming events provides long-term perspectives of future trajectories, however, late Quaternary seasonal temperatures are poorly constrained. We established…20 January, 2025 by Kevin Hughes, Kudzai Hwengwere, Lloyd Peck, Melody Clark
Despite being recognised as a global problem, our understanding of human-mediated antimicrobial resistance (AMR) spread to remote regions of the world is limited. Antarctica, often referred to as “the last…17 January, 2025 by Freya Squires
The North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study (ACSIS) was a large multidisciplinary research programme funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). ACSIS ran from 2016 to 2022 and…17 January, 2025 by Jonathan Adams, Joanne Johnson, Stephen Roberts
Cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating is an important technique for reconstructing glacial histories. Many of the most commonly applied cosmogenic nuclides are extracted from the mineral quartz, meaning sampling of felsic…16 January, 2025 by Louise Sime
Antarctic ice cores can help determine ice mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) during past warm periods. We compile Last Interglacial (LIG) δ18O measurements from eight Antarctic cores…16 January, 2025 by Jeremy Wilkinson
Frequency-domain electromagnetic induction (EMI) is routinely used to detect the presence of seawater due to the inherent electrical conductivity of the seawater. This approach is used to infer sea-ice thickness…16 January, 2025 by Andrew McDonald, Scott Hosking
In this paper, we explore the crucial role and challenges of computational reproducibility in geosciences, drawing insights from the Climate Informatics Reproducibility Challenge (CICR) in 2023. The competition aimed at…15 January, 2025 by Mark Clilverd
Subionospheric very low-frequency (VLF) radio signals are reflected by free electrons in the ionospheric D-region at about 60–90 km altitude and can propagate over long distances, which makes them useful for…Read more on Investigation of the October effect in very low-frequency (VLF) signals
15 January, 2025 by Dominic Hodgson, Stephen Roberts
Anthropogenic mercury (Hg) emissions to the atmosphere have increased the concentration of this potent neurotoxin in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The magnitude of regional variation in atmospheric Hg pollution levels…Read more on Perspectives on using peat records to reconstruct past atmospheric Hg levels
13 January, 2025 by Peter Convey
Polar marine macroalgae thrive in extreme conditions, often displaying geographic isolation and high degree of endemism. The “phycosphere” refers to the zone around the algae inhabited by microrganisms. Our study…8 January, 2025 by Lorena Romero Martinez
Diatom resting stages can remain viable in sediments for decades and germinate when exposed to suitable environmental conditions, inoculating the water column and the surface sediments with new populations of…7 January, 2025 by Alistair Monteath
The number of cryptotephra (non-visible volcanic ash) records from northeastern North America is unique in the continent. The resulting tephrostratigraphic framework includes ash deposits sourced from volcanic arcs across the…7 January, 2025 by Andrew Orr
In this study, we investigate the complex relationship between western disturbances (WDs), the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and extreme precipitation events (EPEs) in the western Himalaya (WH) during the extended…6 January, 2025 by Katrin Linse
Understanding how ecological, environmental and geographic features influence population genetic patterns provides crucial insights into a species' evolutionary history, as well as their vulnerability or resilience under climate change. In…2 January, 2025 by Thomas Bauska
Understanding the causes of past atmospheric methane (CH4) variability is important for characterizing the relationship between CH4, global climate and terrestrial biogeochemical cycling. Ice core records of atmospheric CH4 contain…Read more on Abrupt changes in biomass burning during the last glacial period
2 January, 2025 by Xu Zhang
Permafrost is a potentially important source of deglacial carbon release alongside deep-sea carbon outgassing. However, limited proxies have restricted our understanding in circumarctic regions and the last deglaciation. Tibetan Plateau…2 January, 2025 by Dave Munday, Dani Jones, Rachel Furner
Machine learning (ML) techniques have emerged as a powerful tool for predicting weather and climate systems. However, much of the progress to date focuses on predicting the short-term evolution of…Read more on The challenge of land in a neural network ocean model
2 January, 2025 by Raghul Parthipan
Atmospheric models used for weather and climate prediction are traditionally formulated in a deterministic manner. In other words, given a particular state of the resolved scale variables, the most likely…Read more on Machine learning for stochastic parametrization
1 January, 2025 by Joanne Johnson
We review successes and challenges from five recent subglacial bedrock drilling campaigns intended to find evidence for Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat during warm periods in the geologic past. Insights into…Read more on Lessons learned from shallow subglacial bedrock drilling campaigns in Antarctica
1 January, 2025 by Andrew Wood, Richard Phillips, Victoria Warwick-Evans
The Antarctic seasonal sea-ice zone (SIZ) is one of the most extensive and dynamic habitats on Earth. In summer, increased insolation and ice melt cause primary production to peak, sustaining…1 January, 2025 by Clara Manno
Monitoring the movement of plastic into marine food webs is central to understanding and mitigating the plastic pollution crisis. Bioindicators have been a component of the environmental monitoring toolkit for…1 January, 2025 by Rebecca Peel, Stephen Roberts
Microplastic pollution is a growing environmental problem. Consequently, an emerging area of research is the analysis of these micro-particles, to identify the distribution and impacts of plastic in the environment.…1 January, 2025 by Lloyd Peck
We discuss the outcomes of our 16th horizon scan of issues that are novel or represent a considerable step-change and have the potential to substantially affect conservation of biological diversity…Read more on A horizon scan of biological conservation issues for 2025
1 January, 2025 by David Pearce
Microorganisms have traditionally accelerated the study of ecology and evolution owing to their relatively short generation times and astronomical population sizes. Indeed, their potential in helping us to understand the…Read more on Crucial stepping stones in freshwater microbiology [News]
1 January, 2025 by David Pearce
Arctic biodiversity is under threat from both climate-induced environmental change and anthropogenic activity. However, the rapid rate of change and the challenging conditions for studying Arctic environments mean that many…1 January, 2025 by Carlos Martin Garcia
Ice rises hold valuable records revealing the ice dynamics and climatic history of Antarctic coastal areas from the Last Glacial Maximum to today. This history is often reconstructed from isochrone…Read more on Investigating the dynamic history of a promontory ice rise using radar data
1 January, 2025 by Scott Hosking
Machine learning models have been used extensively in hydrology, but issues persist with regard to their transparency, and there is currently no identifiable best practice for forcing variables in streamflow…Read more on Streamflow prediction using artificial neural networks and soil moisture proxies
31 December, 2024 by Timothy Jones
Behavioural plasticity is an important mechanism allowing animals to cope with changing environments. Theory has hypothesized the existence of ‘plasticity syndromes’—positive correlations in plasticity across multiple behaviours within an individual—affording…30 December, 2024 by Aidan Hunter, Arlie McCarthy, Clara Manno, Sally Thorpe
Marine microplastic is pervasive, polluting the remotest ecosystems including the Southern Ocean. Since this region is already undergoing climatic changes, the additional stress of microplastic pollution on the ecosystem should…28 December, 2024 by Elizabeth Collingwood, Gareth Marshall, Hua Lu, John King
Improvement of subseasonal to seasonal North Atlantic winter forecasting requires better prediction of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the dominant mode of variability in the Northern Hemisphere. Despite recent research…Read more on Meridional wind in the upper stratosphere: A source of winter NAO predictability
28 December, 2024 by Jonathan Adams, Joanne Johnson, Stephen Roberts
Constraining past West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) change helps validate numerical models simulating future ice sheet dynamics. Following rapid deglaciation during the mid-Holocene, ice near Thwaites Glacier was ∼35 m…27 December, 2024 by Peter Convey
Biomass is a key parameter in ecology, as it provides insight into ecosystem functioning. Length-mass estimations are widely used for this purpose due to the relatively simple and straightforward procedures…23 December, 2024 by Julie Jupe, Kevin Hughes
The relevance of education and outreach (E&O) activities about the Antarctic Treaty has been recognized at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCM) and at the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP).…21 December, 2024 by Alexander Tate, Alice Fremand
Knowledge about seafloor depth, or bathymetry, is crucial for various marine activities, including scientific research, offshore industry, safety of navigation, and ocean exploration. Mapping the central Arctic Ocean is challenging…Read more on The International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean Version 5.0
20 December, 2024 by Kate Hendry
Accelerated mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet leads to retreating glaciers and enhanced freshwater runoff to adjacent coastal regions, potentially providing additional essential nutrients, such as silicon, to downstream…20 December, 2024 by Matthew Lang
Solar-wind forecasting is critical for predicting events which can affect Earth's technological systems. Typically, forecasts combine coronal model outputs with heliospheric models to predict near-Earth conditions. Ensemble forecasting generates sets…Read more on Adapting Ensemble‐Calibration Techniques to Probabilistic Solar‐Wind Forecasting
19 December, 2024 by Andrew Meijers
Recent Antarctic sea-ice decline is a substantial source of concern, notably the record low in 2023 (ref. 1 ). Progress has been made towards establishing the causes of ice loss…Read more on Record-low Antarctic sea ice in 2023 increased ocean heat loss and storms
19 December, 2024 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Robert Larter
Through the Cenozoic (66–0 Ma), the dominant mode of ocean surface circulation in the Southern Ocean transitioned from two large subpolar gyres to circumpolar circulation with a strong Antarctic Circumpolar Current…19 December, 2024 by Peter Convey
To better understand the long-distance dispersal of fungi between South America and Antarctica, we assessed aerial fungal diversity based on environmental DNA samples along a South Atlantic transect from Brazil…18 December, 2024 by Anna Belcher, Geraint Tarling, Gabriele Stowasser, Sophie Fielding
The Controls Over Mesopelagic Interior Carbon Storage (COMICS) cruise DY086 took place aboard the RRS Discovery in the South Atlantic during November and December, 2017. Physical, chemical, biogeochemical and biological…17 December, 2024 by Richard Horne, Sarah Glauert, Thomas Daggitt
The density of low energy charged particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field can influence how higher energy trapped electrons are affected by natural radio waves within the magnetic field. We…17 December, 2024 by Peter Convey
Despite increasing awareness of the threats they pose, exotic species continue to arrive in Antarctica with anthropogenic assistance, some of which inevitably have the potential to become aggressively invasive. Here,…17 December, 2024 by Xu Zhang
The Southern Ocean plays a key role in atmospheric CO2 sequestration, accounting for ~40-50% of the anthropogenic CO2 absorbed by the modern ocean (Landschützer et al., 2015; Gruber et al.,…17 December, 2024 by Kevin Hughes
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current reduces the oceanographic transport of organisms from adjacent temperate ecosystems southward. Additionally, the extreme environmental conditions in the Antarctic marine environment, in particular south of the…Read more on Marine non-native species in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica
16 December, 2024 by Tracy Moffat-Griffin
During austral winter, the southern high latitudes has some of the most intense stratospheric gravity wave (GW) activity globally. However, producing accurate representations of GW dynamics in this region in…15 December, 2024 by Anne-Pia Marty, Lloyd Peck, Melody Clark
The Antarctic seabed harbors significant biodiversity, and almost 90% of oceanic environments are permanently below 5 °C (i.e., deep sea and polar regions). However, organisms whose entire lifecycle occurs around…13 December, 2024 by Nigel Meredith
Auroral precipitation is the second major energy source after solar irradiation that ionizes the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Diffuse electron aurora caused by wave-particle interaction in the inner magnetosphere (L <…13 December, 2024 by Liz Thomas, Roseanne Smith, Siobhan Johnson
Marine-sourced fatty acids provide a promising new suite of proxies for past sea-ice reconstructions, validated using ice cores from Bouvet Island, Greenland, and Alaska. Despite showing great potential as a…11 December, 2024 by Louise Sime
Paleoclimate information has played an instrumental role in showing how fast climate can vary and how large these changes can be. It provided the first vivid demonstration of the relationships…10 December, 2024 by Jack Humby
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent anthropogenic contaminants, some of which are toxic and bioaccumulative. Perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) and perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids (PFSAs) can form during the atmospheric…10 December, 2024 by Madeleine Lewis
Madeleine Lewis explains how a needle and peristaltic pump system can be used to isolate supraglacial meltwater.Read more on Using a vacuum to collect glacial meltwater from ice
10 December, 2024 by Robert Mulvaney
Past climate and environmental changes can be reconstructed using paleoclimate archives such as ice cores, lake and marine sediment cores, speleothems, tree rings, and corals. The dating of these natural…8 December, 2024 by Chester Sands, George Foot, Kevin Newsham, Will Goodall-Copestake
The occurrence of mycothalli, symbioses between liverworts and fungi bearing similarities to mycorrhizas, is poorly documented in sub-Antarctica, and biogeographical patterns in Serendipita, one of the main fungal genera forming…Read more on A cosmopolitan Serendipita forms mycothalli with sub-Antarctic leafy liverworts
7 December, 2024 by Nigel Meredith, Richard Horne
Relativistic electrons cause internal charging on satellites and are a significant space weather hazard. In this study we analyze approximately 20 years of data from the US Global Positioning System…Read more on Strong Relativistic Electron Flux Events in GPS orbit
6 December, 2024 by Emma Woodfield, Richard Horne
An abundant multi-MeV electron population beyond the orbit of Io is required to explain the intense inner radiation belt (electrons >50 MeV) at Jupiter and its synchrotron radiation. In order…6 December, 2024 by Emma Woodfield, Richard Horne
The spatial distribution of whistler-mode wave emissions in the Jovian magnetosphere measured during the first 45 perijove orbits of Juno is investigated. A double-belt structure in whistler-mode wave intensity is…Read more on Jupiter’s Whistler-mode Belts and Electron Slot Region
6 December, 2024 by Markus Frey, Shaun Miller
Photochemical release of iodine from snow has been suggested as a source of reactive iodine to the Arctic atmosphere, however understanding of the underlying mechanism and potential source strength is…6 December, 2024 by Peter Convey
The conservation of the Antarctic ecosystem is linked to scientific and tourism activities. The Colección Activa de Plantas Vasculares Antárticas at the Universidad de Concepción aims to help conserve the…5 December, 2024 by Caroline Holmes, Jeremy Wilkinson, Paul Holland, Thomas Bracegirdle
Most climate models do not reproduce the 1979–2014 increase in Antarctic sea ice cover. This was a contributing factor in successive Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports allocating low confidence…5 December, 2024 by Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is Earth's largest current flowing around Antarctica at all depths and connecting major ocean basins, thus representing an important component of Earth's climate. However, the…4 December, 2024 by Iain Rudkin
Arctic regions are among the fastest warming areas of the planet. Increasing average temperatures over the last five decades have deepened the thawing of the upper-most layer of permafrost across…Read more on PRA Melting-ICE Project: Svalbard 2022 Expeditions Report
3 December, 2024 by Michael Meredith
High-latitude pelagic marine ecosystems are vulnerable to climate change because of the intertwining of sea/continental ice dynamics, physics, biogeochemistry, and food-web structure. Data from the West Antarctic Peninsula allow us…Read more on Antarctic pelagic ecosystems on a warming planet
2 December, 2024 by Jakob Thyrring, Lloyd Peck
The availability of online biodiversity data has increased in recent decades, aiding our understanding of diversity patterns and species richness–environment relationships across temporal and spatial scales. However, even the most…2 December, 2024 by Richard Phillips
Knowledge of how animals respond to weather and changes in their physical environment is increasingly important, given the higher frequency of extreme weather recorded in recent years and its forecasted…Read more on Strong winds reduce foraging success in albatrosses
2 December, 2024 by Huw Griffiths, Stephen Roberts
The Arctic is undergoing dramatic changes, including an unprecedented decline in sea ice. Previous studies have shown the severe structuring impact of sea ice scour upon polar intertidal communities. A…2 December, 2024 by Simon Morley
The Antarctic marine environment has a unique geologic and climatic history that has contributed to the evolution of high species diversity. Given the current trend of environmental warming, understanding the…1 December, 2024 by Alex Brisbourne, Andy Smith
Although over 600 Antarctic subglacial lakes have been identified using radar and satellite observations, the bathymetry and bed properties, which are key to understanding conditions within the lake, have been…Read more on Bathymetry and bed conditions of Lago Subglacial CECs, West Antarctica
1 December, 2024 by Alex Brisbourne, Andy Smith, Ronan Agnew
We present seismic measurements of the firn column at Korff Ice Rise, West Antarctica, including measurements of compressional-wave velocity and attenuation. We describe a modified spectral-ratio method of measuring the…1 December, 2024 by Jeremy Wilkinson
A major consideration for maritime activity in the Southern Hemisphere is the northern limit of icebergs, or the Southern Ocean Limit Of Known Ice (SOLOKI). This analysis of historical reports…1 December, 2024 by Liz Thomas
Stable water isotope records of six firn cores retrieved from two adjacent plateaus on the northern Antarctic Peninsula between 2014 and 2016 are presented and investigated for their connections with…1 December, 2024 by Kevin Newsham
The surface temperatures of Antarctic soils and bryophyte colonies can fluctuate from close to freezing point to approximately 20 °C under clear skies around solar noon during midsummer. However, whether diurnally…Read more on Diurnal temperature fluctuation inhibits the growth of an Antarctic fungus
1 December, 2024 by Cameron Fox-Clarke, Camille Toscani, Claire Stainfield, Jaume Forcada
Immune defenses are crucial for survival but costly to develop and maintain. Increased immune investment is therefore hypothesized to trade-off with other life-history traits. Here, we examined innate and adaptive…1 December, 2024
Background - Assessing the historical dynamics of key food web components is crucial to understand how climate change impacts the structure of Arctic marine ecosystems. Most retrospective stable isotopic studies…Read more on Insights on long-term ecosystem changes from stable isotopes in historical squid beaks
1 December, 2024 by Peter Convey
Species arrival sequence in new habitats impacts plant community development. This ‘priority-effect’ is documented, but mechanisms by which early arriving plants dominate future communities are less clear, complicating our ability…1 December, 2024 by Keith Nicholls
Rift propagation, rather than basal melt, drives the destabilization and disintegration of the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf. Since 2016, rifts have episodically advanced throughout the central ice-shelf area, with rapid…1 December, 2024 by Peter Convey
Microalgae are gaining considerable attention in the field of cosmeceuticals due to their unique profile. In particular, the diverse range of valuable bioactive compounds isolated from microalgae are known to…1 December, 2024 by Gaelle Veyssiere, Jeremy Wilkinson
Salt is often present in the snow overlying seasonal sea ice, and has profound thermodynamic and electromagnetic effects. However, its provenance and behaviour within the snow remain uncertain. We describe…1 December, 2024 by Peter Convey
Recent studies have demonstrated the presence of fungal taxa in the extreme ecosystems of Antarctica that are known to opportunistically infect humans and animals. Among these are members of the…1 December, 2024 by Alexandra Weiss, Daniel Beeden, Thomas Lachlan-Cope
The THINICE field campaign, based from Svalbard in August 2022, provided unique observations of summertime Arctic cyclones, their coupling with cloud cover, and interactions with tropopause polar vortices and sea…1 December, 2024 by Peter Convey
Arctic terrestrial invertebrate biodiversity is generally poorly known, but the archipelago of Svalbard has one of the most up-to-date inventories of its terrestrial and freshwater faunas of any Arctic region,…1 December, 2024 by Kevin Newsham
1. Wildfires are important natural disturbances with profound ecological impacts. However, our understanding of how to restore plant–soil microbiome interactions following wildfires remains limited, revealing a key knowledge gap in…1 December, 2024 by Keith Nicholls
The increase in iceberg discharge into the polar oceans highlights the importance of understanding how quickly icebergs are deteriorating and where the resulting freshwater injection is occurring. Recent advances in…1 December, 2024 by Ingrid Cnossen
The climate of the upper atmosphere, including the mesosphere, thermosphere and ionosphere, is changing. As data records are much more limited than in the lower atmosphere and solar variability becomes…