Our publications
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Record low surface air temperature at Vostok Station, Antarctica
27 December, 2009 by Amelie Kirchgaessner, Andrew Orr, David Vaughan, Gareth Marshall, John King, John Turner, Steve Colwell, Thomas Bracegirdle, Thomas Lachlan-Cope, Tony Phillips
The lowest recorded air temperature at the surface of the Earth was a measurement of −89.2°C made at Vostok station, Antarctica, at 0245 UT on 21 July 1983. Here we…Read more on Record low surface air temperature at Vostok Station, Antarctica
Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide
17 November, 2009
Efforts to control climate change require the stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This can only be achieved through a drastic reduction of global CO2 emissions. Yet fossil fuel emissions increased…Read more on Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide
Bringing home the trash: Do colony-based differences in foraging distribution lead to increased plastic ingestion in Laysan albatrosses?
28 October, 2009 by Vsevolod Afanasyev
When searching for prey, animals should maximize energetic gain, while minimizing energy expenditure by altering their movements relative to prey availability. However, with increasing amounts of marine debris, what once…From the eye of the albatrosses: A bird-borne camera shows an association between albatrosses and a killer whale in the Southern Ocean
1 October, 2009 by Philip Trathan
Albatrosses fly many hundreds of kilometers across the open ocean to find and feed upon their prey. Despite the growing number of studies concerning their foraging behaviour, relatively little is…Ice core evidence for significant 100-year regional warming on the Antarctic Peninsula
1 October, 2009 by Liz Thomas, Thomas Bracegirdle
We present a new 150-year, high-resolution, stable isotope record (delta O-18) from the Gomez ice core, drilled on the data sparse south western Antarctic Peninsula, revealing a similar to 2.7…Read more on Ice core evidence for significant 100-year regional warming on the Antarctic Peninsula
Three-dimensional diffusion simulation of outer radiation belt electrons during the 9 October 1990 magnetic storm
30 September, 2009 by Nigel Meredith, Richard Horne
Relativistic (>1 MeV) electron flux increases in the Earth's radiation belts are significantly underestimated by models that only include transport and loss processes, suggesting that some additional acceleration process is…Mixing on the continental slope of the southern Weddell Sea
18 September, 2009 by Povl Abrahamsen
Shipboard hydrography and current profiles collected in 2003 and time series from moored current meters deployed in late 1990s are analyzed to study the variability of mixing in the southeastern…Read more on Mixing on the continental slope of the southern Weddell Sea
Spatial distribution of average vorticity in the high-latitude ionosphere and its variation with interplanetary magnetic field direction and season
2 September, 2009 by Gareth Chisham, Mervyn Freeman
We present a technique to measure the magnetic field-aligned vorticity of meso-scale plasma flows in the F-region ionosphere using line-of-sight velocity measurements made by the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network…Spatial variation in seabed temperatures in the Southern Ocean: implications for benthic ecology and biogeography
1 September, 2009 by Andrew Clarke, David Barnes, Huw Griffiths, Michael Meredith, Susie Grant
The Antarctic seabed has traditionally been regarded as cold and thermally stable, with little spatial or seasonal variation in temperature. Here we demonstrate marked spatial variations in continental shelf seabed…Understanding oceanic migrations with intrinsic biogeochemical markers
1 July, 2009
Migratory marine vertebrates move annually across remote oceanic water masses crossing international borders. Many anthropogenic threats such as overfishing, bycatch, pollution or global warming put millions of marine migrants at…Read more on Understanding oceanic migrations with intrinsic biogeochemical markers
Quasi-biennial oscillation influence on long-period planetary waves in the Antarctic upper mesosphere
16 May, 2009 by Elaina Ford
Long-period planetary wave data derived from meteor wind observations recorded over a 12-year period with the SuperDARN radar at Halley, Antarctica, are presented and compared with the phase of the…Trophic position of deep-sea fish – assessment through fatty acid and stable isotope analyses
1 May, 2009 by Gabriele Stowasser, Martin Collins
To investigate the trophic ecology of two of the dominant families of deep-sea fish (Macrouridae and Moridae) fatty acid and stable isotope analyses were applied to liver and muscle samples…Anatomy of a Dansgaard-Oeschger warming transition: High-resolution analysis of the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core
27 April, 2009 by Eric Wolff, Liz Thomas, Robert Mulvaney
Large and abrupt temperature oscillations during the last glacial period, known as Dansgaard‐Oeschger (DO) events, are clearly observed in the Greenland ice core record. Here we present a new high‐resolution…Non-annular atmospheric circulation change induced by stratospheric ozone depletion and its role in the recent increase of Antarctic sea ice extent
23 April, 2009 by Andrew Orr, Gareth Marshall, John Turner, Michael Meredith, Thomas Bracegirdle, Thomas Lachlan-Cope, Zhaomin Wang
Based on a new analysis of passive microwave satellite data, we demonstrate that the annual mean extent of Antarctic sea ice has increased at a statistically significant rate of 0.97%…Tracer-derived freshwater composition of the Siberian continental shelf and slope following the extreme Arctic summer of 2007
2 April, 2009 by Povl Abrahamsen, Michael Meredith
We investigate the freshwater composition of the shelf and slope of the Arctic Ocean north of the New Siberian Islands using geochemical tracer data (δ18O, Ba, and PO4*) collected following…UK-HiGEM: The New U.K. High Resolution Global Environment Model – Model description and basic evaluation
1 April, 2009 by John King
This article describes the development and evaluation of the U.K.'s new High-Resolution Global Environmental Model (HiGEM), which is based on the latest climate configuration of the Met Office Unified Model,…Consistent generation of ice-streams via thermo-viscous instabilities modulated by membrane stresses
25 March, 2009 by Richard Hindmarsh, Richard Hindmarsh
Accurate computation of ice-stream location and dynamics is a key aspiration for theoretical glaciology. Ice-sheet models with thermo-viscous coupling have been shown to exhibit stream-like instabilities using shallow-ice approximation mechanics,…Source regions for Antarctic MLT non-migrating semidiurnal tides
25 March, 2009
Source regions for the westward propagating zonal wavenumber one and three components of the semidiurnal tide observed in the summer mesosphere and lower thermosphere over Antarctica are identified by correlating…Read more on Source regions for Antarctic MLT non-migrating semidiurnal tides
Soil organic nitrogen mineralization across a global latitudinal gradient
24 March, 2009 by Kevin Newsham
Understanding and accurately predicting the fate of carbon and nitrogen in the terrestrial biosphere remains a central goal in ecosystem science. Amino acids represent a key pool of C and…Read more on Soil organic nitrogen mineralization across a global latitudinal gradient
Vertical mixing at intermediate depths in the Arctic boundary current
3 March, 2009 by Povl Abrahamsen
Microstructure and hydrographic observations, during September 2007 in the boundary current on the East Siberian continental slope, document upper ocean stratification and along-stream water mass changes. A thin warm surface…Read more on Vertical mixing at intermediate depths in the Arctic boundary current
A statistical study of the open magnetic flux content of the magnetosphere at the time of substorm onset
25 February, 2009 by Gareth Chisham, Mervyn Freeman
In this paper we determine the probability of substorm onset as a function of open magnetic flux in the magnetosphere by comparing the occurrence distribution of open flux observed at…Influence of trophic position and foraging range on mercury levels within a seabird community
1 January, 2009 by Richard Phillips
Seabirds are often advocated as biomonitors for marine contaminants such as mercury (Hg). However, contaminant levels can vary widely depending on among-individual and among-species variation in foraging preferences and physiology,…Diet, individual specialisation and breeding of brown skuas (Catharacta antarctica lonnbergi): An investigation using stable isotopes
1 January, 2009 by Richard Phillips
The diet of brown skuas (Catharacta antarctica lonnbergi) on Bird Island, South Georgia was assessed using a combination of stable isotope analysis (SIA) and mixing model techniques. We found evidence…The past is a guide to the future? Comparing Middle Pliocene vegetation with predicted biome distributions for the twenty-first century
1 January, 2009
During the Middle Pliocene, the Earth experienced greater global warmth compared with today, coupled with higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations. To determine the extent to which the Middle Pliocene can be…IMF clock angle control of multifractality in ionospheric velocity fluctuations
1 January, 2009 by Gareth Chisham, Mervyn Freeman
We present an analysis of 8 years of meridional line-of-sight ionospheric plasma velocity measurements from the Halley SuperDARN radar which investigates the effect of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) clock…Read more on IMF clock angle control of multifractality in ionospheric velocity fluctuations
Oscillations in the southern extent of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool during the mid-Holocene
1 January, 2009
The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) is thought to play a key role in the propagation and amplification of climate changes through its influence on the global distribution of heat and…Isolation and characterization of macaroni penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus) microsatellite loci and their utility in other penguin species (Spheniscidae, AVES)
1 January, 2009 by Philip Trathan
We report the characterization of 25 microsatellite loci isolated from the macaroni penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus). Thirteen loci were arranged into four multiplex sets for future genetic studies of macaroni penguin…Measurement of Prandtl number as a function of Richardson number avoiding self-correlation
1 January, 2009
The empirical dependence of turbulence Prandtl number (Pr) on gradient Richardson number (Ri) is presented, derived so as to avoid the effects of self-correlation from common variables. Linear power relationships…A re-appraisal of the total biomass and annual production of Antarctic krill
1 January, 2009
Despite much research on Euphausia superba, estimates of their total biomass and production are still very uncertain. Recently, circumpolar krill databases, combined with growth models and revisions in acoustics have…Read more on A re-appraisal of the total biomass and annual production of Antarctic krill
Intensified decadal variability in tropical climate during the late 19th century
1 January, 2009
To evaluate and extend the record of decadal climate variability, we present a synthesis of 23 coral oxygen isotope records from the tropical Indo-Pacific that extends back to A. D.…Read more on Intensified decadal variability in tropical climate during the late 19th century
Long-term changes in deep-water fish populations in the northeast Atlantic: a deeper reaching effect of fisheries?
1 January, 2009 by Martin Collins
A severe scarcity of life history and population data for deep-water fishes is a major impediment to successful fisheries management. Long-term data for non-target species and those living deeper than…Toward a better understanding of climate of the past million years
1 January, 2009 by Eric Wolff
Quaternary Climate: From Pole to Pole—EPICA Open Science Conference; Venice, Italy, 10–13 November 2008; The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) has provided unique paleoclimatic data and is…Read more on Toward a better understanding of climate of the past million years
Interhemispheric Atlantic seesaw response during the last deglaciation
1 January, 2009
The asynchronous relationship between millennial-scale temperature changes over Greenland and Antarctica during the last glacial period has led to the notion of a bipolar seesaw which acts to redistribute heat…Read more on Interhemispheric Atlantic seesaw response during the last deglaciation
Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments
1 January, 2009 by David Barnes
One of the most ubiquitous and long-lasting recent changes to the surface of our planet is the accumulation and fragmentation of plastics. Within just a few decades since mass production…Read more on Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments
Geographic range shift responses to climate change by Antarctic benthos: where we should look
1 January, 2009 by David Barnes, Huw Griffiths
Toleration, adaptation, migration or extinction are the options for species making up Southern Ocean (SO) shelf biodiversity, in response to accelerating change (e.g. warming), Physiological evidence suggests few organisms may…Marine, intertidal, freshwater and terrestrial biodiversity of an isolated polar archipelago
1 January, 2009 by David Barnes, Huw Griffiths, Katrin Linse
We ask how biodiverse is a polar archipelago; how this faunal richness is spread across marine, intertidal, freshwater, terrestrial and parasitic realms; and how fast species are accumulated with increased…Rapid recent warming on Rutford Ice Stream, West Antarctica, from borehole thermometry
1 January, 2009 by Andy Smith, David Vaughan, Keith Nicholls
The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than the global average rate of warming during the last century. Due to limited availability of long term meteorological records, the geographical extent of…Read more on Rapid recent warming on Rutford Ice Stream, West Antarctica, from borehole thermometry
Revised estimates of the area of the South Georgia and Shag Rocks shelf (CCAMLR Subarea 48.3)
1 January, 2009 by Mark Belchier, Peter Fretwell
A new South Georgia Bathymetric Dataset (SGDB) was compiled from a variety of primary sources including multi-beam swath bathymetry. Sea floor area (km(2)Mechanisms of Holocene palaeoenvironmental change in the Antarctic Peninsula region
1 January, 2009 by Dominic Hodgson, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, James Smith, Robert Larter, Stephen Roberts
The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the three fastest warming regions on Earth. Here we review Holocene proxy records of marine and terrestrial palaeoclimate in the region, and discuss possible…Read more on Mechanisms of Holocene palaeoenvironmental change in the Antarctic Peninsula region
Antarctic ice sheet and climate history since the Last Glacial Maximum
1 January, 2009 by Dominic Hodgson
Reconstructing the former dimensions and deglacial history of the Antarctic Ice Sheet along with Antarctic paleoclimate is important for understanding forcing mechanisms of ice sheet change. Here, we review briefly…Read more on Antarctic ice sheet and climate history since the Last Glacial Maximum
Detection of fungal 18S rRNA sequences in conjunction with marine nematode 18S rRNA amplicons
1 January, 2009
Free-living nematodes constitute an important component of estuarine and marine benthic ecosystems. Some marine and soil nematodes are known to harbor microbes, including symbiotic bacteria and fungi, in their external…Quantifying subglacial bed roughness in Antarctica: implications for ice-sheet dynamics and history
1 January, 2009
Glaciated landscapes consist of complex assemblages of landforms resulting from ice flow dynamic regimes and ice-sheet history, superimposed over, and in turn modifying, preglacial topography, lithology and geological structure. insights…In from the cold: an overview of the British Antarctic Survey fossil collections
1 January, 2009 by Hilary Blagbrough
The British Antarctic Survey is the custodian of more than 57,000 Antarctic fossils, of which some 2,500 are Type & Figured specimens. In addition to these, the geological collections include…Read more on In from the cold: an overview of the British Antarctic Survey fossil collections
Strategies of survival and resource exploitation in the Antarctic fellfield ecosystem
1 January, 2009 by William Block
Antarctic fellfields present organisms with a heterogeneous habitat characterised by a wide variety of environmental stresses. These include low temperatures, limited moisture availability, frequent and often rapid freeze-thaw and hydration-dehydration…Read more on Strategies of survival and resource exploitation in the Antarctic fellfield ecosystem
Technical note: Animal-borne CTD-satellite relay data loggers for real-time oceanographic data collection
1 January, 2009 by Michael Meredith, Sally Thorpe
The increasing need for continuous monitoring of the world oceans has stimulated the development of a range of autonomous sampling platforms. One novel addition to these approaches is a small,…El Niño–Southern Oscillation, Pliocene climate and equifinality
1 January, 2009
It has been suggested that, during the Pliocene (ca 5–1.8Ma), an El Niño state existed as a permanent rather than an intermittent feature; that is, the tropical Pacific Ocean was…Read more on El Niño–Southern Oscillation, Pliocene climate and equifinality
Nitrogen fixation in the western equatorial Pacific: Rates, diazotrophic cyanobacterial size class distribution, and biogeochemical significance
1 January, 2009 by Pierre Dutrieux
A combination of 15N2 labeling, Tyramide Signal Amplification–Fluorescent in Situ Hybridization (TSA-FISH) assay, and chemical analyses were performed along a trophic gradient (8000 km) in the equatorial Pacific. Nitrogen fixation…Plasmaspheric hiss overview and relation to chorus
1 January, 2009 by Nigel Meredith
A brief overview is given of the history of plasmaspheric hiss research, particularly in the context of the recent work by Bortnik et al. (2008) indicating that chorus could be…Read more on Plasmaspheric hiss overview and relation to chorus
Where do penguins go during the inter-breeding period? Using geolocation to track their winter dispersion of the macaroni penguin
1 January, 2009 by Philip Trathan
Although penguins are key marine predators from the Southern Ocean, their migratory behaviour during the inter-nesting period remains widely unknown. Here, we report for the first time, to our knowledge,…Seasonal variation in the diversity and abundance of pelagic larvae of Antarctic marine invertebrates
1 January, 2009 by Andrew Clarke, Lloyd Peck
Most marine benthic macroinvertebrate species reproduce via a larval phase but attempts to explain the occurrence of different larval strategies (feeding or non-feeding, pelagic or benthic) in different habitats have…The dynamics of a polar low assessed using potential vorticity inversion
1 January, 2009 by Thomas Bracegirdle
The dynamics of a polar low are examined using a piecewise potential vorticity (PV) inversion method. In previous studies of this and other polar lows, structural evolution has been described…Read more on The dynamics of a polar low assessed using potential vorticity inversion
Bathymetric distribution patterns of Southern Ocean macrofaunal taxa: Bivalvia, Gastropoda, Isopoda and Polychaeta
1 January, 2009 by Katrin Linse
The aim of this study is to compare the depth distributions of four major Southern Ocean macrobenthic epi- and infaunal taxa, the Bivalvia, Gastropoda, Isopoda, and Polychaeta, from subtidal to…Soil fungal community composition at Mars Oasis, a southern maritime Antarctic site
1 January, 2009 by Kevin Newsham
PCR amplification of ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 regions of rDNA followed by cloning was used to determine the fungi present in soil from three sites at Mars Oasis in the southern maritime Antarctic.…Read more on Soil fungal community composition at Mars Oasis, a southern maritime Antarctic site
Geographic variability of nitrate deposition and preservation over the Greenland Ice Sheet
1 January, 2009 by Markus Frey
An analysis of 96 snow pit and ice cores distributed over the Greenland ice sheet is used to determine the main drivers of variability in the preserved records of nitrate…Heart rate and ventilation in Antarctic fishes are largely determined by ecotype
1 January, 2009 by Lloyd Peck
Extrinsic neural and humoral influences on heart rate (fH) and ventilation frequency (fV) were examined following varying periods of post-surgical recovery in eight related Antarctic fish species inhabiting an array…Read more on Heart rate and ventilation in Antarctic fishes are largely determined by ecotype
Movements, at-sea distribution and behaviour of a tropical pelagic seabird: the wedge-tailed shearwater in the western Indian Ocean
1 January, 2009 by Richard Phillips
This is the first study using geolocators (global location sensing, GLS) to track the movements of a pelagic tropical seabird. We used GLS to describe at-sea distribution and activity patterns…Macroscopic control parameter for avalanche models of bursty transport
1 January, 2009
Similarity analysis is used to identify the control parameter RA for the subset of avalanching systems that can exhibit self-organized criticality SOC. This parameter expresses the ratio of driving to…Read more on Macroscopic control parameter for avalanche models of bursty transport
Avalanching systems under intermediate driving rate
1 January, 2009
The paradigm of self-organized criticality (SOC) has found application in understanding scaling and bursty transport in driven, dissipative plasmas. SOC is, however, a limiting process that occurs as the ratio…Read more on Avalanching systems under intermediate driving rate
Three-dimensional ray tracing of VLF waves in a magnetospheric environment containing a plasmaspheric plume
1 January, 2009 by Richard Horne
A three dimensional ray tracing of whistler-mode chorus is performed in a realistic magnetosphere using the HOTRAY code. A variety of important propagation characteristics are revealed associated with azimuthal density…Simulation of EMIC wave excitation in a model magnetosphere including structured high-density plumes
1 January, 2009 by Richard Horne
The HOTRAY code is used to evaluate the path integrated gain of electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves as a function of frequency in two propagation bands above the O+ and…Environmental influences on bacterial diversity of soils on Signy Island, maritime Antarctic
1 January, 2009 by Michael Dunn, Peter Convey
Soil bacterial diversity at environmentally distinct locations on Signy Island, South Orkney Islands was examined using the denaturing gradient gel profiling approach. A range of chemical variables in soils at…HSP70 heat shock proteins and environmental stress in Antarctic marine organisms: A mini-review
1 January, 2009 by Lloyd Peck, Melody Clark
The ability to understand and predict the effects of environmental stress on biodiversity is becoming increasingly important in our changing environment. Antarctic marine species are some of the most stenothermal…Triggers of the HSP70 stress response: environmental responses and laboratory manipulation in an Antarctic marine invertebrate (Nacella concinna)
1 January, 2009 by Lloyd Peck, Melody Clark
The Antarctic limpet, Nacella concinna, exhibits the classical heat shock response, with up-regulation of duplicated forms of the inducible heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) gene in response to experimental manipulation…Surviving the cold: molecular analyses of insect cryoprotective dehydration in the Arctic springtail Megaphorura arctica (Tullberg)
1 January, 2009 by Guy Hillyard, Michael Thorne, Roger Worland, Melody Clark
Background: Insects provide tractable models for enhancing our understanding of the physiological and cellular processes that enable survival at extreme low temperatures. They possess three main strategies to survive the…Additional stratospheric NOx production by relativistic electron precipitation during the 2004 spring NOx descent event
1 January, 2009 by Mark Clilverd
We analyze in detail the February 2004 Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars (GOMOS) NO2 observations in the northern polar latitudes during the springtime descent of NOx from the…Remote sensing space weather events: Antarctic-Arctic radiation-belt (Dynamic) Deposition-VLF Atmospheric Research Konsortium network
1 January, 2009 by Mark Clilverd, Neil Cobbett
[1] The Antarctic-Arctic Radiation-belt (Dynamic) Deposition-VLF Atmospheric Research Konsortium (AARDDVARK) provides a network of continuous long-range observations of the lower ionosphere in the polar regions. Our ultimate aim is to…Antarctic medicine – the challenges of being a doctor in an isolated and confined environment
1 January, 2009
Rothera research station is a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) base on the Antarctic Peninsula that is operational year round. During the 8-month winter the 20 people living there are physically…Antarctic biology, the International Polar Year, and beyond
1 January, 2009 by Peter Convey
As we draw towards the end of the massive effort that has been the International Polar Year (IPY), it is opportune to consider what impact it has had on Antarctic…Read more on Antarctic biology, the International Polar Year, and beyond
Review. Antarctic climate change and the environment
1 January, 2009 by Dominic Hodgson, John Turner, Peter Convey
The Antarctic climate system varies on timescales from orbital, through millennial to sub-annual, and is closely coupled to other parts of the global climate system. We review these variations from…Read more on Review. Antarctic climate change and the environment
Environmental change and human impacts on terrestrial ecosystems of the sub-Antarctic islands between their discovery and the mid-twentieth century
1 January, 2009 by Peter Convey
Sub-Antarctic islands share many similarities in their history of human interaction and impacts before the mid-twentieth century. Large impacts on land were associated with marine exploitation industries of sealing and…Exploring biological constraints on the glacial history of Antarctica
1 January, 2009 by Andrew Clarke, Dominic Hodgson, David Barnes, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Peter Convey
The evolutionary and biogeographic history of the contemporary Antarctic terrestrial and marine biotas reveals many components of ancient origin. For large elements of the terrestrial biota, long-term isolation over timescales…Read more on Exploring biological constraints on the glacial history of Antarctica
Variability and trends in stratospheric NO2 in Antarctic summer, and implications for stratospheric NOy
1 January, 2009 by Howard Roscoe
NO2 measurements during 1990-2007, obtained from a zenith-sky spectrometer in the Antarctic, are analysed to determine the long-term changes in NO2. An atmospheric photochemical box model and a radiative transfer…A comparative study of endolithic microborings in basaltic lavas from a transitional subglacial – marine environment
1 January, 2009
Subglacially erupted Neogene basaltic hyaloclastites in lava-fed deltas in Antarctica were found to contain putative endolithic microborings preserved in fresh glass along hydrous alteration boundaries. The location and existence over…Diel vertical migration of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is flexible during advection across the Scotia Sea
1 January, 2009 by Geraint Tarling, Sally Thorpe
We model a summer snapshot of the behavior of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) during advection across the Scotia Sea. Individual krill respond to a changing landscape of predation risk and…Local mixing events in the upper-troposphere and lower-stratosphere. Part I: detection with the Lyapunov diffusivity
1 January, 2009 by Emily Shuckburgh
A new diagnostic (the "Lyapunov diffusivity'') is presented that has the ability to quantify isentropic mixing in diffusion units and detects local mixing events by describing latitude-longitude variability. It is…Polar science: bid for freely accessible biodiversity archive
1 January, 2009 by Huw Griffiths
The Southern Ocean is of unique ecological, biogeographic and political interest, as noted by your Editorial 'The way ahead for polar science' (Nature 457, 1057; 2009). Given the rate and…Read more on Polar science: bid for freely accessible biodiversity archive
Hidden levels of phylodiversity in Antarctic green algae: further evidence for the existence of glacial refugia
1 January, 2009 by Dominic Hodgson
Recent data revealed that metazoans such as mites and springtails have persisted in Antarctica throughout several glacial-interglacial cycles, which contradicts the existing paradigm that terrestrial life was wiped out by…Discovering genes associated with dormancy in the monogonont rotifer Brachionus plicatilis
1 January, 2009 by Michael Thorne, Melody Clark
Background: Microscopic monogonont rotifers, including the euryhaline species Brachionus plicatilis, are typically found in water bodies where environmental factors restrict population growth to short periods lasting days or months. The…Introduction to Special Issue on high speed solar wind streams and geospace interactions (HSS-GI)
1 January, 2009 by Richard Horne
This special issue of the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics is devoted to research into high speed solar wind streams (HSSs) and their effects on the region of near-Earth…Implications for high latitude gondwanide palaeozoogeographical studies of some new Upper Cretaceous marine ostracod faunas from New Zealand and the Antarctic Peninsula
1 January, 2009
Sixty species of Ostracoda have been recovered from Cenomanian, Santonian and Maastrichtian strata in New Zealand, and late Campanian sediments on Snow Hill and James Ross islands in the Antarctic…The sources and fate of freshwater exported in the East Greenland Current
1 January, 2009 by Michael Meredith
Monitoring the sources and fate of freshwater in the East Greenland Current (EGC) is important, as this water has the potential to suppress deep convection in the Nordic and Labrador…Read more on The sources and fate of freshwater exported in the East Greenland Current
Surface-ocean CO2 variability and vulnerability
1 January, 2009
Improved sampling technologies, international observing networks, and data synthesis efforts are providing an unprecedented view of the global patterns and decadal variability of surface-ocean partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO(2))…Read more on Surface-ocean CO2 variability and vulnerability
Full Stokes modeling of marine ice sheets: influence of the grid size
1 January, 2009 by Richard Hindmarsh, Richard Hindmarsh
Using the finite-element code Elmer, we show that the full Stokes modeling of the ice-sheet/ice-shelf transition we propose can give consistent predictions of grounding-line migration. Like other marine ice-sheet models…Read more on Full Stokes modeling of marine ice sheets: influence of the grid size
Animated tectonic reconstruction of the Southern Pacific and alkaline volcanism at its convergent margins since Eocene times
1 January, 2009 by Robert Larter
An animated reconstruction shows South Pacific plate kinematics, in the reference frame of West Antarctica, between 55 Ma and the present-day. The ocean floor in the region formed due to…West Antarctic Rift System in the Antarctic Peninsula
1 January, 2009 by Robert Larter
Decades after the recognition of the West Antarctic Rift System, and in spite of its global importance, the location and nature of the plate boundary it formed at are unknown…Read more on West Antarctic Rift System in the Antarctic Peninsula
Gondwana breakup and plate kinematics: Business as usual
1 January, 2009
A tectonic model of the Weddell Sea is built by composing a simple circuit with optimized rotations describing the growth of the South Atlantic and SW Indian oceans. The model…Read more on Gondwana breakup and plate kinematics: Business as usual
Feeding grounds of the western South Atlantic humpback whale population
1 January, 2009
The breeding and feeding grounds of most humpback whale populations are well known. Their preference for shallow, subtropical waters in winter, where they calve and mate (Clapham 1996), often brings…Read more on Feeding grounds of the western South Atlantic humpback whale population
Changes in Emiliania huxleyi fatty acid profiles during infection with E. huxleyi virus 86: physiological and ecological implications
1 January, 2009
Fatty acids profiles of Emiliania huxleyi strain CCMP1516 were determined in a virus-induced culture crash with E. huxleyi virus 86 (EhV-86). As cell numbers declined in the infected cultures due…Magmatic and tectonic patterns over the Northern Victoria Land sector of the Transantarctic Mountains from new aeromagnetic imaging
1 January, 2009 by Fausto Ferraccioli
New aeromagnetic data image the extent and spatial distribution of Cenozoic magmatism and older basement features over the Admiralty Block of the Transantarctic Mountains. Digital enhancement techniques image magmatic and…Aeromagnetic exploration over the East Antarctic Ice Sheet: a new view of the Wilkes Subglacial Basin
1 January, 2009 by Fausto Ferraccioli, Hugh Corr, Tom Jordan
The Wilkes Subglacial Basin represents all approximately 1400 kin-long and Lip to 600 kill wide Subglacial depression, buried beneath the over 3 km-thick East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Contrasting models, including…Hidden Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic crust in NW Ireland? : evidence from zircon Hf isotopic data from granitoid intrusions
1 January, 2009
The presence of major crystalline basement provinces at depth in NW Ireland is inferred from in situ Hf isotope analysis of zircons from granitoid rocks that cut structurally overlying metasedimentary…Historical SAM variability. Part II: Twentieth-century variability and trends from reconstructions, observations, and the IPCC AR4 models
1 January, 2009 by Gareth Marshall
This second paper examines the Southern Hemisphere annular mode (SAM) variability from reconstructions, observed indices, and simulations from 17 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) models…