Category Archives: Antarctica

Rare long-necked dinosaur that roamed the polar world unearthed in Australia

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Discovery of a single vertebra of an elaphrosaur in Victoria hugely expands known range of the group, which had teeth as juveniles but beaks as adults

A dinosaur relative of T. rex and Velociraptor with an unusually long neck, and which may have transitioned from predator to plant-eater as it reached adulthood, has been unearthed in Victoria.

The elaphrosaur was a member of the theropod family of dinosaurs that included all of the predatory species. It stood about the height of a small emu, measuring 2m from its head to the end of a long tail, and had short arms, each ending in four fingers.

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Antarctica was warm enough for rainforest near south pole 90m years ago

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Experts say new evidence from Cretaceous period ‘shows us what carbon dioxide can do’

Think of Antarctica and it is probably sweeping expanses of ice, and the odd penguin, that come to mind. But at the time of the dinosaurs the continent was covered in swampy rainforest.

Now experts say they have found the most southerly evidence yet of this environment in plant material extracted from beneath the seafloor in west Antarctica.

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Global efforts on ozone help reverse southern jet stream damage

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Jet stream appears to have stopped moving south and may be moving back towards normal

International cooperation on ozone-depleting chemicals is helping to return the southern jet stream to a normal state after decades of human-caused disruption, a study shows.

Scientists say the findings prove there is the capacity to heal damaged climate systems if governments act promptly and in coordination to deal with the causes.

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Earth just had hottest January since records began, data shows

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  • Average global temperature 2.5F above 20th-century average
  • Antarctic has begun February with several temperature spikes

Last month was the hottest January on record over the world’s land and ocean surfaces, with average temperatures exceeding anything in the 141 years of data held by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Related: Antarctic temperature rises above 20C for first time on record

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Tropical Cyclone Damien brings heavy rain to Western Australia

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Elsewhere in the country rainfall offered relief from the bushfires, but caused flash flooding as well

Tropical Cyclone Damien made landfall in Western Australia over the weekend and lashed north-western parts of Australia with heavy rain and damaging winds. Unrelated to the cyclone, eastern Australia also recently had some substantial rainfall totals. While rain came as welcome relief after the severe bushfires, flash floods have now swept across the region.

Storm Hervé marked the end of unseasonable warmth across parts of France and Germany last week as the system brought a cooler airmass, strong winds, and fresh, heavy snowfall to the Alps. Prior to this, south-west Europe as a whole was experiencing exceptional heat, and temperatures rocketed to 29.6C in Valencia in Spain on Tuesday, setting a new all-time February record.

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Alarm over collapse of chinstrap penguin numbers

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Global heating suspected to be behind sharp decline in populations across Antarctic islands

Colonies of chinstrap penguins have fallen by more than half across islands in Antarctica, prompting scientific concern that “something is broken” in the world’s wildest ecosystem.

After more than a month counting chicks in the South Shetland Islands, researchers suspect global heating is behind the sharp fall in numbers of the distinctive birds, which get their name from a black line that runs below the beak from cheek to cheek.

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Antarctica logs hottest temperature on record with a reading of 18.3C

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A new record set so soon after the previous record of 17.5C in March 2015 is a sign warming in Antarctica is happening much faster than global average

Antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station thermometer reading 18.3C, beating the previous record by 0.8C.

The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent’s peninsula, beats Antarctica’s previous record of 17.5C, set in March 2015.

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Submarine to explore why Antarctic glacier is melting so quickly

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Scientists reach remote Thwaites glacier, vanishing at increasing rate, for mission

An international team of scientists has reached the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica and is preparing to drill through more than half a kilometre of ice into the dark waters beneath.

The 600-metre deep borehole will allow researchers to lower down a torpedo-shaped robotic submarine that will explore the underside of the ice shelf to better understand why it is melting so fast.

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Chilean air force chief says cause of Antarctic plane crash may never be known

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Investigators may never recover enough wreckage to know why the Hercules crashed, killing 38

The commander-in-chief of the Chilean air force has said that the struggle to recover the remains of a Hercules that crashed en route to the Antarctic two weeks ago could make it difficult to ever determine what happened to the plane.

The Hercules C-130 cargo plane, which was carrying 17 crew and 21 passengers, disappeared shortly after taking off on 9 December from the southern city of Punta Arenas in Chilean Patagonia.

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‘I was peeing and a polar bear popped up!’ Secrets of Seven Worlds, One Planet

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Shooting poachers, circling polar bears, flailing four-tonne seals, singing rhinos and the world’s worst sea … the team behind Attenborough’s latest extravaganza relive their thrills and spills

Chadden Hunter, producer, North America and South America

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Antarctic marine park: conservationists frustrated after protection bid fails for eighth time

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Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources unable to agree on plan backed by Australia, France and EU

Conservationists have expressed frustration that an international commission for protecting marine life in Antarctica has failed for the eighth consecutive time to create a marine park across 1 million sq km on the continent’s east.

Members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) could not agree on the proposal, backed by Australia, France and the EU, that would have protected habitat for penguins, seals, whales and seabirds.

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Crew for troubled polar tour firm say they haven’t been paid in months

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Canada-based One Ocean Expeditions cancelled recent trip to Antarctica after it was unable to purchase sufficient fuel

An adventure travel company that charges upwards of US$20,000 for a single trip to polar regions has failed to pay many of its contractors in nearly a year, leaving some unable to cover living expenses, according to current and former crew.

Related: Polar cruise boom harming the Arctic, explorer warns

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City-sized iceberg separates from Antarctic ice shelf – video

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A gigantic iceberg has broken away from the Amery ice shelf in east Antarctica. The tabular iceberg, officially named D28, is 1,636 square kilometres in size, or about 50 x 30 kilometres -  the size of greater London or greater Sydney. It separated from the ice shelf last week, on 26 September but scientists said it was not related to climate change

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Dreaming of Antarctica: where beauty and fragility meet

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Rona Mcseveny, a former patient of UCHL, is showcasing her photos of the continent at the hospital’s Street Gallery. The exhibition is a thank-you to the NHS for the treatment she received. Below, she details the spellbinding sights she captured on her trip

  • Dreaming of Antarctica is at the Street Gallery from 18 July to 4 September 2019
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Glacial melting in Antarctica may become irreversible

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Thwaites glacier is likely to thaw and trigger 50cm sea level rise, US study suggests

Antarctica faces a tipping point where glacial melting will accelerate and become irreversible even if global heating eases, research suggests.

A Nasa-funded study found instability in the Thwaites glacier meant there would probably come a point when it was impossible to stop it flowing into the sea and triggering a 50cm sea level rise. Other Antarctic glaciers were likely to be similarly unstable.

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The changing landscape of the Antarctic – in pictures

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Sam Edmond, an Antarctic tour guide and photographer, took these images from a helicopter along the Eastern coastline between Cape Adare and the Cooperation Sea during summer. The continent’s vastness and the scale of the climate challenge it faces is palpable from up above. Across both polar regions, ice cover has become an important way to measure the impact of global warming, and the risk and logistical complications of operating aircraft around the Antarctic mean that perspective is both rare and valuable

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‘Precipitous’ fall in Antarctic sea ice since 2014 revealed

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Plunge is far faster than in Arctic and may lead to more global heating, say scientists

The vast expanse of sea ice around Antarctica has suffered a “precipitous” fall since 2014, satellite data shows, and fell at a faster rate than seen in the Arctic.

The plunge in the average annual extent means Antarctica lost as much sea ice in four years as the Arctic lost in 34 years. The cause of the sharp Antarctic losses is as yet unknown and only time will tell whether the ice recovers or continues to decline.

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‘Extraordinary thinning’ of ice sheets revealed deep inside Antarctica

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New research shows affected areas are losing ice five times faster than in the 1990s, with more than 100m of thickness gone in some places

Ice losses are rapidly spreading deep into the interior of the Antarctic, new analysis of satellite data shows.

The warming of the Southern Ocean is resulting in glaciers sliding into the sea increasingly rapidly, with ice now being lost five times faster than in the 1990s. The West Antarctic ice sheet was stable in 1992 but up to a quarter of its expanse is now thinning. More than 100 metres of ice thickness has been lost in the worst-hit places.

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