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Scientists Debate Moving Polar Bears to Antarctica as Arctic MeltsJuly 24, 2008 Scientists are obviously reaching a point of true desperation. While the world still debates whether climate change is even real (eye roll), the scientific community is coming back to an idea that was once considered wrongheaded and dangerous: moving species to new areas of the world as their natural habitats become inhabitable. First up: moving the polar bears to the other side of the globe. From Wired: Caught between climate change and human pressure, species are going extinct 100 times faster than at any point in human history....

A college student's new discovery of fossils collected in the East Antarctic suggests that the frozen polar cap was once a much balmier place. The well-preserved fossils of ostracods, a type of small crustaceans, came from the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains and date from about 14 million years ago. The fossils were a rare find, showing all of the ostracods' soft anatomy in 3-D. The fossils were discovered by Richard Thommasson during screening of the sediment in research team member Allan Ashworth's lab at North Dakota State University. Because ostracods couldn't survive in the current Antarctic climate,...

Some facts you're not likely to hear about from the mainstream media. By Joe D’Aleo. The Antarctic set a new record (since records began in 1979) for sea ice extent at the end of last winter. It stayed well above the normal through the summer with icemelt 40% below the normal. As a new height of irony and hype, the media made a big deal about a fracture of a small part of the Wilkins ice sheet in late February (160 square miles of the 6 million square mile Antarctic ice sheet (0.0027% of the total). Media headlines blared: Bye-bye,...

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year's supply of condoms, a New Zealand newspaper reported on Monday. Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them. The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter. "Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable," Henriksen told the Southland Times...

Cat-sized reptiles once roamed what is now the icebox of Antarctica, snuggling up in burrows and peeping above ground to snag plant roots and insects. The evidence for this scenario comes from preserved burrow casts discovered in the Transantarctic Mountains, which extend 3,000 miles (4,800 km) across the polar continent and contain layers of rock dating back 400 million years. "We've got good evidence that these burrows were made by land-dwelling animals rather than crayfish," said lead researcher Christian Sidor, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Washington and curator at UW's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Ancient...

Washington, May 27 : A new study by scientists has suggested that the melting of the Antarctic glaciers might be leading to the release of large amounts of the banned pesticide DDT, which is contaminating the environment in Antarctica. In the study, scientist Heidi N. Geisz and colleagues estimate that up to 2.0 - 8.8 pounds of DDT are released into coastal waters annually along the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet from glacial meltwater. The researchers point out that DDT reaches Antarctica by long-range atmospheric transport in snow, and then gets concentrated in the food chain. DDT has been banned in...

Editor's Note: This story embargoed for release until 2 pm ET Wednesday, October 17, 2001, to coincide with publication in the journal Nature.) COLUMBUS, Ohio - An international team of scientists reported this week that a rock core drilled from the seafloor off the coast of Antarctica is the first to show cyclic climate changes in polar regions that are linked to cores taken from the ocean bottom in both temperate and tropical zones. These records show ice sheet advances and retreats that match Milankovitch cycles - variations in the Earth's orbit around the sun, in the tilt of the ...

There was just a very short blurb about finding evidence of settlements in Antarctica, along with pictures of tools, that indicate man was there 2-300 years before it was officially discovered in the 1800's. I am searching for links but haven't found any yet.

Surface snowmelt in Antarctica in 2008, as derived from spaceborne passive microwave observations at 19.35 gigahertz, was 40% below the average of the period 1987–2007. The melting index (MI, a measure of where melting occurred and for how long) in 2008 was the second-smallest value in the 1987–2008 period, with 3,465,625 square kilometers times days (km2 × days) against the average value of 8,407,531 km2 × days (Figure 1a). Melt extent (ME, the extent of the area subject to melting) in 2008 set a new minimum with 297,500 square kilometers, against an average value of approximately 861,812 square kilometers......

Cosmologists Probe Mystery Of Dark Energy With South Pole Telescope ScienceDaily (Apr. 3, 2008) — Something is pulling the universe apart. What is it, and where will it take us from here? Scientists at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, seek answers to those questions with the newly-commissioned South Pole Telescope. Frigid and bone-dry, with six straight months of night each year, the South Pole is a forbidding place to live or work. But for largely the same reasons, it’s one of the best spots on the planet for surveying the faint cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation...

Megaherbs flourished in Antarctica Wednesday, 19 March 2008 Stephen Pincock, ABC This daisy-like 'megaherb' may have once grown in Antarctica 2 million years ago before spreading north when the last ice age started (Source: David Norton) Giant flowers found on Australia and New Zealand's sub-Antarctic islands are probably survivors of lush forests that covered Antarctica before the beginning of the last ice age nearly 2 million years ago, scientists say. The flowers, known to researchers as megaherbs, grow abundantly on the tiny windswept islands such as the Snares, Auckland and Campbell island groups. Dr Steve Wagstaff from Landcare Research in...

Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, which started Feb. 28. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years. This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan. Because scientists noticed satellite images within hours, they diverted satellite cameras and even flew an airplane over the ongoing collapse for rare pictures and video. "It's an event we don't get to see very often," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo....

Scientists find giant marine life in Antarctic sea survey By RAY LILLEY,Associated Press Writer AP - Friday, March 21 WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Scientists found that some marine life doesn't come small in Antarctic waters, with giant-sized specimens surprising researchers during a major survey of New Zealand's Antarctic seas that ended this week. ADVERTISEMENT Huge sea snails, jellyfish with tentacles up to 4 meters (yards) long and starfish the size of big food platters were some of the species found during research vessel Tangaroa's 50-day, 3,200-kilometer (2,000-mile) voyage in the Ross Sea, New Zealand marine scientist Don Robertson said. "I...

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet officially re-opened on Wednesday the Arturo Prat base in Antarctica which was the first to be established by the Chilean Navy in 1947 but was later closed in 2004. The event was described in Chile as a reaffirmation of the country’s rights over Antarctica. The eleven permanent members of the base, which is being refurbished --and eleven degrees below zero--, received President Bachelet, Defence minister Jose Goñi and the Commander of the Navy Admiral Rodolfo Codina. “This base is going to guarantee Chilean rights and territorial integrity, which is undoubtedly the duty of the Armed Forces”,...

Mysterious Meteorites Stymie Scientists Anne Minard for National Geographic NewsMarch 12, 2008 A pair of mysterious meteorites discovered in Antarctica is baffling scientists who are struggling to determine the origin of the space rocks. The meteorites, dubbed GRA 06128 and GRA 06129, were found in the Graves Nunataks region of Antarctica in 2006 (see an interactive map of Antarctica). The rocks were oddly rusty and salty and smelled like rotten eggs, its discoverers said. Initially, a team at the University of New Mexico (UNM) caused a stir when its analysis hinted that the pair may hail from Venus or the...

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - Venezuelan scientists and military officers reached the Antarctica after a 15-day trip, opening the South American nation's first expedition to the frozen continent, officials said Saturday. The Venezuelans made the trip on an Uruguayan naval research ship, reflecting warm ties between the nations' leftist governments. President Tabare Vazquez has been criticized by his opponents for allowing Venezuelans aboard the Uruguayan vessel Oyarvide. The ship concluded a voyage of 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) on Friday but high winds and choppy seas prevented the full delegation from immediately disembarking at Uruguay's General Artigas Antarctic base, said Uruguayan army Maj....

British explorers in West Antarctica reported glacier movement in the region has picked up by a startling seven percent this season, a development, they said, which could lead to a significant rise in sea level. David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey said the team found new evidence from group of glaciers in West Antarctica which cover an area the size of Texas. He said the glaciers, particularly the Pine Island Glacier, has surged sharply in speed towards the ocean-- and it's not because of global warming. Throughout the 1990s, according to satellite measurements, the glacier was accelerating by around...

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths. Australian experts taking part in an international program to take a census of marine life in the ocean at the far south of the world collected specimens from up to 6,500 feet beneath the surface, and said many may never have been seen before. Some of the animals far under the sea grow to unusually large sizes, a phenomenon called gigantism that scientists still do not fully understand. "Gigantism is very...

If successful at mapping lake terrain Wisconsin and Antarctica, it could be used to search for life in the ocean on Jupiter's moon Researchers from NASA and the University of Illinois at Chicago atop the frozen surface of Wisconsin's Lake Mendota this week are preparing for interplanetary exploration. Below them, under a sheet of ice more than a foot (30 centimeters) thick, the space agency's new Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-Ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer (ENDURANCE) maps the lake's underwater terrain. If this and subsequent voyages are successful, a similar vessel could be sent to navigate the suspected liquid water under the frozen...

When the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica collapsed in 2002, the event appeared to be a sudden response to climate change, and this long, fringing ice shelf in the north west part of the Weddell Sea was assumed to be the latest in a long line of victims of Antarctic summer heat waves linked to Global Warming. However in a paper published in the Journal of Glaciology, Prof. Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University, working as a Fulbright Scholar in the US, and Dr Ted Scambos of University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Centre now say that the...

Researchers have uncovered a complex subglacial system miles under the ice where rivers larger than the Amazon link a series of "lake districts," which may teem with mineral-hungry microbes. This watery environment may be more than one-and-a-half times the size of the United States, scientists say, which would make it the world's largest wetland... Studinger's research focuses on "recovery lakes," part of a a series of cascading lakes found earlier this year under the ice sheet. The lakes... ebb and flow as they empty into the polar sea. They stay fluid because the ice sheet above acts like a gigantic...

Two men, one with a suspected broken jaw, have been airlifted from the Antarctic's most remote research facility after an incident described as a "drunken Christmas punch-up". The brawl happened at the US-operated Amundsen-Scott South Pole station, located at the heart of the frozen continent. The station, where staff carry out a range of scientific investigations from astrophysics to seismology, is currently being rebuilt in a £76m project. After reports of the fight reached staff at McMurdo station, the headquarters of the US Antarctic Programme, which is located on Ross Island, a US Air Force Hercules was sent to pick...

What was done Monthly surface air temperatures from manned and automatic weather stations along with ship/buoy observations from the high-latitude Southern Hemisphere were used to develop a gridded database with resolution appropriate for applications ranging from spatial trend analyses to climate change impact assessments. The data came from a total of 460 locations in the Southern Hemisphere. Temperatures over land were obtained from 19 manned stations of the World Monthly Surface Station Climatology network, most of which were located in coastal areas of the Antarctic continent, plus 73 stations of the Automated Weather Station network, many of which were situated...

SYDNEY (AFP) - A passenger jet has made a historic landing on a new blue ice runway in Australia's Antarctic territory and regular flights are expected to start within a week, officials said Wednesday. But trips on the Airbus A319 to the Wilkins Runway will be for scientists and research staff only, with no plans to open the airlink to tourists, project manager Charlton Clark told AFP. The runway is four kilometres (2.5 miles) long, 700 metres thick and moves about 12 metres southwest a year because of glacial drift. In the first trial landing on Monday, the plane pulled...

There is frequently discussion of whether or not Antarctica is warming or cooling (and if so, by how much). The image below is a useful addition to the conversation. Click the source link for the full text.

Explanation of MS Explorer's sinking doesn't hold water By Colin Woodard Mon Dec 3, 3:00 AM ET People familiar with the Antarctic tourism industry weren't surprised that a cruise ship sank there. What stunned them was that the ship in question was the MS Explorer, a veteran of the polar cruise ship trade, purpose-built to operate in extreme polar environments, and manned by an experienced crew. That it sank during what appears to have been the most routine of circumstances – cruising through young pack ice in mild weather – has experts scratching their heads. "I'm totally shocked and surprised,"...

A team of international scientists has unveiled a mosaic map of Antarctica compiled from satellite images. The new map allows experts and laypersons alike to observe its majestic landscapes online and in stunning clarity. The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) is composed of high-resolution images taken from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Landsat 7 satellite between 1999 and 2001. It offers accurate, true-color images of the polar region.

SANTIAGO, Chile – About 2,500 penguins en route to their Antarctic mating grounds could be sickened by a diesel fuel spill from a cruise boat that struck an iceberg and sank last week, Chilean scientists said Friday. Areas surrounding the mile-long spill site include breeding grounds for Antarctic and Adelia penguins, and the largest mating colony for Papua penguins, said Maria Jose Rosello, a Chilean marine biologist. “The danger is that this fuel spill will impede the journey that species like Papua penguins make at this time of year,” Rosello said. Veronica Vallejos, director of the scientific department at the...

A cold, abrupt end to a honeymoon By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer Encinitas couple that fled Witch Creek fire returns home after cruise ship sinks off Antarctica ENCINITAS -- Three times since marrying June 11 in a beachside ceremony at La Jolla Cove, Trevor Takayama and Torrey Trust have dodged disaster. In August, the Encinitas couple fled an approaching hurricane while camping in a Costa Rican rain forest, on a summerlong honeymoon tour of Central and South America. In October, the Witch Creek fire forced the newlyweds to evacuate the hilltop three-bedroom home she grew up in, near Manchester...

A team of researchers from NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Science Foundation and the British Antarctic Survey unveiled a newly completed map of Antarctica today that is expected to revolutionize research of the continent's frozen landscape. The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica is a result of NASA's state-of-the-art satellite technologies and an example of the prominent role NASA continues to play as a world leader in the development and flight of Earth-observing satellites. The map is a realistic, nearly cloudless satellite view of the continent at a resolution 10 times greater than ever before with images captured by...

By Bill Cormier, Associated Press Article Launched: 11/23/2007 08:55:35 PM PST BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - A Canadian cruise ship struck submerged ice off Antarctica and began sinking, but all 154 passengers and crew, Americans and Britons among them, took to lifeboats and were plucked to safety by a passing cruise ship.The entire vessel finally slipped beneath the waves Friday evening, 20 hours after the predawn accident near Antarctica's South Shetland Islands, Chilean navy said.No injuries were reported although passengers reportedly endured subfreezing temperatures for several hours as they waited in bobbing lifeboats for a Norwegian liner that took them to a...

LONDON, England (CNN) -- More than 150 people have abandoned a sinking cruise liner that collided with an iceberg in Antarctic waters, a Chilean navy captain told CNN. The ship sent out a distress call at around 10 p.m. ET Thursday. Passenger ship Explorer reported problems near the South Shetland Islands, south of Argentina. The area is in a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom. Capt. Carlos Munita of the Chilean navy said they received a distress call from the Explorer, saying the vessel had hit an iceberg around 10 p.m. ET Thursday. He added a Norwegian rescue...

SANTIAGO, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- An earthquake registering 6.3 on the Richter scale rocked Antarctica at 2031 GMT Friday, the Chilean national TV station reported. According to the survey of the U.S. geological research bureau, the epicenter of the quake was 3,641 kilometers from Punta Arenas, Chile's southern most city. Earthquakes rarely hit Antarctica, and their scales are normally small.

In a story from Sydney covering the Live Earth Gorebasm Concerts, the following picture was included:Caption: Cool start ... scientists from the British research station in Antarctica were the first to kick off the Live Earth concerts with their indie band, Nunatak. Photo: ReutersThere is something odd about this picture, namely that it is the dead of Winter in Antarctica right now. The conditions there right now are perpetual darkness and unbearably cold temperatures. Yet in this photo, it is daylight, and one of the musicians isn't even wearing a hat. Exposed skin is highly susceptible to frostbite at temperatures...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - An ice sheet in Antarctica that is the world's largest — with enough water to raise global sea levels by 200 feet — is relatively stable and poses no immediate threat, according to new research. While studies of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets show they are both at risk from global warming, the East Antarctic ice sheet will "need quite a bit of warming" to be affected, Andrew Mackintosh, a senior lecturer at Victoria University, said Wednesday. The air over the East Antarctic ice sheet, an ice mass more than 1,875 miles across and...

In an effort to fulfill his promise of a concert on every continent for his “Live Earth” event on July 7 to 8, Al Gore approached the British Antarctic Survey in February to explore the possibility of flying a band in to its Rothera Research Station ... No, he was told, July is mid-winter in Antarctica, and no planes or boats can get in or out.

While much of the world has warmed in a pattern that scientists have linked with near certainty to human activities, the frigid interior of Antarctica has resisted the trend. Now, a new satellite analysis shows that at least once in the last several years, masses of unusually warm air pushed to within 310 miles of the South Pole and remained long enough to melt surface snow across a California-size expanse. The warm spell, which occurred over one week in 2005, was detected by scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA and the University of Colorado, Boulder. Balmy air, with...

Tiny fossils reveal ice history By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News, Vienna The diatoms appear as glass-like structures in the core Tiny they may be, but fossil diatoms discovered deep under the ocean floor are revealing new details about Antarctica's warmer past. The single-celled algae were pulled up by the Antarctic Geological Drilling (Andrill) Program, which has been operating from the Ross Ice Shelf. Some are new to science; others would normally only be expected in waters with higher temperatures than today. Scientists say the diatoms will help them understand future climate changes. "Andrill's basic aim is to...

The Washington Post has a special feature called Antarctic Voyages. One of the images is an ice tower on Erebus formed from steam from a fumarole. I hunted around and found a similar picture. Nature is amazing. Here's the link to the Post feature; registration probably required if you aren't already. It's got audio; the image that caught my eye is available as a desktop wallpaper under "Downloads". Opening the link below triggers a sound effect (strong winds). Antarctic Voyages The actual image is here; I don't know if this will open if you aren't registered. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/science/interactives/antarctica/wallpaper_01.html

Spindly orange sea stars, fan-finned ice fish and herds of roving sea cucumbers are among the exotic creatures spied off the Antarctic coast in an area formerly covered by ice, scientists reported on Sunday. This is the first time explorers have been able to catalog wildlife where two mammoth ice shelves used to extend for some 3,900 square miles over the Weddell Sea .

Pristine seascapeA previously unexplored section of Antarctic sea floor lured marine scientists and their vessel Polarstern to the frozen continent for a voyage of exploration over Christmas and New Year.The trip yielded, said researchers, a wealth of useful information and some undiscovered species.(Image: G Chapelle, IPF/ Alfred Wegener Institute) Unexpected giantAmong the new species was this giant amphipod, a type of crustacean, which researchers caught in baited traps. About 10cm (four inches) long, it is one of the biggest amphipods found in the region.(Image: C d'Udekem, Royal Belgium Institute for Natural Sciences) Key creatureAlready well known to science is...

Colossal squid hooked with rings the size of tractor tyres   February 22, 2007 - 3:30PM     New Zealand fishermen in the Ross Sea have caught what's thought to be the largest squid ever found.Its estimated weight is about 450 kilograms.The species is known as the colossal squid, shorter but much heavier than the better known giant squid.It was hauled to the surface while munching on one of its favourite foods, a Patagonian toothfish which the fishermen had hooked on a longline.Dr Steve O'Shea, from the Auckland University of Technology, says the previous largest find weighed 300 kilograms.He...

Why melting is not a threat While today's balance between the icecaps and global sea level has been relatively steady since about 1000 B.C., it would be careless to assume that this is the Earth's natural state and that it should always be this way. What could happen to climate naturally in the next few thousand years? If the Earth continued to warm and break from ice age conditions, some of the remaining ice caps could melt. On the other hand, climate might swing back into another ice age. (In fact, some of the environmentalists now worried about global warming...

Posted: 02/ 04/ 07 8:08 am    Post subject: European Heat Wave 2003: A Global Perspective http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/01/31/european-heat-wave-2003-a-global-perspective/#more-215 January 31, 2007 European Heat Wave 2003: A Global Perspective Filed under: Climate Extremes, Heat Waves — Although the event occurred over three years ago, the summer heat wave of 2003 is still prominently featured in every popular presentation of the global warming issue. A web search of “Europe Heat Wave 2003” produces nearly 950,000 sites to choose from, and if you take that plunge, you will see estimates of 35,000 deaths directly attributed to that heat wave, although that number varies considerably...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. government scientists Friday said the long-term outlook for global warming may be more dire than suggested by this week's United Nations' report, which they say doesn't fully address the impact of clouds and melting glaciers. Recent evidence of accelerated melting of glaciers in Greenland and the Antarctic ice cap came too late to be included in the report released Thursday by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Glaciers are among the largest sources of fresh water in the world and are contributing to rising ocean levels. Rising sea levels could expose population centers bordering the ocean...

WASHINGTON - Later this week in Paris, climate scientists will issue a dire forecast for the planet that warns of slowly rising sea levels and higher temperatures. But that may be the sugarcoated version. Early and changeable drafts of their upcoming authoritative report on climate change foresee smaller sea level rises than were projected in 2001 in the last report. Many top U.S. scientists reject these rosier numbers. Those calculations don't include the recent, and dramatic, melt-off of big ice sheets in two crucial locations: They "don't take into account the gorillas — Greenland and Antarctica," said Ohio State University...

Experts split over climate danger to Antarctica Scientists challenge 'cautious' UN report Robin McKie, science editor Sunday January 28, 2007 The Observer (UK) Serious disagreement has broken out among scientists over a United Nations climate report's contention that the world's greatest wilderness - Antarctica - will be largely unaffected by rising world temperatures. The report, to be published on Friday, will be one of the most comprehensive on climate change to date, and will paint a grim picture of future changes to the planet's weather patterns. Details of the report were first revealed by The Observer last weekend. However, many...

A few tidbits to pass along at year's end on one of our favorite topics: In a story with a quite different headline and bent, Russ Schnell, director of Observatory and Global Network Operations for NOAA, says that climate change is cyclical and that "the planet’s vegetation, over millions of years, sucks in and spits out carbon dioxide." Yeah, we knew that. Here's an AP article that says, "One hundred scientists from four countries are working on the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program, or ANDRILL, coordinated by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They gather rock core from deep below the Antarctic sea...

The scare du jour on global warming is a massive inundation of our coast caused by rapid loss of ice from Antarctica. It's a core point in Al Gore's science fiction movie, and it continues to be thumped by doomsayers around the world, in the echo chamber of the alarmist media. It's also a bunch of hooey. If you could take the boredom, you could have read hundreds of news stories on this since An Inconvenient Truth debuted on May 25. But you'll find very little mention of a paper that appeared a mere six weeks later, in the Proceedings...

Warning Issued After 100 Icebergs Spotted Near New Zealand Friday, November 03, 2006 WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A maritime warning has been issued after about 100 icebergs were spotted south of New Zealand, some floating in a major ocean shipping lane, officials said. A New Zealand air force P3 Orion maritime surveillance airplane on routine fisheries patrol in the southern ocean spotted the floating lumps of ice near Auckland Islands, 161 miles south of South Island. The largest iceberg was about 1.2 by 0.9 miles and more than 425 feet high, said Orion captain Andy Nielsen. While it was not...