Antarctica

Around 12,000 years ago, the last Ice Age drew to a close. Global temperatures rose, the early Holocene began, and human communities gradually shifted toward more permanent settlements. A new study published in Nature Geoscience highlights how the Southern Ocean around Antarctica helped drive this major climate transition. The research…

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet covers some 760,000 square miles and is up to 1.2 miles thick. If it were to ever melt away entirely, it would add 10 feet to global sea levels. Even considering how quickly humans are heating the planet, such a change would likely unfold over…

A glacier on the Eastern Antarctic Peninsula has undergone the quickest ice loss documented in modern times, according to a major international study co-authored by Swansea University. Published in Nature Geoscience, the research reports that Hektoria Glacier shortened by nearly half its length in only two months during 2023. The…

From London to Arizona, Cape Town, Perth, Dubai, South America, and finally Antarctica – British athlete and TV personality Spencer Matthews has today set off on the first leg of a truly extraordinary feat: completing seven full-distance triathlons across seven continents in just three weeks. With this ambitious project, Matthews…

This morning as Spencer Matthews slipped into the dark waters of London’s Canary Wharf, he began one of the most ambitious endurance challenges ever attempted – seven full-distance triathlons on seven continents in just 21 days. The previous world record for such a feat is four years! By the time…

The route has the same starting point Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen used in 1911, when he became the first to reach the South Pole. O’Brady will trace that history and then go far beyond it. Once he passes the 932-mile mark, every step he takes will be farther than any…

Researchers setting up a drill in the Allan Hills region of Antarctica. This work was supported by the NSF Center for Oldest Ice Exploration, or COLDEX. (Image credit: Photo by Julia Marks Peterson, COLDEX) Scientists have pulled a 6 million-year-old chunk of ice out of Antarctica — the oldest directly…

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Researchers have discovered 6-million-year-old-ice and air in shallow ice cores drilled in the Allan Hills region of East Antarctica. They speculate that this ancient ice reflects surface snowpack or permafrost that was preserved by the growth of the East Antarctic ice sheet in the Middle to Late Miocene epoch. Ancient…

Climate models have long predicted that global warming would weaken the Southern Ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2). Yet decades of measurements show little sign of this decline. Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) have now uncovered a likely reason for the surprising stability. Their findings suggest that…