Latest antarctic Stories
Palm trees once thrived on today's icy coasts 52 million years ago Given the predicted rise in global temperatures in the coming decades, climate scientists are particularly interested in warm periods that occurred in the geological past. Knowledge of past episodes of global warmth can be used to better understand the relationship between climate change, variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide and the reaction of Earth's biosphere. An international team led by scientists from the Goethe...
A new university-led study with NASA participation finds ancient Antarctica was much warmer and wetter than previously suspected. The climate was suitable to support substantial vegetation -- including stunted trees -- along the edges of the frozen continent. The team of scientists involved in the study, published online June 17 in Nature Geoscience, was led by Sarah J. Feakins of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and included researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion...
WASHINGTON, June 17, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new university-led study with NASA participation finds ancient Antarctica was much warmer and wetter than previously suspected. The climate was suitable to support substantial vegetation -- including stunted trees -- along the edges of the frozen continent. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) The team of scientists involved in the study, published online June 17 in Nature Geoscience, was led by Sarah...
Proposal follows first continent-wide survey of Antarctic biogeography An international team of scientists have published the first continent-wide assessment of the Antarctic's biogeography, and propose that the landmass should be divided into 15 distinct conservation regions to protect the continent from invasive alien species. The team's findings are published in Diversity and Distributions, while the authors' proposals were outlined today at a lecture to the Antarctic Treaty...
New research by teams of Australian and US scientists has found there has been a massive reduction in the amount of Antarctic Bottom Water found off the coast of Antarctica. Comparing detailed measurements taken during the Australian Antarctic program's 2012 Southern Ocean marine science voyage to historical data dating back to 1970, scientists estimate there has been as much as a 60 per cent reduction in the volume of Antarctic Bottom Water, the cold dense water that drives global ocean...
Brett Smith for Redorbit.com A joint team of UK and Australian researchers has found that two separate groups of Antarctic octopuses, from the Ross and Weddell seas on different sides of the continent, are almost genetically identical. This suggests that the two seas, which are now separated by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, were once joined together, possibly a result of the partial collapse of the continental ice sheet. Researchers analyzed the genes of 450 Turquet's octopuses...
Thanks to new technology, a study reveals there to be twice as many emperor penguins in Antarctica than had previously been estimated. The study will be used as a benchmark to understand the effects climate change is having on these flightless birds. Published this week in the journal PLoS ONE, an international team of scientists reports how they used a Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite images to estimate the size of the emperor penguin communities. In order to distinguish the birds...
Today the U.S. National Research Council released a synthesis of reports from thousands of scientists in 60 countries who took part in the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-08, the first in over 50 years to offer a benchmark for environmental conditions and new discoveries in the polar regions. University of Massachusetts Amherst geosciences researcher and expert in the paleoclimate of the Arctic, Julie Brigham-Grette, co-chaired the NRC report, "Lessons and Legacies of the IPY 2007-08"...
NSF partners with international team to gather new information on hidden environments and past climate conditions in Antarctica National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded researchers have successfully tested equipment to map the hidden distribution of groundwater and ice in the McMurdo Dry Valleys region for the first time in Antarctica. The mapping technique, an airborne electrical resistivity instrument, will enable researchers to study microbial ecosystems in sub-glacial environments....
More than 99 percent of Antarctic blue whales were killed by commercial whalers during the 20th century, but the first circumpolar genetic study of these critically endangered whales has found a surprisingly high level of diversity among the surviving population of some 2,200 individuals. That, says lead author Angela Sremba of Oregon State University, may bode well for their future recovery. Results of the study have just been published in the open-access journal, PLoS ONE. As part of...
Latest antarctic Reference Libraries
Antarctica is the Earths southernmost continent; it contains the geographic South Pole. It’s situated in the Antarctic area of the Southern Hemisphere, almost completely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is bordered by the Southern Ocean. It’s the fifth-largest continent at 5.4 million sq miles. On average, it is the driest, coldest, and windiest continent as well as having the highest average elevation of all the continents. Considered a desert, the annual precipitation is only 8...
The Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) is a large true seal in the Lobodontini tribe. It is native to Antarctica, with its range consisting of a large “ring” that surrounds Antarctica. This seal will spend most of its time in the water instead of on land. The Weddell seal appears on the IUCN Red List with a conservation status of “Least Concern”. It is estimated this seal numbers over 800,000 individuals in the wild. First discovered in 1820s by a British sealing captain...
The crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophagus) is a true seal that can be found around the whole of Antarctica. Its range also includes small areas in South America, New Zealand, Africa, and Australia. It resides on the pack ice zone for the entire year, even as it shifts seasonally, and prefers to stay in the continental shelf area in water with a depth of less than 1,968 feet. Because the populations are so wide spread and are sufficiently mixed, there have been no subspecies found. Because...
The subantarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus tropicalis) was described by John Edward Gray, in 1872, when he recovered an individual from Australia, and this was the cause of the improper name of tropicalis. This seal can be found mainly in southern areas of the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It has a wide range, but prefers to breed in areas that are more northern than the Antarctic fur seal, as its name indicates. Gough Island located in the South Atlantic and Ile Amsterdam located in the...
The Antarctic Sea Urchin (Sterechinus neumayeri), is a species of sea urchin in the family Echinidae. It is found in the Antarctic Ocean living on the seafloor. It is common around the circumpolar waters, including the Balleny Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Terra Nova Bay, and Victoria Land. It is found at depths of about 820 feet. The colors of this species range from bright red to dull purple and can grow to 2 inches in diameter. The test (shell) is globular with...
