#antarctic-ocean

#antarctic-ocean

Imagine waking up on a ship surrounded by icebergs, camping in the snowy wilderness and kayaking among the exhalations of humpback whales. You can also take part in a polar plunge, board small zodiac boats to search for leopard seals and collect samples for science research.

Travelling there was a childhood dream of mine. I saw it as a way to test myself against something so much bigger. I nearly applied for a role at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) 30 years ago, but then my wife and I were expecting our first child. Instead, I've worked as a chef in Michelin-star restaurants in Paris and London, hotels in Kuala Lumpur and St Moritz, and even at a school in Oxfordshire.

He had flown in from Mar-a-Lago and, he told me, was there to observe. The next day, he watched as Åsa Rennermalm, a Rutgers University professor who studies polar regions, sat onstage with European foreign ministers and spoke out against cuts to U.S. science funding. "A leading US Arctic scientist is on stage absolutely ripping her country to the delight of the audience," Dans wrote on X. "Embarassing." He punctuated his post with an American-flag emoji.

'Forever' chemicals, which do not break down in the environment, have been detected in Antarctica, highlighting their widespread presence even in remote areas.

Changes in the Antarctic do not stay in the Antarctic. Though Antarctica is far away, changes here will impact the rest of the world through changes in sea level, oceanic and atmospheric connections and circulation changes.

'They save up ice like a savings account and then spend it all very quickly like a Black Friday event.'

Ice-sheet retreat lined up with low algae growth over the past ~500,000 years, implying less CO₂ uptake in parts of the Southern Ocean during warm periods. The study points to iceberg-delivered, iron-rich sediments from West Antarctica during warm intervals, not windblown dust. The iron-bearing minerals in these sediments were highly weathered and not readily bioavailable to marine algae. If WAIS keeps shrinking, similar sediment delivery could weaken Southern Ocean carbon uptake, creating feedback that could amplify climate change.

Krill are a keystone species and the main food source for whales, penguins and seals. Aker QRILL, the world's largest harvester of krill, a tiny crustacean and keystone of Antarctica's fragile ecosystem, and its sister company, Aker BioMarine, produce feed additives for aquaculture and dietary supplements for pets and humans.

That seemingly paradoxical dynamic results from several factors. Foremost among them is the rebound of land beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet, a mile-thick body of glacial ice that covers 80 percent of the island and is being lost to melting at a rate of roughly 200 billion tons each year. As the ice sheet loses mass, the land beneath rises.

Polar bears are the poster children of climate changeand for good reason. These giant bears hunt, mate and spend their days hanging out on Arctic sea ice, which is rapidly disappearing as the climate warms. But some polar bears, it seems, are far more resilient than we realized: new research suggests that in one region, the bears are adapting to the declining sea ice.

Decades of successful scientific collaboration could be at risk if Europe-US political relations continue to fray over trade and defense issues. For more than 30 years, Arctic nations have worked together across the physical, biological and social sciences to understand one of the world's fastest changing regions. Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost around 33,000 square miles of sea ice each year roughly the same area as Czechia.

In the pristine High Arctic sits the Kitsissut island cluster, also known as the Carey Islands, nestled between northwest Greenland and northeast Canada. The surrounding seas are perilous, and traveling there is difficult even with modern boats. But new archaeological evidence suggests ancient humans managed to sail to the islands, too. Early settlers lived on the islands between 4,500 and 2,700 years ago.

At first glance, it looked like Wooller and his colleagues might have found evidence that mammoths lived in central Alaska just 2,000 years ago. But ancient DNA revealed that two "mammoth" bones actually belonged to a North Pacific right whale and a minke whale-which raised a whole new set of questions. The team's hunt for Alaska's last mammoth had turned into an epic case of mistaken identity, starring two whale species and a mid-century fossil hunter.