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West Antarctica Warming in Triple Time

December 26, 2012 Comments off

discovery.com

Bromwich

The study by Bromwich and colleagues suggests that such exceptional melting events as in January 2005 could become more frequent in the future. Top: Map of Antarctica showing the extent of surface melting in January 2005 observed from space. Bottom: Time series of mean January temperature at Byrd Station from 1957 to 2011 with the warm January 2005 highlighted with a yellow circle. Credit: background map from Google Earth; satellite observations of surface melting courtesy of G. Picard (LGGE)

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is warming at twice the rate previously thought, say scientists who have teased the information from more than 50 years of temperature data at Byrd Station, in the center of the ice. The average temperature at that station has risen Read more…

Categories: Antarctica Tags: , ,

Manhattan-sized Glaciers Break off at Both Ends of the Globe

February 6, 2012 Comments off

technorati.com

Following the recent report by MSNBC of a glacier break up in Greenland estimated at twice the size of Manhattan, the National Geographic now reported that another glacier in Antarctica, this time just about the size of Manhattan (is the size of Manhattan the rule of thumb when calculating glacier sizes?) is about to break off as well.

Experts relate that they are worried about the effects this may have on the rising sea level, but what about the collective effects ? Both sites are deemed responsible for possible changes to the ocean currents.

Take the North Atlantic for example, the gulf stream takes warm water from the tropics upstream towards the north, contributing to the warm climate in Europe. As the current hits Greenland it reaches fresh water which causes the salty water to sink and sends warm water back down towards the south.

The problem with glaciers breaking off and eventually melting is that it is reducing the salty warm water moving south, thus slowing down the entire flow. This flow reduction may cause Read more…

Categories: Antarctica, Climate Change Tags: , , , ,

Giant Red Crab Invades Antarctic, Threatens Entire Ecosystem

September 15, 2011 1 comment

inquisitr

Red king crab

Red king crab, courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via Wikimedia Commons

The Antarctic is being invaded by a species that threatens to destroy it’s eco-system, giant red crabs are invading the area, wiping out local wildlife and threatening a 14 million year-old system in the process.

News of the crabs quick appearance is unsettling for researchers who three years ago warned that king crabs would invade the area within 100 years.

Using a remotely operated submersible more than one million Neolithodes yaldwyni have already been discovered in Palmer Deep, some 3,000 to 4,500 feet below sea level.

Craig Smith of the University of Hawaii at Manoa tells the Washington Post:

“This is likely to alter sediment processes, such as the rate at Read more…

Categories: Antarctica Tags: , , , ,

NASA: First Complete Map of Antarctic Ice Flow Helps Tracking Sea-level Rising

August 20, 2011 1 comment

ibtimes

In a bid to track future sea-level increases from climate change, researchers at NASA have come out with the first complete map of the speed and direction of ice flow in Antarctica.

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First complete map of the speed and direction of ice flow in Antarctica, derived from radar interferometric data. Credit. NASA/JPL

The map, which was created by using integrated radar observations from a grouping of international satellites, shows glaciers flowing thousands of miles from the continent’s deep interior to its shore.

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NASA-funded researchers at the University of California (UC), Irvine, used billions of high-resolution radar data points of the continent’s ice flows provided by European, Japanese and Canadian satellites between 2007 and 2009 to extract the clouds, solar glare and land features covering the glaciers.

The researcher’s team, with the help of NASA technology, carefully joined the shape and velocity of glacial formations. The map even includes Eastern Antarctica – an area that, while comprising Read more…

Categories: Antarctica Tags: , , ,

Japan tsunami broke huge icebergs off Antarctica

August 9, 2011 Comments off

thewatchers

The massive March 11 Japan earthquake and its ensuing tsunami were so powerful that they broke off huge icebergs thousands of miles away in Antarctica, according to a new study.

The calving of icebergs (where a huge chunk of ice breaks off from a glacier or ice shelf) from the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica was linked to the tsunami, which originated with the magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of the Japanese island of Honshu, by satellite observations of the Antarctic coast immediately after the earthquake.

Icebergs have been reported to calve following earthquakes before, including after the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck Christchurch, New Zealand, on Feb 22. But the new finding marks the first direct observation of such a connection between tsunamis and iceberg calving.

Read the article

Categories: Antarctica, Earthquake, Japan Tags: , , , ,

Detailed Picture Of Ice Loss Following The Collapse Of Antarctic Ice Shelves

July 26, 2011 Comments off

nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot

An international team of researchers has combined data from multiple sources to provide the clearest account yet of how much glacial ice surges into the sea following the collapse of Antarctic ice shelves.

The work by researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), the Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at the University of Toulouse, France, and the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colo., details recent ice losses while promising to sharpen future predictions of further ice loss and sea level rise likely to result from ongoing changes along the Antarctic Peninsula.

The Larsen B ice shelf began disintegrating around Jan. 31, 2002. Its eventual collapse into the Weddell Sea remains the largest in a series of Larsen ice shelf losses in recent decades, and a team of international scientists has now documented the continued glacier ice loss in the years following the dramatic event. NASA’s MODerate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) captured this image on Feb. 17, 2002.
  Read more…
Categories: Antarctica Tags: , ,

Underwater Antarctic Volcano Chain Discovered In The Southern Ocean

July 12, 2011 Comments off

nanopatentsandinnovations

Scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered previously unknown volcanoes in the ocean waters around the remote South Sandwich Islands. Using ship-borne sea-floor mapping technology during research cruises onboard the RRS James Clark Ross, the scientists found 12 volcanoes beneath the sea surface – some up to 3km high. They found 5km diameter craters left by collapsing volcanoes and 7 active volcanoes visible above the sea as a chain of islands.Sea-floor mapping technology reveals volcanoes beneath the sea surface Read more…
Categories: Antarctica, volcano Tags: , , , ,

Unidentified Object @ Antarctica’s Neumayer Station 061811- 062011

July 4, 2011 2 comments

These are recent photos from the Antarctica Neumayer Station on 6/18/11 – 6/20/11.
http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/stations/neumayer.shtml

This object would confirm what we are seeing at 2:57 in this video…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUiKzdLb7Yc
Please take a look. This video confirms what we are seeing in the Antarctic.

These new photos have me extremely puzzled and concerned. We’ve identified the moon and the location of the Sun, but there is another large Read more…

Categories: Antarctica, astronomy, South Pole, Strange Events Tags: , , , , , , ,

Stronger Ocean Currents Speed Melting Of Antarctic Ice

June 27, 2011 Comments off

nanopatentsandinnovations

Stronger ocean currents beneath West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf are eroding the ice from below, speeding the melting of the glacier as a whole, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience. A growing cavity beneath the ice shelf has allowed more warm water to melt the ice, the researchers say—a process that feeds back into the ongoing rise in global sea levels. The glacier is currently sliding into the sea at a clip of four kilometers (2.5 miles) a year, while its ice shelf is melting at about 80 cubic kilometers a year – 50 percent faster than it was in the early 1990s – the paper estimates.

A major glacier is undermined from below: upwelling seawater along parts of Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf has carved out caves in the ice and drawn wildlife like this whale.

Credit: Maria Stenzel, all rights reserved.

“More warm water from the deep ocean is entering the cavity beneath the ice shelf, and it is warmest where the ice is thickest,” said study’s lead author, Stan Jacobs, an oceanographer at Read more…

Categories: Antarctica Tags: , , , ,

Tectonic plates rattle- more turbulence at the South Pole

June 21, 2011 Comments off

theextinctionprotocol

June 21, 2011 – ANTARCTICA – A 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck the South Sandwich Islands region, situated around 750km south east of South Georgia, in the South Atlantic early Sunday.  It was the latest in a series of quakes to hit the Antarctic Region during the past 24 hours. The moderate quake struck at 9.37am GMT at a depth of 137km and was centered 69 km (42 miles) NNW of Visokoi Island and 330 km (205 miles) NNW of Bristol Island. The last significant earthquake to be recorded in the South Sandwich Islands region occurred on Read more…

Categories: Antarctica, Earthquake Tags: , , , , , , , , ,