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200 Years of Exploring Antarctica — the World’s Coldest, Most Forbidding and Most Peaceful Continent
By Dan Morgan
Antarctica is the remotest part of the world, but it is a hub of scientific discovery, international diplomacy and environmental change. It was officially discovered 200 years ago, on Jan. 27, 1820, when members of a Russian expedition sighted land in what is now known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf on the continent's east side.
The world awakened to the hole in the ozone layer in 1985, which scientists attributed it to ozone-depleting substances. Two years later, in Montreal, the world agreed to ban the halogen compounds causing the massive hole over Antarctica. Research now shows that those chemicals didn't just cut a hole in the ozone layer, they also warmed up the Arctic.
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For the first time, scientists have proven that the thinning ice shelves floating around Antarctica are driving ice loss from the interior of the continent as well, according to new research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Antarctica Just Lost a 347 Billion Ton Iceberg, but This Time the Climate Crisis Is Not to Blame
A 315 billion tonne (approximately 347 billion U.S. ton) iceberg has broken off of Antarctica's third largest ice shelf, BBC News reported Monday. It is the biggest berg to calve from the Amery Ice Shelf in more than 50 years.
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'Oceans Are Sending Us so Many Warning Signals': New UN Climate Change Report
It's time for low-level coastal communities to head for the hills. Once-in-a-hundred-years sea level events will be an annual occurrence by 2050.
A swath of Antarctica's sea ice larger than four times the size of France has melted since 2014, AFP reported Tuesday.
Global Climate Revolt Escalates: 1,351+ Strikes in 110 Countries Planned for Friday
By Julia Conley
Two months after what was reportedly the largest international climate demonstration ever, young people around the world are expected to make history again on Friday with a second global climate strike.
A new study has more than doubled the worst-case-scenario projection for sea level rise by the end of the century, BBC News reported Monday.
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Yet another study has shown that glaciers in Antarctica are melting at accelerating rates.
Almost 25 percent of the West Antarctic ice shelf is now thinning, and the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers are losing ice at five times the rate they were in the early 1990s, CNN reported.
Parts of the world's largest ice shelf are melting 10 times faster than the shelf's average rate, and this could have worrying implications for sea level rise.
The finding is part of a study of the Ross Ice Shelf, a block of ice about the size of France, which plays an important role in stabilizing the rest of Antarctica, as BBC News reported.
Lower Sea Level Rise but More ‘Climate Chaos’? Two New Studies Predict Polar Ice Melt Consequences
There's good news and there's bad news. Two new studies focusing on ice melt in Antarctica and Greenland have revised down the worst-case scenario for the amount of sea level rise the world could see by 2100, but say the overall climate impacts of melt water entering the oceans could be devastating.
"The sea-level estimates maybe aren't as bad as we thought, but the climate predictions are worse," lead author of one of the studies and Antarctic Research Center of the University of Victoria, Wellington climate scientist Nick Golledge told National Geographic.