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95 288 Craig Potton

Antarctic Science Platform in the news 2022/23

Date: 2023
Type: Update
Summary: In case you missed it, here are some of the media and outreach opportunities our team was involved in during the past year. There were also public talks, school visits and publications in subscription-based magazines.
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Under thinning ice at Lake Fryxell

Date: 2023
Type: Update
Summary: In January, divers were able to return to the bottom of Lake Fryxell in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Waikato University professor Ian Hawes donned his dive suit as part of a NZ-US team carrying out long-term ecological monitoring. They found that the ice on the lake is thinning, and this is changing the microbial life that grows in this extreme environment. Videographer Anthony Powell worked with the divers to bring back pictures from the bottom of the lake, and TVNZ's Laura Frykberg helped tell the story.
MDV 29 medium

Antarctic tipping points: The irreversible changes to come if we fail to keep warming below 2℃

Date: 2023
Type: Science
Authors: Tim Naish
Summary: The slow-down of the Southern Ocean circulation, a dramatic drop in the extent of sea ice and unprecedented heatwaves are all raising concerns that Antarctica may be approaching tipping points.
Penguins on cracking ice 2

Record low Antarctic sea ice is another alarming sign the ocean’s role as climate regulator is changing

Date: 2023
Type: In the media
Authors: Craig Stevens
Summary: A changing climate is upon us, with more frequent land and marine heatwaves, forest fires, atmospheric rivers and floods. For some, it is the backdrop to day-to-day life, but for a growing number of people it is a life-changing reality.
Drilling through Antarctic ice

Massive cavern beneath West Antarctic glacier teeming with life

Glaciologists bored 500 meters through the Kamb Ice Stream to access the cavern
Date: 2023
Type: In the media
Authors: Science News
Summary: Until recently, no human had ever glimpsed this secret landscape. Scientists had merely inferred its existence from the faint reflections of radar and seismic waves. But in the closing days of 2021, a team of scientists from New Zealand melted a narrow hole through the glacier’s ice and lowered in a camera.
Sea ice photo by Tim Haskell

Why is Antarctic sea ice melting?

Date: 2023
Type: In the media
Authors: Radio New Zealand
Summary: Researchers in our southernmost continent were shocked to find stretches of sea ice disappearing, and while they don't know why it's happening, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Skua

Rapid response to protect penguins from bird flu

Likelihood of H5N1 reaching Antarctica
Date: 2023
Type: Press Release
Authors: Waikato University
Summary: With support from The University of Waikato (UOW) Environmental Research Institute (ERI) and Antarctica New Zealand, ASP researcher Professor Craig Cary undertook a world first survey for bird flu in Victoria Land.
Craig Stewart Photo

I am a polar oceanographer – this is what I do

Date: 2023
Type: In the media
Authors: The Spin Off
Summary: From his office at NIWA headquarters in Wellington, Antarctic Science Platform scientist Craig Stewart gets updates from the Southern Ocean, where climate change is starting to melt the ice shelves.

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