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2024 01 24 tip of cambell glacier tongue Craig Stevens

Sustained ocean cooling insufficient to reverse sea level rise from Antarctica

Date: 2024
Type: Science
Summary: A recent study found that minimising ocean-driven melting through reduced emissions or geoengineering is essential to prevent serious future sea level rise.
Pic1 header

Monitoring melting of the Ross Ice Shelf using radar

Date: 2024
Type: Science
Summary: Researchers are using custom-built instruments to monitor ice shelf melting in a rapidly melting region of the Ross Ice Shelf, surrounding Ross Island. After a successful 2023/24 Antarctic field season, all instruments are now operational.
SWAIS coreworkshop 3 Sally Knox

SWAIS2C core workshop offers first glimpse of sediment from below Ross Ice Shelf

Date: 2024
Type: Update
Summary: Sediment cores retrieved from Antarctica’s Siple Coast last summer were carefully opened and examined at a recent workshop at the Otago Repository for Core Analysis (ORCA), an important step in the hunt for clues about the past behaviour of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
New Zealand delegation to the Scientific Committee meeting in Hobart

Highlights from the desk of an accidental science 'diplomat'

Date: 2024
Type: People
Authors: Clare I.M. Adams
Summary: Highlights from an early career research scientist’s experience spending a year in a science-policy fellowship position at MPI.
Fig 7 camp

Co-designing the future of the Antarctic Science Platform

Date: 2024
Type: Update
Summary: New Zealand’s Antarctic community is invited to participate in the design and development of a second phase of the Antarctic Science Platform.
Ross Ice Shelf Nov 2023 Photo High Chittock Antarctica New Zealand

West Antarctica’s ice sheet was smaller thousands of years ago – here’s why this matters today

Date: 2024
Type: Science
Authors: Dan Lowry
Summary: A key uncertainty in how much and how fast the seas will rise lies in whether currently “stable” parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet can become “unstable”. It retreated hundreds of kilometres some 7,000 years ago, and then advanced again to its present position within the last 2,000 years. But why? New research published in Nature tests two main hypotheses.
Sea ice

Antarctica's sea ice hit another low this year – understanding how ocean warming is driving the loss is key

Date: 2024
Type: Field Work
Authors: Craig Stevens
Summary: At the end of the southern summer, Antarctica’s sea ice hit its annual minimum. By at least one measure, which tracks the area of ocean that contains at least 15% of sea ice, it was a little above the record low of 2023.
Fig 1 hagglunds

Platelet ice sampling system: the first deployment

Date: 2024
Type: Science
Summary: The 22/23 Antarctic field season was the first scientific deployment of the new platelet sampling system. This custom-designed and bespoke-engineered system successfully sampled the biota associated with sea ice and platelet ice habitats.

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