Updates

Date: 2024

Type: Update

Summary: The RV Laura Bassi has crossed the Antarctic circle (66° 34’S), and last night the team spotted their first iceberg through the fog.

Date: 2024

Type: Update

Summary: The Ross Sea Voyage 2024 is underway. Seven scientists from the Antarctic Science Platform departed Lyttleton at 1700 on 6 January on Italy’s RV Laura Bassi icebreaker, with around 25 Italian colleagues. This climate-focused mission will spend two months at sea.

Date: 2023

Type: Update

Summary: We are collecting a variety of geophysical datasets at Discovery Deep to better understand the configuration of ice, ocean and sub-seafloor geology along the west side of the Ross Ice Shelf. To better constrain forecasts and models of change as Antarctic ice sheets respond to warming, we need information on present and past environments in the region. This requires drilling to collect ice and seafloor sediment cores. Within the Antarctic Science Platform, and through collaborative international programmes like SWAIS2C, our focus so far has been on drilling sites, which investigate contrasting regions of the ice shelf.

Date: 2023

Type: Update

Authors: Project 1

Summary: The world’s ice sheets are sensitive to environmental change and, as the largest reservoir of freshwater on Earth, melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet has significant potential to raise sea levels and disrupt global ocean circulation. To determine ice sheet response to warming, our team of researchers in the Antarctic Ice Dynamics project are looking at environmental records of how the Antarctic ice sheets and surrounding ocean have changed in the past, and comparing those records to signals of change that we can detect today.

Date: 2023

Type: Update

Authors: Project 2

Summary: A changing Antarctica will impact oceanic transport of heat and other associated materials, such as salt, carbon dioxide, oxygen and nutrients. Researchers in the Antarctic Ocean Mechanics project are investigating past and present ocean conditions - currents, polynya formation, sea ice and dispersion of meltwater - and how this may change as the world warms.

Date: 2023

Type: Update

Authors: Project 3

Summary: The Ross Sea region contains one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the Southern Ocean, encompassing open ocean, pack ice and coastal habitats, including much of the world’s largest marine protected area. It also harbours diverse land-based ecosystems ranging from iconic Antarctic lakes to ancient soils that are home to unique biota. Our team of researchers in the Ross Sea Ecosystems project is working to better understand what the future may hold for these environments. We are developing new techniques and autonomous instruments for remote sensing to fill gaps in understanding of biodiversity and ecological process.

Date: 2023

Type: Update

Authors: Project 4

Summary: Sea ice extent, and the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases between the atmosphere and ocean, varies from year to year, influenced by changes in atmospheric and open-ocean conditions. Understanding the difference between seasonal variability and long-term change is key to predicting Antarctica’s influence on the future global climate system. Researchers in the Sea Ice and Carbon Cycle Feedbacks project are analysing variability in sea ice and the carbon cycles in the Ross Sea region and on larger scales, including connections to atmospheric circulation and climate processes across the Southern Ocean and much of the Southern Hemisphere.

Date: 2023

Type: Update

Summary: Antarctic scientists concerned about dramatic sea ice retreat have today issued the following statement from the emergency summit in Wellington. They have called for urgent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to keep the climate within liveable conditions.