#antarctic — Public Fediverse posts

#Antarctic sea ice is nearing its annual maximum extent (austral winter). This year will not be setting any new records, though there are plenty of regional extremes as shown in August's anomaly pattern.

+ Concentration means the fraction of ice in an area
+ Graphic from https://zacklabe.com/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/

In August 2026, the #SeaIce global extent was 7.2% below 1991-2020 mean. Since the beginning of records (1978):
- #Arctic, 12th lowest monthly mean, with 9.1% less extent than normal (-617,526km²)
- #Antarctic, 4th lowest monthly mean, with 6.5% less exent than normal (1,178,424km²)

for more: https://osi-saf.eumetsat.int/sea-ice-index

In August 2026, the #SeaIce global extent was 7.2% below 1991-2020 mean. Since the beginning of records (1978):
- #Arctic, 12th lowest monthly mean, with 9.1% less extent than normal (-617,526km²)
- #Antarctic, 4th lowest monthly mean, with 6.5% less exent than normal (1,178,424km²)

for more: https://osi-saf.eumetsat.int/sea-ice-index

In August 2026, the #SeaIce global extent was 7.2% below 1991-2020 mean. Since the beginning of records (1978):
- #Arctic, 12th lowest monthly mean, with 9.1% less extent than normal (-617,526km²)
- #Antarctic, 4th lowest monthly mean, with 6.5% less exent than normal (1,178,424km²)

for more: https://osi-saf.eumetsat.int/sea-ice-index

In August 2026, the #SeaIce global extent was 7.2% below 1991-2020 mean. Since the beginning of records (1978):
- #Arctic, 12th lowest monthly mean, with 9.1% less extent than normal (-617,526km²)
- #Antarctic, 4th lowest monthly mean, with 6.5% less exent than normal (1,178,424km²)

for more: https://osi-saf.eumetsat.int/sea-ice-index

#FotoVorschlag: Objekte, die mit "W" beginnen oder so aussehen // Objects beginning with "W" or resembling it

(Details in the #AltText) (AltText By Human)

#NoGenAi #NoAI #No2AI #Photo #CamelCase #Photography #Animal #TravelPhotography #Animals #PhotoOfTheDay #POTD #WildlifePhotography #NaturePhotography #Nature #Wildlife #Antarctic #Antarctica #Remote #Isolated #Snow #Ice #Sea #Water #Ocean #Whale #Wal #Wale #Baleines #Baleine #HumpbackWhale #HumpbackWhales #Cetacean #Cetacea #PhotoSuggestion

#FotoVorschlag: Objekte, die mit "W" beginnen oder so aussehen // Objects beginning with "W" or resembling it

(Details in the #AltText) (AltText By Human)

#NoGenAi #NoAI #No2AI #Photo #CamelCase #Photography #Animal #TravelPhotography #Animals #PhotoOfTheDay #POTD #WildlifePhotography #NaturePhotography #Nature #Wildlife #Antarctic #Antarctica #Remote #Isolated #Snow #Ice #Sea #Water #Ocean #Whale #Wal #Wale #Baleines #Baleine #HumpbackWhale #HumpbackWhales #Cetacean #Cetacea #PhotoSuggestion

#FotoVorschlag: Objekte, die mit "W" beginnen oder so aussehen // Objects beginning with "W" or resembling it

(Details in the #AltText) (AltText By Human)

#NoGenAi #NoAI #No2AI #Photo #CamelCase #Photography #Animal #TravelPhotography #Animals #PhotoOfTheDay #POTD #WildlifePhotography #NaturePhotography #Nature #Wildlife #Antarctic #Antarctica #Remote #Isolated #Snow #Ice #Sea #Water #Ocean #Whale #Wal #Wale #Baleines #Baleine #HumpbackWhale #HumpbackWhales #Cetacean #Cetacea #PhotoSuggestion

#FotoVorschlag: Objekte, die mit "W" beginnen oder so aussehen // Objects beginning with "W" or resembling it

(Details in the #AltText) (AltText By Human)

#NoGenAi #NoAI #No2AI #Photo #CamelCase #Photography #Animal #TravelPhotography #Animals #PhotoOfTheDay #POTD #WildlifePhotography #NaturePhotography #Nature #Wildlife #Antarctic #Antarctica #Remote #Isolated #Snow #Ice #Sea #Water #Ocean #Whale #Wal #Wale #Baleines #Baleine #HumpbackWhale #HumpbackWhales #Cetacean #Cetacea #PhotoSuggestion

#FotoVorschlag: Objekte, die mit "W" beginnen oder so aussehen // Objects beginning with "W" or resembling it

(Details in the #AltText) (AltText By Human)

#NoGenAi #NoAI #No2AI #Photo #CamelCase #Photography #Animal #TravelPhotography #Animals #PhotoOfTheDay #POTD #WildlifePhotography #NaturePhotography #Nature #Wildlife #Antarctic #Antarctica #Remote #Isolated #Snow #Ice #Sea #Water #Ocean #Whale #Wal #Wale #Baleines #Baleine #HumpbackWhale #HumpbackWhales #Cetacean #Cetacea #PhotoSuggestion

3-Sep-2026
Less #UVlight may mean less carbon storage in Antarctic tundra

The #Antarctic ozone layer is recovering, a major environmental success following the #MontrealProtocol. As the #ozone layer heals, less #ultraviolet radiation reaches the Antarctic surface—a change usually viewed as beneficial for living organisms.
But a new field study suggests that the ecological story may be more complicated.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1142536

#science #environment #ecology

3-Sep-2026
#Antarctic expedition reveals why #SouthernOcean #clouds remain one of #climateScience's greatest challenges
Researchers compare real-world observations with leading #climateModels to improve future climate predictions

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1142540

#science #climateCatastrophe #environment

this week's feature in #CurrentBiology has cute #penguins and #seals as well as a dose of #climateCatastrophe. https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2026/07/antarctic-in-danger.html

#science #antarctic #environment #conservation

#MeerMittwoch #SeaWednesday

A Little Ice To Cool Down With

(Description In AltText)

#AltText #NoAI #No2AI #Photo #Photography #POTD #PhotoOfTheDay #Travel #Sea #Ocean #TravelPhotography #Water #CamelCase #Antarctic #Antarctica #Iceberg #Snow #Ice #Icebergs #MargueriteBay #SouthernOcean #Cold #Cool #AntarcticCircle #BNW #BlackAndWhite #BlackAndWhitePhotography #Monochrome #Seascape

💁🏻‍♀️ TIL: 🧵🌐 The hairy ball #theorem says you can’t comb a #sphere smooth without a cowlick somewhere.

The same rule explains why #Earth always has a #cyclone spinning, why #fusion reactors use #doughnut shapes, and why omnidirectional antennas can’t exist. #Wind patterns over the #Arctic and #Antarctic circles illustrate the proof.

👉 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-maths-hairy-ball-theorem-could-explain-bad-hair-days/

#topology #math #weather #hurricane #nuclearfusion #tokamak #plasma #science #hair

#melting #iceshelves #underseastorms #Antarctic

Original article (paywalled, log in to your local university library to read)

Poinelli et al. Nat. Geosci. (2025)

Ocean submesoscales as drivers of submarine melting within Antarctic ice cavities.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01831-z

Antarctic Meltwater Alters Future Projections Of Climate And Sea Level
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-64438-3 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.7275/6t64-wy56 <-- shared link to scripts for running the models and creating the figures in this data repository
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #model #modeling #sealevel #sealevelerise #meltwater #Antarctic #projection #forecast #global #climatechange #icesheet #massloss #refinement #meansealevel #SouthernOcean #fluvial #pluvia; #precipitation #overturningcirculation #heattransport #temperature #Pacific #Atlantic #ocean #marine #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal

uneventful but exhausting 36 hrs and in Copenhagen for a meeting.

the #CarbonGuilt is there but obviously not enough to stop me travelling 🙄 - but it is an important workshop with just a few handfuls of the leading lights planning #Antarctic #SouthernOcean research for the next decade ... so... here I am. #climate #oceans

Sustained Decrease In Inland East Antarctic Surface Mass Balance Between 2005 And 2020
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01699-z <-- shared paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #Antarctic #EastAntarctic #icesheet #massbalance #spatialanalysis #model #modeling #spatiotemporal #water #climate #climatedynamics #monitoring #remotesensing #earthobservation #icecore #snowpit #wind #melting #water #ice #science #cryology #snow #weather #watervapour #climatemodel

Antarctic Sea Ice Minimum, 2025

#Antarctic #AntarcticCircle #AntarcticIce #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateIndicators #Cryology #Cryosphere

⏩ 1 new picture and 1 new video from NASA (SVS) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles?limit=6&user=OptimusPrimeBot&ilshowall=1&offset=20250315125637

Beyond the Visible: Landsat Next’s New Spectral Bands

#Antarctic #AntarcticCircle #AntarcticIce #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateIndicators #Cryology #Cryosphere

⏩ 1 new picture and 2 new videos from NASA (SVS) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles?limit=7&user=OptimusPrimeBot&ilshowall=1&offset=20250315125637

Warm Seawater Encroaches On Major Antarctic Ice Shelf, Raising Sea Level Concerns
--
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-seawater-encroaches-major-antarctic-ice.html <-- shared technical article
--
https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JC020700 <-- shared paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #climatechange #Antarctic #Antarctica #icesheet #warmwater #oceancurrents #ocean #marine #iceshelves #WeddellSea #FilchnerRonneIceShelf #basal #melt #melting #rates #model #modeling #continentalshelf #spatiotemporal #observation #icecover #freshwater #global #sealevel #climatemodels #water #temperature #velocity #seawater #FilchnerTrough #spatialanalysis #oceandynamics

Oh, wait, just a second...
When AMOC hickupped during LGM or deglaciasation, global sea level was 120m lower than today.
My musings wrt (sea) ice melt back then compared to today, and its impact on AMOC transport speed should also consider that coastal ice wasn't sea ice at all due to lower sea level.
Dunno for sure, but continental ice could have covered the very shallow Norwegian sea all the way up to Svalbard.

Arctic ocean also has ocean currents that somehow interact with AMOC. Sea ice formation helps driving ocean currents.
When less area was covered by ocean, sea ice formation was less which must have influenced Arctic ocean currents, and therefor, AMOC in paleoclimate.

Today's Arctic sea ice loss has already altered, weakened or stopped a bottom water current that goes right through the centre of the Arctic sea. Don't recall its name now, maybe starts with a T or L...?
And wasn't Alaska also connected to Siberia, and hence no water from the Pacific entered the Arctic sea to drive currents and influence AMOC?
Anyway, whether or not any Arctic ocean currents existed during LGM or deglaciasation, when sea ice formation was greatly reduced all around the Arctic coast, is also something to bear in mind when comparing the causes of a tipping paleo AMOC with the causes of the tipping potential of an #EconObscene AMOC.

Antarctic sea ice formation wouldn't have been reduced from lower sea level, tho. Not impeded by <surrounding> land area, it just formed further out. That's all.

#paleoclimate #LGM #AMOC #seaice #Arctic #Antarctic #ocean #TippingPoint

#BlueWhales: first discovery near #Seychelles in decades https://theconversation.com/blue-whales-first-discovery-near-seychelles-in-decades-what-our-study-found-224558 paper: https://discovery.fiu.edu/display/pub284893

"the archipelago was an opportunistic whaling ground for #Soviet #whaling fleets en route to and from the #Antarctic. In the northern #IndianOcean, #whalers illegally killed more than 1,200 blue #whales, including 500 near the Seychelles, between 1963 and '66... After surveying about 5,500 km, we had a total of 5 sightings of up to 10 blue whales. This was a phenomenal finding."

Really outstanding work from Leeds Uni Remote sensing, led by Ben Davison, on observed changes to #Antarctic #IceShelves

This was a highlight presentation of @OceanIceEU workshop bringing #EarthObservation + #climateModelling communities together earlier this year - which I am now coincidentally writing up as a report + recommendations for publication as I travel by #crossBorderRail today...

Worth a read, Ben is really good at beautiful easy to interpret graphics.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi0186

Plankton Generate a Cloudy Shield over the Antarctic
--
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plankton-generate-a-cloudy-shield-over-the-antarctic/ <-- shared technical article
--
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1677-2023 <-- shared paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #watervapour #watervapor #nucleus #nucleation #cloud #whitening #climatemodels #cloudformation #clouds #weather #albedo #plankton #phytoplankton #remotesensing #satellite #MODIS #model #modeling #Antarctic #sunlight #climate #reflection #climatechange #warming #radiation #dimethylsulfide #aerosl #particles #marineboundarylayer #MBL
@noaa

We finally have submitted our study about emulating #Antarctic sub-shelf #melt rates simulated by a cavity-opening ocean #model with a #NeuralNetwork

Main conclusion: a neural network is at least as good in parameterising basal melt rates as traditional physics-based parameterisations!

#climate #modelling #IceShelves #IceSheet #DeepLearning #BasalMelt

Co-authors on the #fediverse: @nicojourd @tobifinn

Check out the preprint here: https://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.168500298.88328432/v1

A new twist on an older idea: a temperature threshold for #Antarctic #IceShelves
But @jmvanwessem @steflhermitte et al show #Snow is key:

Variable temperature thresholds of melt pond formation on Antarctic ice shelves

"For relatively wet ice shelves, the −5 °C temperature threshold was confirmed; but cold + dry ice shelves such as Amery, Ross + Filchner-Ronne are more vulnerable than previously thought, with threshold temperatures well below −15 °C. "

4/x
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01577-1

To start off the 1 paper per week challenge of this year, here is my #PaperOfTheWeek, or rather #PreprintOfTheWeek 😀

https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2022-225/

They present and evaluate a new one-layer dynamical model to improve the fine-scale representation of #melt patterns under #Antarctic #IceShelves. Interesting to see how this can be applied to improve future #SeaLevel projections!
Quite technical but interesting for #ocean and #IceSheet #modelers!

#NSFW #nudity #antarctic #vintage #snow #cold #1958 #RobinSmith

Antarctic beach scene

Senior US Navy personnel, having heated their bodies in a sauna to the limit of their endurance, in the base 10 m below the surface, emerge into -20 C to lie on the ice as if it were a beach. It was not a world record for such an ordeal but they all received treatment for frostbite to remember the occasion! Photo: 1958.
Credit: Robin Smith