BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — For the first time since the start of the pandemic the coronavirus has reached an Argentine research base in Antarctica, causing the evacuation of nine unvaccinated staff who tested positive for Covid-19, an official said Thursday. Twenty-four of the 43 scientists and military personnel resident at Argentina’s La Esperanza base have been infected, Patricia Ortuzar of the government’s National Directorate of the Antarctic told AFP. Nine of the 24, who […]
Tag: Antartica
1.5C warming cap could ‘halve’ sea level rise from melting ice
by Patrick GALEY PARIS, France (AFP) — Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could halve how much sea levels rise due to melting ice sheets this century, according to a major new study modelling how Earth’s frozen spaces will respond to ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Since 1993, melting land ice has contributed to at least half of global sea level rise and scientists have previously warned that the vast ice sheets of Antarctica were […]
Antarctica’s glacier-damming ice shelves at risk
by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — More than half the ice shelves ringing Antarctica that prevent huge glaciers from sliding into the ocean and lifting sea levels are at risk of crumbling due to climate change, researchers said Wednesday. Melt water running into deep fissures caused by warming air is undermining the structural integrity of these natural barricades, they reported in Nature. “If the ice shelves fill up with melt water, things can happen […]
South Pole warming three times faster than rest of Earth: study
by Patrick GALEY PARIS, France (AFP) — The South Pole has warmed three times faster than the rest of the planet in the last 30 years due to warmer tropical ocean temperatures, new research showed Monday. Antarctica’s temperature varies widely according to season and region, and for years it had been thought that the South Pole had stayed cool even as the continent heated up. Researchers in New Zealand, Britain and the United States analysed […]
Ukraine scientists navigate lockdown to reach Antarctica
by Olga SHYLENKO Agence France-Presse KIEV, Ukraine (AFP) — Yuriy Otruba was preparing for his sixth scientific expedition to Antarctica when the coronavirus pandemic hit, shutting borders, grounding flights and locking down countries he needed to travel through. After repeated trips since 2009, the 34-year-old Ukrainian scientist feared this year’s journey would be impossible due to strict lockdown measures imposed throughout the world to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The journey from Kiev to the Akademik Vernadsky […]
Six-fold jump in polar ice loss lifts global oceans
by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Greenland and Antarctica are shedding six times more ice than during the 1990s, driving sea-level rise that could see annual flooding by 2100 in regions home today to some 400 million people, scientists have warned. The kilometers-thick ice sheets atop landmasses at the planet’s extremities sloughed off 6.4 trillion tonnes of mass from 1992 through 2017, adding nearly two centimeters (an inch) to the global watermark, according to […]
Massive iceberg breaks off Antarctica — but it’s normal
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A more than 600-square-mile iceberg broke off Antarctica in recent days, but the event is part of a normal cycle and is not related to climate change, scientists say. The iceberg, dubbed D28, broke away from the Amery ice shelf between September 24 and 25, according to observations from European and American satellites. It measures 1,582 square kilometers (610 square miles), according to the European Copernicus program. It is about […]
Melting ice sheets may cause ‘climate chaos’: study
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Billions of tonnes of meltwater flowing into the world’s oceans from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could boost extreme weather and destabilize regional climate within a matter of decades, researchers said Wednesday. These melting giants, especially the one atop Greenland, are poised to further weaken the ocean currents that move cold water south along the Atlantic Ocean floor while pushing tropical waters northward closer […]
Antarctica ice loss increases six fold since 1979: study
by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France Presse TAMPA. United States (AFP) — Global warming is melting ice in Antarctica faster than ever before — about six times more per year now than 40 years ago — leading to increasingly high sea levels worldwide, scientists warned Monday. Already, Antarctic melting has raised global sea levels more than half an inch (1.4 centimeters) between 1979 and 2017, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of […]
American adventurer completes solo trek across Antarctica
by Chris Lefkow Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — An American adventurer has become the first person to complete a solo trek across Antarctica without assistance of any kind. Colin O’Brady, 33, took 54 days to complete the nearly 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) crossing of the frozen continent from coast to coast. In an Instagram post, he explained his journey ended upon crossing the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf: the point where Antarctica’s land […]
Modest warming risks ‘irreversible’ ice sheet loss, study warns
by Patrick GALEY Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Even modest temperature rises agreed under an international plan to limit climate disaster could see the ice caps melt enough this century for their loss to be “irreversible”, experts warned Monday. The 2015 Paris Agreement limits nations to temperature rises “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and to less than 1.5C if at all possible. That ballpark of getting 1.5-2C hotter […]
Propping up glaciers to avoid cataclysmic sea level rise
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — As global warming outpaces efforts to tame it, scientists have proposed building massive underwater structures to prevent an Antarctic glacier the size of Britain from sliding into the sea and lifting the world’s oceans by several meters. The more modest of two engineering schemes — which is still on the scale of a Panama or Suez Canal — to shore up Thwaites Glacier would require […]





