This is the 33rd issuance of the annual assessment now known as State of the Climate, published in the Bulletin since 1996. As a supplement to the Bulletin, its foremost function is to document the status and trajectory of many components of the climate system. However, as a series, the …
A team of researchers from the us and New Zealand has found penguin chicks in the Antarctic covered in oil. It has completed an environmental survey of a former Antarctic research station at Cape Hallett and recommended steps to safeguard penguin chicks from melt pools contaminated with oil from an …
ice in the Pine Island Glacier, which lies in the Antarctic Ice sheet is melting and raising the sea level. This is the first evidence of glacial melting raising the sea levels. "In terms of ice discharge, this is nothing like anyone has seen before,' says Andrew Shepherd, researcher at …
Though disposing of radioactive waste as well as military activity in and around Antarctica is banned, the continent is not free from threats. Long distance dispersion of radioactive particles has put its marine life at risk. According to marine biologist Franceso Nonnis Marzano of the University of Parma in Italy …
it is time to take out sun creams, ultraviolet protective sunglasses, wide brimmed hats and clothing with long sleeves because the largest ever ozone hole over Antarctica has just been detected by the us National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( nasa) . The ozone hole over the Antarctic is the …
the ozone layer over Antarctica has depleted severely, according to the World Meteorological Organisation ( wmo ), a un agency. "The latest satellite observations in the sunlight portion of the Antarctica perimetre show an average decrease of about 30 per cent in the total amount of ozone overhead when compared …
Sponges found in the chilly waters of Antarctica are infested with algae that scrounge off them during the dark polar winter. Algae often live inside the cells of other animals, such as reef-building corals, but they usually provide some benefit. Giorgio Bavestrello of the University of Ancona and his colleagues …
the ozone hole above Antarctica may not be damaging life in the ocean below. A team of researchers led by Kevin Arrigo of Stanford University in California, usa , has concluded that increased ultraviolet radiation has hardly affected marine plankton, the base of the ocean's food web. The team has …
some 250 million years ago, Europe was devastated by the great Permian extinctions which wiped out 95 per cent of the extensive conifer forests covering the land. The impact of this was more widespread than the extinction of the dinosaurs and other forms of life by the asteroid impact 60 …
the threat from the melting of polar ice caps is not restricted to a rise in sea levels. Recent studies reveal that ancient viruses are lying trapped in the polar ice. One bout of warm weather might be all that is required to release them into the environment. And the …
a big chunk of Antarctica has been melting for thousands of years. This situation is likely to continue until it swamps millions of kilometre of coastland, scientists of the University of Maine said. But, surprisingly global warming is not the culprit. "During the last Ice Age, the West Antarctic Ice …
the iceberg that took down the Titanic in 1912 looks like a mere ice cube compared to the one that has drifted into the Drake Passage between Antarctica and South America. In 1992, a giant iceberg that broke off from Antarctica floated free and split into two. The larger chunk …
According to a report by the US-based World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the seasonal hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica reached record proportions in September 1998. Covering an area of 25 million square kilometres, or about 2.5 times the area of Europe, this hole surpassed the previous record
the Southern Ocean, comprising the southern-most parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans that surround Antarctica, is facing its greatest environmental threat ever. Illegal fishing boats are pushing marine life and seabirds to the brink of extinction. Particularly affected by this
A switch in the species of phytoplankton dominating the Southern Ocean off Antarctica could accelerate global warming. During an expedition to the Ross Sea, a team led by Kevin Arrigo of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington DC, found that diatoms dominated …
it seems that the first manifestations of global warming have already induced damages to the planet's ecosystem. However, scientists are yet to confirm if global warming indeed caused the recent decline in the krill population in the icy waters of the Antarctic Peninsula. Scientists supported by the us National Oceanic …
scientists drilling into sediment off the coast in Antarctica, found evidence of one of the most violent volcanic eruptions ( New Scientist , Vol 160, No 2161). The explosion, occurred some 25 million years ago, blasted 30 cubic kilometres of ash and volcanic debris 50 kilometres or more into the …
the waters around Antarctica may be teeming with a far greater diversity of larvae than biologists realised. Researchers diving under the ice have discovered 10 times as many different types of larvae as were previously known to be there. They could provide a barometer to check the effects of climate …
