Plastic may have already 'deeply' entered Antarctic terrestrial food chain
Scientists have found bits of polystyrene in the guts of tiny, soil-dwelling organisms in the Antarctic, raising concern that microplastics pollution has already "deeply" entered the world's most remote land-based food systems. While the infiltration of microplastics throughout the oceans is well-known, researchers said their ...
Antarctica conjures images of an unbroken white wilderness but blooms of algae are giving parts of the frozen continent an increasingly green tinge. Warming temperatures due to climate change are helping the formation and spread of "green snow" and it is becoming so prolific in ...
'Isolated within isolation': Keeping the coronavirus out of Antarctica
In the frozen and desolate expanse of Antarctica, Alejandro Valenzuela Pena is used to a feeling of isolation. Now, however, that has taken on a new meaning as the only continent still free from the coronavirus looks to keep the pandemic out. The global spread ...
Greenland and Antarctica are shedding six times more ice than during the 1990s, driving a higher sea level that could bring annual flooding by 2100 in regions that now are home to 400 million people, scientists have warned. The kilometers-thick ice sheets atop land masses ...
Scientists in Antarctica have recorded a new record temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius (69.35 Fahrenheit), breaking the barrier of 20 degrees for the first time on the continent, a researcher said Thursday. Brazilian researcher Carlos Schaefer told AFP the reading at a monitoring station on ...
Brazil to open new Antarctic research base replacing one that burned down
Brazil will open a new research base in Antarctica this week, officials said Tuesday, eight years after a fire destroyed its original scientific outpost. The government invested nearly $100 million in the reconstruction of the Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station, a 48,500-sq.-foot complex on King George ...
Japanese icebreaker Shirase reaches Showa Station in Antarctica for climate study
The Shirase, a Japanese icebreaker, has reached Showa Station, the nation's Antarctic research facility. Around 2:50 p.m. Sunday, the ship carrying members of Japan's 61st research expedition team and goods to be used in their activities arrived at a point where the team could pipe ...
Chile confirmed Thursday that human remains and debris found by search ships are from a military plane reported missing with 38 people aboard, and the chances of finding survivors is "practically impossible." "The condition of the plane wreckage that was found makes it practically impossible ...
A Chilean military plane with 38 people aboard "lost radio communication" Monday after taking off from the south of the country for a base in Antarctica, Chile's Air Force said. It said 17 of those aboard were crew and the other 21 were passengers. A "dismayed" ...
Invasive species set to exploit climate change in Antarctica
In the tiny part of Antarctica where the snow melts in springtime, mosses, lichens and grasses grow alongside flies, mites and colonies of micro-organisms that have fed and reproduced for millions of years. The rich biodiversity is preserved by an ancient equilibrium of extreme cold ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern apologized on Thursday for the then-government's handling of a plane crash in Antarctica 40 years ago that took the lives of 257 people in the country's worst peacetime disaster. On Nov. 28, 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901 was ...
Talks on Antarctic marine sanctuary fail for eighth straight year
A multinational effort to create giant marine sanctuaries around Antarctica to counter climate change and protect fragile ocean ecosystems has failed for an eighth straight year, officials said Saturday. Opposition from China and Russia torpedoed the proposal at the annual meeting of the Commission for ...
