Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future ’s Post

Today, President Biden signed a National Security Memorandum (NSM) on United States Policy on the Antarctic Region, just ahead of the 46th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting. This policy reaffirms the United States' commitment to leading cooperative international efforts through the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) to ensure the Antarctic Region remains dedicated to peaceful purposes. It also emphasizes the importance of protecting Antarctica's pristine environment and ecosystems, recognizing its critical role in the global climate system, and supporting ongoing scientific research. The U.S. Antarctic Program, managed on behalf of the nation by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), supports three year-round stations on the continent and assets dedicated to exploring and understanding the Southern Ocean. In partnership with other Federal science agencies, NSF supports world-class research in Antarctica in aeronomy and astrophysics, ecology, atmospheric sciences, biology and medicine, geology and geophysics, glaciology, and ocean and climate systems, and living marine resources.  Read the full memorandum on the White House website, https://lnkd.in/esk22w7W. Photo credit: John-Michael Watson.

🚢 Bon Voyage! Our marine geoscientist Dr Mardi McNeil is off to the East Antarctic! With the support of Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future, Mardi is joining the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research latest voyage aboard the Polarstern research vessel. Mardi is joining a team of 53 scientists in their studies of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Mardi and the team will be mapping the seabed around the East Antarctic continental margin to identify features that record the movement of ice shelves and glaciers over different geological time scales. This work will target questions regarding how far from land the ice extended, its thickness and depth at different time periods. This is crucial to understanding the past response of the ice sheet to change, which can help us to model how it will change into the future. Antarctic science is a wonderfully collaborative and cooperative endeavour and Mardi is joining a team from across the world. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet hasn’t been studied to the same extent as the West Antarctic, so their findings will add valuable data to what we know about this fascinating and precious part of the world. If you’d like to follow along with Mardi’s voyage, check out the Alfred Wegener Institute’s live tracking of the ship and its progress 👉 https://bit.ly/49rt62k

Check out the EGU Geodynamics blog where we talk about our experience in Antarctica and the science behind studying the Denman Glacier. Such an amazing experience!

🔹 Spotlight on Innovation: Unveiling the Secrets of Antarctica's Ancient Ice🔹   Dr. Jamey Stutz, whose expertise in glacial geology, has recently been welcomed into the esteemed halls of the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center in Ohio, and left a mark on our understanding of Antarctica's ancient glaciers.   Kevin Norton, Jamey Stutz, Aylin de Campo and Lottie Stevenson, during their expedition along the upper reaches of Mt. Tuatara, captured not just the raw beauty of Byrd Glacier and Mt. Tadpole but also crucial data that speaks volumes about our planet's climate history. Their efforts underscore the collaborative spirit of scientific exploration.   Jamey's work in dating Antarctic rocks, remnants from a time when glaciers sculpted the earth's surface, provides key insights into the scale of glacial retreat. This research is not just about understanding where we've been; it's about predicting where we're headed in the face of global climate change.   Having completed his Ph.D. at the Antarctic Research Centre - Te Puna Pātiotio at Victoria University of Wellington, Jamey's journey is a testament to the enduring partnership between New Zealand and America in Antarctic exploration and research. This collaboration, spanning over 60 years, has been instrumental in advancing our knowledge of one of the planet's most remote and challenging environments.   Jamey has embarked his new role at the Polar Rock Repository and will continue his affiliations with the ARC as Adjunct. Please listen to his recent interview with RNZ here: https://lnkd.in/gryv6inj   #AntarcticResearch #GlacialGeology #ClimateChange #Innovation #ScienceCollaboration 

Take note of this interesting Geomorphology lecture!

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth - Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research: Ocean sediment cores reveal climate-related fluctuations in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in past epochs. https://lnkd.in/eu76dAnZ

We hope to see many of you at the Ocean Sciences Meeting next week. Please stop by booth #210 and say hello. Data demos there daily at 10 am and 3:30 pm. The complete schedule of OOI-related presentations can be found here: https://bit.ly/OOIOSM24. National Science Foundation (NSF), #nsffunded, R/V Sikuliaq, University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS), College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences - Oregon State University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Oceanography at the University of Washington

Russia's drifting scientific research platform 'Severnyy Polyus' (North Pole) has commenced work in the High Arctic as part of the "North Pole-42" expedition, the platform's second such expedition. The expedition is being managed by the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (#AARI). The platform has been moored to the edge of an ice field with an area of ~ 165 km2. Scientific equipment, transport and machinery are being unloaded onto the ice. The meteorological laboratory was the first to begin work in the ice-based scientific camp, from where, according to a long-standing tradition, the first weather report was sent to the "mainland". Immediately after this, the ceremonial opening of the drifting station "North Pole-42" expedition took place. Expedition members then raised the Russian tricolour on the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Under the influence of currents and wind, the research platform and the research ice camp, frozen into the ice, will move through the polar region and further in the direction of the Greenland Sea. After reaching open water in the Fram Strait, potentially in the spring of 2026, the vessel will return to Murmansk under its own power. The scientific program of the "North Pole-42" expedition includes over 50 different scientific projects aimed at studying changes in the Arctic environment and assessing the vulnerability of ecosystems. Research into the geological structure of the Arctic Ocean floor will continue, which is necessary to clarify the outer boundary of the continental shelf of the Russian Federation and other scientific tasks. Russian scientists also intend to determine whether there are prerequisites for a further reduction in the summer sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean, which will be important for plans to further develop navigation along the #NorthernSeaRoute (#NSR). The platform is currently located at approx. 81.37N, 140.96E. https://lnkd.in/emYhKR3j

Updates from project CHASE! Portugal is now a member of the SOLAS (Surface Ocean - Lower Atmosphere Study) international community! Our participation in the SOLAS Scoping Workshop in Xiamen (China) as well as the most recent expedition that we did in the tropical Atlantic, earlier this year, were mentioned in a recent article published at national newspaper Público, featuring our recent study on the effects of Saharan dust in the North Atlantic. If you want to know more about this, click below 🙂 #oceanscience #dust #climatechange #phytoplankton #coccolithophores

Microplastics have turned up in some of the most remote places, such as the Antarctic and the summit of Mount Fuji. A new study finds that the shape of microplastics influences the distances they fly: