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Coastal Antarctic ecosystems feature long periods of sea ice cover, strong seasonality in primary production, and low biodiversity relative to marginal ice zone regions. There are few records of annual cycles of biodiversity and abundance of neritic Antarctic zooplankton…
Antarctic moss beds are sensitive to climatic conditions, and both their survival and community composition are particularly influenced by the availability of liquid water over summer. As Antarctic regions increasingly face climate pressures (e.g., changing hydrology and heat waves)…
Net sea-ice extent (SIE; the area enclosed by greater than 15% sea-ice concentration) and sea-ice area (SIA; the product of sea-ice extent and concentration) were well below average or at record-low levels throughout 2023 (Fig. 6.11a).
We investigated Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) and leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx) vocalizations using passive acoustic monitoring beneath landfast ice and open water, 5.6?km seaward from Davis Station, East Antarctica. Eight-minute recordings were manually sampled at 1?h intervals over 24?
Global fungal diversity is estimated to range in the millions, yet it remains severely underexplored, especially in extreme environments. Fewer than 5% of species have been officially identified and characterised. Estimates suggest that 70%–90% of soil fungi remain uncultivable…
An unprecedented decline in Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) in late 2016 ended a weak mutidecadal expansion. Multiple mechanisms have been hypothesized to explain this decline, including large-scale atmospheric influences—a strong zonal wave 3 (ZW3)…
Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and methanethiol (MeSH) are biologically co-produced marine volatile sulfur compounds, which play a critical role in climate-cooling aerosol formation. The spatio-temporal distributions of MeSH are poorly constrained, especially over the Southern Ocean.
The Antarctic coastal marine region is a unique and highly complex environment, of which landfast ice and polynyas are key features, especially in the context of dense water formation. Current large-scale ocean-sea ice models used in climate studies simulate hardly any Antarctic landfast ice…
Blue whale and their subspecies is an endangered whale species that needs to be conserved by protecting their important habitat and migration corridor. Research about designing and modelling blue whale habitat for marine protected area has been done many times. However…
Newly formed sea ice can incorporate considerable amounts of organic matter including phytoplankton during its freezing and growth. This initial incorporation influences the standing stocks of ice algae, a fundamental component of high-latitude marine ecosystems.
Phytoplankton production controls the transfer of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the ocean through the biological carbon pump, facilitating the sequestration of carbon dioxide and thus, contributing to the regulation of global climate. In the Southern Ocean…
Population monitoring provides information on species conservation status. We reassess the status of the southern elephant seal population at Macquarie Island. The number of cows on the isthmus, ~20% of the total population, correlated with counts for the whole island (i.e.
Global climate models and reanalysis products have revealed large, persistent downwelling shortwave radiation biases over the Southern Ocean and coastal Antarctica, likely caused by the incapability of models to accurately simulate frequent low-level mixed-phase clouds in these regions.
Microplastic (MP; plastic particles < 5 mm) pollution is pervasive in the marine environment, including remote polar environments. This study provides the first pan-Antarctic survey of MP pollution in Southern Ocean sea ice by analyzing sea ice cores from several diverse Antarctic regions.
Much of the Antarctic coast is covered by seasonal landfast sea ice (fast ice), which serves as an … important habitat for ice algae. Fast?ice algae provide a key early season food source for pelagic and benthic … food webs, and contribute to biogeochemical cycling in Antarctic coastal ecosystems.
Southern Ocean (SO) air is amongst the most pristine on Earth, particularly during winter. Historically, there has been a focus on biogenic sources as an explanation for the seasonal cycle in cloud condensation nuclei concentrations (NCCN). NCCN is also sensitive to the strength of sink terms…
The Antarctic vortex of October–December 2020 was the strongest on record in the satellite era for the season in the mid- to lower stratosphere. However, it was poorly predicted by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's operational seasonal climate forecast system of that time, ACCESS-S1…
Cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) play a fundamental role in determining the microphysical properties of low-level clouds that are crucial for defining the energy budget over the Southern Ocean (SO). However, many aspects of the CCN budget over the SO remains poorly understood…
From 1979 to 2016, total Antarctic sea ice extent experienced a positive trend with record winter maxima in 2012 and 2014. Record summer minima followed within the period 2017-2024, raising the possibility that the Antarctic sea ice system might be changing state.
Meridional winds over the seasonal ice zone of the Antarctic have undergone changes and likely contributed to sea ice extent variability in recent decades. In this study, using observations and an eddy-resolving channel model of the Antarctic seasonal ice zone…
The passive sinking flux of particles, termed the biological gravitational pump (BGP), is an important component of the ocean's biological carbon pump. In addition, carbon-rich particles are actively injected to depth through the diel vertical migration (DVM)…
The impact that biogenic emissions have on aerosol-cloud interactions across the Southern Ocean is poorly quantified. Here we use satellite and ship observations during austral summer to study these interactions.
Among large cetaceans in the Southern Hemisphere, fin whales were the most heavily exploited in terms of numbers taken during the period of intense industrial whaling. Recent studies suggest that…
Around 176500 whales were killed in the sub-Antarctic waters off South Georgia (South Atlantic) between 1904 and 1965. In recent decades, whales have once again become summer visitors, with the southern right whale (SRW) the most commonly reported species until 2011. Here…
Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) migrate between Austral-winter calving and socialising grounds to offshore mid- to high latitude Austral-summer feeding grounds. In Australasia…