October 20, 2026
One of Antarctica’s most important glaciers could continue contributing to sea-level rise even if ocean-driven melting beneath its floating ice shelf were dramatically reduced, according to new research published in Geophysical Research Letters. Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica currently accounts for about 4% of global sea-level rise – a rate that has trebled since the mid-1990s.
October 11, 2026
The Antarctic ozone hole has remained unusually large through the 2026 austral spring season, drawing renewed attention from scientists and the wider public.
October 07, 2026
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to physicist Francis Halzen for his leadership in creating the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a remarkable scientific facility buried deep within the Antarctic ice.
October 05, 2026
Hidden beneath the ice of East Antarctica lies one of the continent's greatest mysteries and potentially one of its most significant climate threats. The Wilkes Subglacial Basin, a vast depression buried beneath kilometres of ice, remains among the least explored regions in Antarctica despite holding enough ice to raise global sea levels by an estimated three to four metres if widespread retreat were to occur.
October 01, 2026
Antarctica's winter sea ice has reached its third-lowest maximum extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979, adding to growing concerns that the continent is entering a new phase of sustained sea ice decline.
September 26, 2026
A new fleet of autonomous ocean drones has begun a five-year effort to monitor the Southern Ocean, targeting one of the biggest unanswered questions in climate science: exactly how much carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the waters surrounding Antarctica.
September 25, 2026
Two ski-equipped Twin Otter aircraft spent the 2024/25 austral summer attempting something rarely achieved in Antarctic science: circling an entire continent while collecting critical data from one of the most important, and least visible, boundaries on Earth.
September 24, 2026
Scientists have achieved a major breakthrough in polar biology by capturing the first high-resolution images of living Antarctic fish cells at temperatures close to freezing, opening a new window into how life survives in one of Earth's most extreme environments.
September 22, 2026
Over the past decade, horizon scanning has become one of the most influential tools used by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) to identify the questions that matter most for the future of Antarctic and Southern Ocean science.
September 20, 2026
Winter storms in the southern Ross Sea are becoming more frequent and more intense, according to new research from the University of Otago, with implications that extend well beyond meteorology. The findings suggest that changing storm patterns are already affecting sea-ice conditions that underpin scientific operations in one of Antarctica's most important research regions.
September 19, 2026
A major new study has produced the most comprehensive inventory yet of volcanoes concealed beneath Antarctica's ice sheet, providing researchers with an important new tool for understanding how geological processes may influence the future behaviour of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
September 18, 2026
Antarctica is synonymous with ice today, but during the Late Cretaceous, around 90 million years ago, the continent looked dramatically different. New research led by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute has revealed that wildfires regularly burned in forests growing close to the South Pole, making them the southernmost known wildfires ever identified on Earth.