Antarctica

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NASA Balloon Gobbles Antarctic Data, Records

Cosmic ray detector spends 55 days aloft

(Newser) - A NASA scientific balloon on a mission over the Antarctic to detect cosmic rays has completed a record-breaking flight. The Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder—"Super-TIGER"—broke the record for longest flight by a balloon of its size 46 days into its mission and landed after 55 days,...

Explorer's Long-Lost Scotch Is Returned to Antarctica

Shackleton's stash is going home

(Newser) - Talk about whisky on ice: Three bottles of rare, 19th-century Scotch found beneath the floor boards of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackelton's abandoned expedition base were returned to the polar continent today. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key personally returned the Scotch to Antarctic Heritage Trust officials at a ceremony...

West Antarctic Warming Twice As Fast as We Thought



 West Antarctic Warming 
 Twice As Fast as 
 We Thought 
in case you missed it
Dec 29, 2012 7:15 AM CST

West Antarctic Warming Twice As Fast as We Thought

New study finds temperatures up 4.4° since 1958

(Newser) - West Antarctica is warming at roughly twice the rate scientists previously believed, and roughly three times as fast as the planet as a whole, according to a new study of data from the middle of the region. The average temperature has risen 4.4°F since 1958, the New York ...

Search Begins for Life in Antarctic Lake

Lake Ellsworth has been isolated for up to 500K years

(Newser) - What lurks in the pitch black, near-freezing waters of Lake Ellsworth? That's what British researchers, who began their trek to the lake in October 2011, hope to find out in as soon as a week. They've begun drilling through more than two miles of ice to reach the...

Brit Team Sets Off on 1st Winter Antarctic Crossing

Will face temps as low as minus-133 during 6-month trek

(Newser) - Few have made the 2,500-mile journey across the Antarctic, and no one has accomplished it in during the south's winter. But now explorer Ranulph Fiennes is leading a six-man attempt to do just that, spending six months to cross the icy continent on a trek dubbed The Coldest...

Polar Ice Sheets Melting Faster
 Polar Ice Sheets Melting Faster 
Huge study
Nov 30, 2012 7:56 AM CST

Polar Ice Sheets Melting Faster

Process to blame for a fifth of sea-level rise

(Newser) - The most expansive study yet is helping to clarify long-held uncertainties about polar ice. The melting of polar ice sheets has sped up since 1992, raising sea levels 0.43 inches—a fifth of their total rise since then. And while the melting ice sheets accounted for 10% of the...

Antarctic Lake Holds Life—Under 50 Feet of Ice

Long-buried lake teeming with bacteria

(Newser) - Hopes of finding life elsewhere in our solar system have been boosted by a find in one of the least hospitable places on the planet. Researchers who drilled into Lake Vida, a salty lake buried under a 50-foot-thick sheet of ice in Antarctica, have found that its oxygen-depleted water is...

Daring Antarctic Rescue Accomplished

Plane lands in twilight, on ice runway in below-freezing temps

(Newser) - An Antarctic expeditioner has been successfully—and dramatically—evacuated after suffering a medical emergency , CNN reports. No further details on the patient, who is believed to be American, but an Australian medical team landed in an A319 Airbus today and took off again little more than an hour later. The...

Antarctica Expeditioner Needs Rescue ... in the Dark

Must be evacuated despite lack of daylight

(Newser) - This week, an emergency crew will fly to Antarctica to evacuate an expeditioner—in the dark. A medical emergency is under way involving someone at McMurdo Station, Antarctica's largest research station; the victim is believed to be a US citizen and is currently in stable condition. But the timing...

Scientists Find Ancient Rainforest—in Antarctica

Continent was downright balmy 52M years ago

(Newser) - It turns out Antarctica wasn't always an inhospitable expanse of ice. Drilling in the seabed off Antarctica has dug up sediment cores that, scientists say, reveal that a "near-tropical" forest covered the continent about 52 million years ago, the AFP reports. "There wouldn't have been any...

Take a Tour of Famous Explorer's Polar Cabin

Google Maps heads to Antarctica

(Newser) - At the turn of the 20th century, the intrepid explorers Sir Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott built extensive huts in Antarctica and used them as base camps for their journeys to the South Pole. Now you can peer inside their famous cabins—thanks to Google Maps. The web company...

Heat's On: 36% of Penguin Colony Decimated

Food vanishing with melting ice: science crew

(Newser) - More than a third of a major Antarctic penguin colony has been decimated, and researchers believe it's due to warmer temperatures and disappearing ice and food. The colony of chinstrap penguins relies for food on krill, which depend on algae that attach to ice, which is rapidly disappearing, scientists...

Long-Lost Study: Penguins Rape, Kill Each Other

Adelie penguins: so depraved, history forgot about them

(Newser) - Those penguin tuxedos? Deceptive, it turns out. Certain young male penguins are so sexually depraved that their behavior was kept hidden for 100 years, the Guardian reports. British scientist George Murray Levick studied Adélie penguins during a 1910-1913 Antarctic expedition, and his report so appalled editors that details of...

Scientists Count 600K Penguins From Space

That's double the number of emperors thought in Antarctica

(Newser) - It's a pretty nifty science story to begin with: Scientists used a new technique to conduct what National Geographic calls the "first-ever penguin census from space." They pored over satellite images of Antarctica with resolution sharp enough to count about 600,000 emperor penguins on the continent....

Fire Destroys Antarctic Research Base

2 killed in blaze at Brazilian station

(Newser) - A fire has wiped out a Brazilian research station on an island near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Two soldiers were killed as they battled the blaze at the Comandante Ferraz base, which started in a machine room, the BBC reports. The station's dozens of scientists were safely...

Russians Reach Antarctic Lake Sealed 15M Years

Lake Vostok may yield new life forms

(Newser) - Russian scientists have successfully drilled through more than two miles of ice to reach a "lost world" under Antarctica, according to a Russian newswire. Lake Vostok has been sealed off for some 15 million years. While some fear it has been contaminated by kerosene and other materials used by...

Woman Skis Solo Across Antarctica

Fifty-nine day trek breaks record

(Newser) - British adventurer Felicity Aston became the first woman to ski across Antarctica today, finishing a 59-day, 1,084-mile trek across the continent, the AP reports. She made the trip using only her own muscle power, something no person traveling alone has ever done—though a couple managed it once. She...

S. Korean Ship Burning Off Antarctica
S. Korean Ship Burning
Off Antarctica
Jan 11, 2012 12:21 AM CST

S. Korean Ship Burning Off Antarctica

3 killed, 37 rescued after fire sweeps through fishing vessel

(Newser) - Three crew members were killed and several others severely burned when a fire swept through the living quarters of a South Korean fishing boat near Antarctica. The Jung Woo 2's sister ship managed to save 37 crew members from the stricken vessel, which is still burning and appears to...

Stunning Finds at Antarctic Deep-Sea Vents

Ghost octopus, 'Hasselhoff crab' among new species found

(Newser) - Stunned scientists taking their first-ever look at deep-sea vents in the ocean that surrounds Antarctica spotted new species clustered in vast numbers 8,000 feet below. A new species of yeti crab—dubbed the "Hasselhoff crab" because of its hairy chest—was found in huge piles near the outflow,...

US Climber, 15, Sets 7-Peak Record

Jordan Romero has climbed tallest mountain on each continent

(Newser) - While most of you were busily sucking down eggnog, Jordan Romero, the boy mountain climber who became the youngest to scale Mt. Everest , was down in Antarctica setting a seven-peak record. The 15-year-old reached the summit of Mt. Vinson Massif yesterday, making him the youngest to climb the tallest peak...

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