Questions tagged [antarctica]

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Assessment of Antarctic temperature anomalies

The University of Maine website climatereanalyzer.org has a plethora of data visualizations, among them a display of 2 meter temperature anomalies. The image of Antarctica today is below, with a green ...
Peter - Reinstate Monica's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
108 views

Estimate warming caused by the current sea ice anomaly in Antarctica

I’ve read about the Ice Albedo Feedback effect on global warming. Antarctica has had a large sea ice anomaly from late 2021 until now. What is the average change in energy flux over the period 21 June ...
Will Stevens's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
60 views

How is sea level rise due to a glacier melting calculated?

There's news going around (e.g. link) that the melting of the Thwaites glacier may cause sea levels to rise by 10 feet. Is that true and not exaggerated? How is the calculation made? They said the ...
Andrew Cheong's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
5k views

I just read news that Antarctica had set a new record high temperature, above 18 °C. How can this be the case if it is currently winter there?

Currently it is winter in Antarctica. According to news I read, Antarctica has set a new record high temperature, above 18 °C. How did this temperature records occur?
Anixx's user avatar
  • 958
7 votes
3 answers
315 views

Has Antarctica's coastline been completely mapped? (map discrepancies)

Looking at different world maps, I noticed that there is considerable variety in how the coastline of Antarctica is depicted (even when taking the different map projections into consideration). Are ...
user21059's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
80 views

If its ice sheet were removed under modern atmospheric conditions, what climatic and ice-sheet equilibrium would be re-established over Antarctica?

Note the use of the term removed instead of melted—as in, any excess water is moved to where it can't cause trouble, either through the use of advanced technology (space elevators, et cetera) or for ...
Grant Hartlage's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
1k views

Are Ice Ages Affected by the Freezing Out of CO2 in Antarctica?

The freezing point of carbon dioxide is -78.5 $\small\mathsf{^o}$C. Occasionally this low is exceeded in Antarctica, and small quantities of CO2 are frozen out, but are returned soon after to the ...
Michael Walsby's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
125 views

What is the strength of the Earth's magnetic field at McMurdo Station, Antarctica?

Based on this map, Below are images showing more specific detail. I assume the field strength is between 0.6 gauss and 0.65 gauss, but I cannot tell between which ios-flux lines (if that is a ...
Bob516's user avatar
  • 334
6 votes
1 answer
190 views

Does Antarctica have a lot of aquifers?

I got to thinking about freshwater on Antarctica. Obviously, there is a lot of freshwater ice. However, the deeper you go underground, eventually the dirt will be warmed geothermically. So does the ...
World Outsider's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
207 views

Have russian drilling operations in lake Vostok succeeded yet?

A couple of years ago the russians began drilling through about 2 km of ice to reach lake Vostok in Antarctica. It was hoped that they would find living organisms there which had been entombed under ...
Michael Walsby's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
124 views

Young researcher hoping to volunteer for Antarctica fieldwork

I am a postdoctoral scholar who is interested participating in Antarctica fieldwork/exploration as a volunteer. My background is in biology, but I am happy to participate in any fieldwork ...
user3603093's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
135 views

Is "Chasm One" the really the name of this feature on the Brunt Ice Shelf?

The BBC News article Antarctic: No role for climate in Halley iceberg splitting says: With no-one on the ice surface, notice of any breakaway will have to come from automated in-situ ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 7,074
3 votes
1 answer
59 views

What (if any) "in-situ instrumentation" is on the Brunt Ice Shelf that will detect its splitting and breaking away?

The BBC News article Antarctic: No role for climate in Halley iceberg splitting says: With no-one on the ice surface, notice of any breakaway will have to come from automated in-situ instrumentation ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 7,074
4 votes
1 answer
105 views

Giant Cavern the Size of Manhattan Under Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica - how was satellite and airborne radar data combined?

This is a follow-up question to Giant Cavern the Size of Manhattan Under Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The work is reported in an open access paper in Science: Heterogeneous retreat and ice ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 7,074
6 votes
1 answer
167 views

Giant Cavern the Size of Manhattan Under Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica

Avery Thompson writes in Popular Mechanics In Thwaites’ case, that radar uncovered a gigantic cavern between the glacier itself and the bedrock below it. That cavern is likely filled with air much ...
Keith McClary's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
199 views

Why is McMurdo Station in Antartica more hostile than Longyearbyen (Norway), while Longyearbyen is closer to the pole?

McMurdo Station in Antartica (operated by the USA) is 77.85 degrees south (and 166.69 east), Longyearbyen (Norway) is the northernmost settlement with scheduled flights all year at 78.24 degrees north ...
Speedphoenix's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
213 views

What are these radial line patterns shown in representations of antarctica?

In the video of the recent Iridium-6/GRACE-FO launch at about T+ 33:00 (curently at 49:00 in the video) the 2nd stage passes ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 7,074
27 votes
3 answers
10k views

Is there sand in Antarctica?

There's a song "Blizzard's Never Seen the Desert's Sand". Given Antarctica is a desert, someone questioned the title's validity. BUT is there sand in Antarctica? I'd imagine yes as it's a pretty ...
cr0's user avatar
  • 1,178
-2 votes
1 answer
116 views

Antarctica Exploration [closed]

Which parts of Antarctica are unexplored? What about the underwater world of Antarctica? Specifically, what information do we have about it? What is so interesting about exploring Antarctica when ...
Coto's user avatar
  • 25
11 votes
2 answers
4k views

How could this pyramidal Mountain have been formed?

How could this pyramidal peak have been formed in Antarctica? Little is known about it as far as I know but what is known is that its miles away from any existing plate boundary and its shape is also ...
Charlie's user avatar
  • 213
6 votes
2 answers
1k views

How do glaciers move? Could Antarctica be separated?

Consider the example of the Larsen Ice Shelf. Ice platforms are attached to glaciers such that they prevent surrounding warm air from directly melting the glaciers. This is an important aspect of ice ...
Vitor Aguiar's user avatar
10 votes
4 answers
409 views

Considering how old the Antarctic ice cover is, why isn't it much thicker?

The Wikipedia article on the subject of the "Antarctic ice sheet" says that: The icing of Antarctica began in the middle Eocene about 45.5 million years ago and escalated during the Eocene–...
neo's user avatar
  • 211
14 votes
2 answers
1k views

How and when people first realized that Antarctica is a continent?

Recently I got startled by this question I asked myself and I can't seem to find any sources of answers. I have hypotheses about how it could have happened: It could have been by the fact that if you ...
VaNa's user avatar
  • 243
9 votes
1 answer
187 views

Dataset for expected sea level rise in case of massive meltdowns (Greenland/Antarctica)

Around the time climate change became a 'public issue' (let's say shortly after An inconvenient truth came out), figures started getting published about the expected (global) sea level rise in case of ...
Jan Doggen's user avatar
  • 2,679
6 votes
1 answer
2k views

Is it coincidence that Antarctica is centered on the south pole?

Looking at a globe, Antarctica looks remarkably centered on the south pole. Has the rotation of the earth had any effect on the position of the landmass?
Nathan Fig's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
150 views

What is more important in Antarctica calving or basal melting of the ice shelves?

Ice shelves are present along 75% of Antarctica coast and cover over 1.5 million km2. The two main processes causing mass loss of the ice shelf are basal melting and calving. Which of the two ...
arkaia's user avatar
  • 15.4k
11 votes
3 answers
8k views

How does Antarctica stay frozen?

Antarctica receives heat from the Sun every day, so how does it stay frozen? I have some thoughts about the answer but I'm unsure of whether it is correct; I hope people here can clarify. My idea: ...
wtoh's user avatar
  • 213
10 votes
1 answer
148 views

What is the age of the Gamburtsev Mountains?

The mechanism for the formation of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains in East Antarctica seems to be a combination of old volcanism and Cretaceous rifting (Ferraccioli et al., 2011). While the ...
arkaia's user avatar
  • 15.4k
13 votes
1 answer
764 views

Active rifting in Antarctica?

The West Antarctic Rift exists between the Trans-Antarctic Mountains and Marie Byrd Land (see map below for reference) Image source: NASA The rift system is believed to be like the East African Rift,...
user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
2k views

How deep is the permafrost in the Antarctic?

I tried in vain to find the answer to this question on the web, but all it would tell me was, "it is very deep", and "it is known as a thaw line rather than a frost line in the arctic and antarctic". ...
Addison Richert's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
298 views

Glaciology: odd pattern of smooth and ribbed chunks of ice in Antartica

At -69.184611, -68.124276 (just east of the Bugge Islands) there is a triangular ice shelf. On satellite images (as seen on Google/Bing maps) you can see it is riddled with --for lack of a clearer ...
wers's user avatar
  • 133
14 votes
1 answer
324 views

Where does the biggest land-based ice cap reside?

I'm thinking biggest in volume, regarding which area of the planet will contribute more to a raising in sea level - were the ice in those regions to melt. I can basically think of two candidates, ...
harogaston's user avatar