After years of stalled negotiations, China has ended its opposition to the world’s largest marine park off Antarctica - part of a wider trend towards increased Chinese involvement in global governance.
Why spend three months completing a lap of Antarctica (and probably getting seasick along the way)? It’s the only way to get vital clues about the remote Southern Ocean and its influence on the planet.
The shock decision to close Australia’s year-round research station at Macquarie Island will make monitoring Antarctica and the Southern Ocean harder, and will force Tasmania to get creative.
Speaking with: Juan Francisco Salazar about colonising Antarctica and Mars
The Conversation, CC BY-NC-SA19,5 MB(download)
Dallas Rogers speaks with Prof Juan Francisco Salazar about studying the research community in Antarctica to learn about what colonising Mars and other planets might look like.
The first signs that humans were warming the climate appeared much earlier in the northern hemisphere - way back in the 1830s. But now the trend is emerging all over the globe.
Buried beneath kilometres-thick slabs of ice are rivers and huge lakes - some of which are teeming with microbes that thrive in a world without light or oxygen.
Australia and China both have a keen interest in the frozen continent. And while they don’t agree on everything, there is great scope for scientific collaboration.
A warming Earth could see invading species arrive in Antarctica via the floating “taxi service” of the sea. That could be a threat to the southern continent’s delicate ecosystem.
New mapping shows how Antarctica’s huge Totten Glacier has retreated far inland, raising sea levels by more than a metre. Rising temperatures could trigger it to do so again.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements at Tasmania’s Cape Grim and Antarctica’s Casy Station have now officially passed 400 parts per million and are likely to stay above that for decades to come.
Chief Investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes; Deputy Director for the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science; Deputy Director for the Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, Australian National University