Antarctica – Desdemona Despair

A map of the world plotted with some of the most significant climate events that occurred during November 2023. Graphic: NOAA/NCEI

December 29, 2023

NOAA reports 2023 hottest year on record, so far – “We will look back at 2023 and think of it as: remember that year that wasn’t so bad?”

By Lauren Sommer 28 December 2023 (NPR) – As 2023 draws to a close, it’s going out on top. “It’s looking virtually certain at this point that 2023 will be the hottest year on record,” says Zeke Hausfather, climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit that analyzes climate trends. Though temperature records from December have […]

Graph showing temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide over the past 66 million years. Paleo-CO2 (including 95 percent credible intervals) is superimposed on the GMST trend over the past 66 million years. Age and CO2 labels highlight notable climate extrema and transitions as described in the text. Graphic: CenCO2PIP, Science 2023

December 25, 2023

A new 66 million-year history of carbon dioxide offers little comfort for today – “Regardless of exactly how many degrees the temperature changes, it’s clear we have already brought the planet into a range of conditions never seen by our species”

By Kevin Krajick 7 December 2023 (Columbia Climate School) – A massive new review of ancient atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels and corresponding temperatures lays out a daunting picture of where the Earth’s climate may be headed. The study covers geologic records spanning the past 66 million years, putting present-day concentrations into context with deep time. Among […]

Screenshot from “Honest Government Ad: COP31 🇦🇺 & the Pacific”, by The Juice Media, showing the rapid, record-breaking decline of Antarctic sea ice in 2023. Photo: The Juice Media

December 3, 2023

Video: Honest Government Ad: COP31 🇦🇺 and the Pacific – “Let this major fossil-fuel exporter that’s cockblocked climate action for decades co-host a crucial summit with the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world while ignoring their pleas to stop harming them”

1 August 2023 (The Juice Media) – Hello. Bonjour. Ciao stronzi. Namaste. Ham maadarachod hain. I’m from the Australien Government with a message to the world. As cities bake, fires rage, reefs die, jet streams weaken, and 6-Ligma events cause climate scientists to shit their dacks, many are wondering if we’ve finally broken our favourite […]

Map of ensemble mean trends in ocean temperature and ice-shelf basal melting in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) for the Paris 2°C scenario. Temperature is averaged over the depth range 200–700 m. Trends are calculated at each point using annually averaged fields from 2006–2100. White regions indicate no significant trend. The Amundsen Sea region visualized here (latitude–longitude projection) is outlined in red in the inset map of Antarctica (polar stereographic projection). The black dashed line shows the 1,750 m depth contour of the continental shelf break and the blue dashed line outlines the continental shelf region used for analysis. Labels denote ice shelves (G, Getz; D, Dotson; Cr, Crosson; T, Thwaites; P, Pine Island; Co, Cosgrove; A, Abbot). Graphic: Naughten, et al., 2023 / Nature

November 10, 2023

The climate contradiction that will sink us – “We already have a refugee crisis; I shudder to think what would happen if everyone living within two meters of sea level would be displaced.”

By Zoë Schlanger 10 November 2023 (The Atlantic) – You’d be forgiven for thinking that the fight against climate change is finally going well. The clean-energy revolution is well under way and exceeding expectations. Solar is set to become the cheapest form of energy in most places by 2030, and the remarkable efficiency of heat pumps is driving their own uptake […]

The Norwegian Aker BioMarine’s Antarctic Sea trawls for krill in the Southern Ocean off the coast of the South Orkney Islands, north of the Antarctic Peninsula, on 10 March 2023. Photo: AP Photo / David Keyton

October 29, 2023

Factory fishing in Antarctica for krill targets the cornerstone of a fragile ecosystem – “What’s coming out of the side are the remnants of the ecosystem”

By Joshua Goodman and David Keyton 13 October 2023 (AP) – The Antarctic Endeavour glides across the water’s silky surface as dozens of fin whales spray rainbows from their blowholes into a fairy tale icescape of massive glaciers. But as a patrol of environmentalists approaches the Chilean super trawler in an inflatable boat, the cruder […]

This graph shows Antarctic sea ice extent as of 10 September 2023, along with daily ice extent data for four previous years and the record maximum year. 2023 is shown in blue, 2022 in green, 2021 in orange, 2020 in brown, 2019 in magenta, and 2014 in dashed brown. The 1981 to 2010 median is in dark gray. The gray areas around the median line show the interquartile and interdecile ranges of the data. Graphic: National Snow and Ice Data Center

September 30, 2023

Antarctic sea ice sets a record low maximum by wide margin – “Polar ice is one of the world’s biggest insurance policies against runaway climate change, and we can see in both the North and the South sea ice, we’ve got problems and alarm bells are ringing”

By Kasha Patel 25 September 2023 (The Washington Post) – Sea ice levels around Antarctica just registered a record low — and by a wide margin — as winter comes to a close, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). This significant milestone adds worry that Antarctic sea ice may be entering […]

The calving front of the Thwaites Glacier in the Amundsen Sea in 2019, viewed from the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer. Photo: Elizabeth Rush

September 10, 2023

We reached the glacier just as it collapsed – The world’s widest glacier is melting and changing predictions about our planet’s future – “It looks nearly as dramatic as the Larsen B collapse”

By Elizabeth Rush 13 August 2023 (The Atlantic) – Out on the bow of the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer, the air is dense and almost warm. We have punched through miles of Antarctic ice floes to reach the Amundsen Sea’s foggy interior. I want to honor the remaining distance between us and Thwaites Glacier’s calving […]

The location of climate tipping elements in the cryosphere (blue), biosphere (green) and ocean/atmosphere (orange), and global warming levels their tipping points will likely be triggered at 1.5°C. Researchers see signs of destabilisation already in parts of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, in permafrost regions, the Amazon rainforest, and potentially the Atlantic overturning circulation as well. Graphic: Earth Commission / Globaïa

August 21, 2023

Climate collapse could happen fast – “For a long time, we were within the range of normal. And now we’re really not. And it has happened fast enough that people have a memory of it happening.”

By Lois Parshley 20 July 2023 (The Atlantic) – Ever since some of the earliest projections of climate change were made back in the 1970s, they have been remarkably accurate at predicting the rate at which global temperatures would rise. For decades, climate change has proceeded at roughly the expected pace, says David Armstrong McKay, a […]

a, Volume transport. Black symbols show estimates ± calculated total uncertainty made using joint mooring-model-hydrographic method (square/triangle/circle symbols, 84° E/140° E/170° E; equation (2), Extended Data Fig. 7 and Supplementary Section 2). White symbols show comparative estimates from other studies11,24,47,48,49,50 (Supplementary Table 3). Blue line, total volume transport for time periods of 1994–1996, 2007–2011 and 2016–2018, which estimates the strength of the lower limb of overturning circulation in the Australian Antarctic Basin (shading shows total error of 1.2 Sv; Supplementary Table 2). b, Oxygen transport. Black line, total oxygen transport that estimates abyssal ventilation ± total uncertainty of 290 Sv mol kg−1 (equation (3)). c, Comparison of lower limb of overturning circulation and shelf salinities from a site of DSW formation in Ross Sea (Terra Nova Bay; refs. 12,13,35). Dotted blue arrows show declining trend in overturning for 1994–2009 and 1994–2017 that have uncertainties of ±0.5 Sv decade−1. Graphic: Gunn, et al., 2023 / Nature Climate Change

May 29, 2023

Deep ocean currents around Antarctica headed for collapse – “Such profound changes to the ocean’s overturning of heat, freshwater, oxygen, carbon, and nutrients will have a significant adverse impact on the oceans for centuries to come”

By Kathy Gunn, Matthew England, and Steve Rintoul 25 May 2023 (The Conversation) – Antarctica sets the stage for the world’s greatest waterfall. The action takes place beneath the surface of the ocean. Here, trillions of tonnes of cold, dense, oxygen-rich water cascade off the continental shelf and sink to great depths. This Antarctic “bottom […]

Global annual mean temperature anomalies with respect to pre-industrial conditions (1850-1900) for six global temperature data sets (1850-2022). Graphic: WMO

April 30, 2023

WMO annual report highlights continuous advance of climate change – “While greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the climate continues to change, populations worldwide continue to be gravely impacted by extreme weather and climate events”

Geneva, 21 April 2023 (WMO) – From mountain peaks to ocean depths, climate change continued its advance in 2022, according to the annual report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Droughts, floods, and heatwaves affected communities on every continent and cost many billions of dollars. Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record […]