Research

A new study shows that the ongoing decline in Antarctic sea ice is leading to more heat loss from the ocean to the atmosphere and an increase in storm activity.

New research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) has found that the Southern Ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide (CO2) than previously thought.

In the bitterly cold waters of the Arctic Ocean, scientists have discovered a strange and unique coral that’s “almost certainly a new species.”

A rogue wave is a single swell that is much higher than nearby waves, which can damage ships or coastal infrastructure.

The Pine Island and Thwaites ice shelves are among the fastest-changing in Antarctica and are of particular interest due to their vulnerability to warming ocean waters. They act as massive barriers restraining the glaciers behind them from flowing into the ocean.

The SAREX took place in September 2023 near Hershel Island, off the coast of Yukon, Canada. BV oversaw proceedings as US and Canadian search and rescue teams conducted the exercise aboard PONANT’s polar exploration cruise ship Le Commandant Charcot.

Equipped with thrusters, cameras, sonar and sensors for measuring water temperature, pressure and salinity, the vehicle climbed nearly 150 feet up one slope and descended the other.

With the Arctic Ocean being twice as sensitive to rapid warming than the global average, evaporation and subsequent changes to the hydrological cycle over northern Eurasia will become even more pronounced in the years to come.

Understanding transport and transformation processes within the carbon cycle is essential to creating global carbon dioxide budgets and therefore also projections for global warming.

An international team of researchers have sounded new alarm bells about the changing chemistry of the western region of the Arctic Ocean after discovering acidity levels increasing three to four times faster than ocean waters elsewhere.

Pine Island Ice Shelf in West Antarctica, which holds back enough ice to raise sea levels by 0.5 metres, could be more vulnerable to complete disintegration than previously thought.

This massive ice stream is already in a phase of fast retreat (a "collapse" when viewed on geological timescales) leading to widespread concern about exactly how much, or how fast, it may give up its ice to the ocean.