Unusual seismic activity in the Antarctic Peninsula Bransfield Strait Seismicity Report in November 2020 reported by the University of Chile causes concern among experts after more than 30,000 have been registered in the Bransfield Strait since August 2020. The Antarctic is characteristically seismically stable, until recently.
The giant iceberg, named A68, has been floating north since it broke off from the Larsen C ice shelf in July 2017, the Antarctic Survey said. South Georgia, located in the southern Atlantic Ocean, is a British overseas territory. Full Story
In 2018, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) reported that kilometres beneath the ice of Antarctica, a radioactive heat source is slowly melting it from underneath. Researchers flew planes over the ice using radar to "see" three kilometres beneath the ice, where the hot material seems to be slowly melting the ice. The researchers believe the heat source is radioactive rocks and hot water from inside Earth's crust. Full Story
Again in 2018, An iceberg about five times the size of Manhattan broke off the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, an ominous sign of the continued retreat of this fast-flowing mass of ice. It was reported to be the 6th largest-ever iceberg to break off the Antarctic. Full Story
Penguins demise
The number of chinstrap penguins in some colonies in Western Antarctica has fallen by as much as 77% since they were last surveyed in the 1970s, say scientists studying the impact of climate change on the remote region. The chinstrap penguin, named after the narrow black band under its head, inhabits the islands and shores of the Southern Pacific and Antarctic Oceans and feeds on krill.
“The declines that we’ve seen are definitely dramatic,” said Steve Forrest, a conservation biologist who joined a team of scientists from the two U.S. universities of Stony Brook and Northeastern on an Antarctic expedition that has just ended. “Something is happening to the fundamental building blocks of the food chain here. We’ve got less food abundance that’s driving these populations down lower and lower over time and the question is, is that going to continue?” Full Story
The Argentine research base, which is called Esperanza, is on the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula; it set a new record temperature yesterday: 18.3°C, which is not a figure you would normally associate with Antarctica even in the summertime. This beat the former record of 17.5°C, which was set back in 2015.” Experts at WMO will now verify whether the temperature extreme is a new record for the Antarctic continent, which is defined as the main continental landmass. It should not be confused with the Antarctic region, which is everywhere south of 60 degrees latitude, and where a record temperature of 19.8C was recorded on Signy Island in January 1982. Full Story
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