Antarctica’s Ancient Ice Cycles Once Controlled Life in Distant Oceans

Antarctica’s Ancient Ice Cycles Once Controlled Life in Distant Oceans

Ancient Antarctic ice sheet cycles affected subtropical ocean productivity by altering nutrient circulation. The 40,000-year obliquity cycle played an unexpectedly strong role, revealing deep global climate connections. Fluctuations in Antarctica’s ice sheets once influenced marine life far beyond the polar regions, shaping biological productivity in subtropical oceans thousands of miles away. This conclusion comes from [...]

As Ice Recedes and Land Rebounds, Antarctica’s Mineral Resources Come into Focus

A warming climate could expose a Pennsylvania-sized chunk of ice-free land in Antarctica by 2300, which could drastically reshape Antarctic geopolitics as well as the continent’s geography. A study published in Nature Climate Change is the first to incorporate glacial isostatic adjustment—how land beneath heavy ice sheets uplifts after the ice retreats—into projections of ice-free land emergence in Antarctica. The results reveal that climate ch…

How did Antarctica’s ice cycles affect oceans?

Antarctic ice sheet cycles influenced nutrient flow far away A new study links cycles in Antarctica’s ancient ice sheets to changes in how nutrients moved through distant ocean waters. Researchers found that ice sheet variability helped control subtropical ocean productivity—indicating that…