Three orcas surface for breath in a patch of ocean water. The lighter patches of skin are yellowed by the accumulation of diatoms.

Three orcas side-by-side off Scott Base, early Feb 2026.

The beloved emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal are now officially endangered. Here’s what can be done The loss of iconic Antarctic wildlife is no longer a future possibility. It is happening in real-time, while we watch.

📉 "Defining these animals as endangered is a stark reminder of how quickly Antarctica is changing before our eyes. Without a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and sustained conservation action, these species may be lost forever."

▶️ theconversation.com/the-beloved-...

Screenshot of text that says: "Important Notice (3/24/2026): NOAA NWS/NCEP has terminated the NCEP/NCAR R1 reanalysis as of March 18th, 2026. NCEP/NCAR R1 has been used as the atmospheric forcing data in the PIOMAS reanalysis . We had not been aware of this change in service which was apparently formally announced Feb 13. 2026. This means that we will have to find alternatives and generate a replacement. It will take considerable effort and time to update data streams, re-calibrate the model and generate updated time series. We don’t yet have a good sense if that’s possible with available funds and if so, when we will be able to resume production of a new PIOMAS time series. While a replacement of the NCAR/NCEP R1 as the forcing product makes ultimate sense, we would have wished for a longer time period to facilitate the transition. We are sorry what this means to our many users. PIOMAS has been in production since March 2010 and we rarely missed updates by more than a couple of weeks (except for government shutdowns). This will be longer. Check back here for updates! "

I had a feeling this was going to happen. Sad news, especially given the poor state of sea ice after this winter.

Looks like we won't be getting any more data for Arctic sea-ice thickness and volume for a while from PIOMAS. See: psc.apl.uw.edu/research/pro...

Great to see the findings of this recent collaboration filtering out through press releases. Turtle scute radiocarbon dating + bayesian changepoint analysis -> links b/w growth rates and environmental stressors

Thirty years of glacier grounding line retreat in Antarctica | PNAS The Grounding Line (GL)—the transition from ice grounded on the continent and ice afloat in the ocean—is a sensitive indicator of glacier stability...

Between 1992-2025, large areas of the grounding line of #Antarctic glaciers have retreated. The largest changes have occurred in W. Antarctica, where grounding lines have retreated 10-40+ km, driven by incursions of warm water masses along deep bathymetric troughs

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

❄️🧪🌊

Antarctic ice sheet folk, I'm looking for a Postdoctoral Fellow in Antarctic Ice Sheet Reconstruction [readvertised] for a 3.5yr appointment in Tasmania. Very flexible start date!

Join our new team, figuring out what is happening and what may happen in East Antarctica. 1/4
❄️

Image of the article page for a new paper

If you're interested in how ice sheets respond to climate, particularly over very long timescales, you might be interested in our new (open access) paper:
www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Resolving the past history of the Cook Ice Shelf region of East Antarctica

North-easterly blowing sea ice around off Scott Base, 29/01/26.

Cores of turtle scutes (shells) are not an archive I usually analyse! Nice to go back to my marine science roots 😃

We identify a link between changes in turtle scute growth rates and environmental stressors.

I have also made the code for the changepoint analysis public: github.com/MRPHarris/Tu...

They were definitely checking for seals!

Orcas amidst the sea ice off Scott Base

A map of southeastern Australia showing the temperature anomalies during the heatwave.

While Australian heatwaves were some of the very first extreme events attributed to climate change, people still underestimate how much worse they got - killing more people than all other natural hazards combined. New @wwattribution.bsky.social study. www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-chan...

We are looking for a Senior Technician in the Ice Core Facility at Earth Sciences New Zealand, formerly GNS Science.

Permanent position working with a great team at a beautiful site (National Isotope Centre, Lower Hutt).

Job description + more info:
www.gns.cri.nz/careers/

Working with some model outputs that rely on the venerable NCEP/NCAR reanalysis as I write this. The excellence, reach & influence of NCAR is global. Horrified but completely unsurprised by this decision.

Timeline cleanse: Antarctic sun dogs/halo version. January 2024, RAICA ice core project at Canisteo Peninsula, West Antarctica supported by Korea Polar Research Institute and US National Science Foundation. 🌞 ❄️

🧪 Another discrete ice core gas extraction for Kr81 yesterday. Always feels a little nerve-wracking melting ~1.5 kg of core (>750 m deep in this case, from Roosevelt Island)...

Miocene and Pliocene ice and air from the Allan Hills blue ice area, East Antarctica | PNAS Antarctic ice cores provide a unique archive of Earth’s atmosphere and its largest extant ice sheet. The oldest continuous ice core extends back 80...

~ 6 million year old ice from Allan Hills! Unreal!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This is the second part of the work we covered here, highlighting that CO2 is the dominant forcer in temperature and sea level changes during ice age cycles.

(It's also a great chance for others to cover; this has not been widely reported. There's even an old ice core now that can test this!)

Image showing front page of briefing document

🧪🧵 Future change to #ThwaitesGlacier, Antarctica constitutes the largest uncertainty in #sea-level rise forecasts. The Science Coordination Office of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration recently issued a briefing document summarising some key findings - thwaitesglacier.org/findings

HYSPLIT user forum is down. US gov shutdown victim? hysplitbbs.arl.noaa.gov

🧪

Mid‐Holocene drying of K'gari lakes (subtropical eastern Australia) necessitates re‐evaluation of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation climate links and future drying risk The Holocene history of Australia's climate is surprisingly poorly understood. This is, in part, because of the relatively weak forcing of Holocene climate versus that of the late Pleistocene. Howeve....

Nice to see this paper led by A/Prof John Tibby (Uni of Adelaide) out this past fortnight. The argument for ENSO-driven mid-to-late Holocene drying in eastern Australia is perhaps less convincing than originally thought.

@ausquaternary.bsky.social 🧪

doi.org/10.1002/jqs....

Screenshot that says "Sea Ice Today" and "Ice Sheets Today" Services Reduced. More information is stated: "Beginning October 15, 2025, NSIDC’s Sea Ice Today and Ice Sheets Today services will be reduced because of non-renewed funding. This means no new monthly and mid-month analysis posts for Sea Ice Today or regular posts for Ice Sheets Today, limited comparison tools, and reduced user support."

UGH! When will it end. 😭

"Effective October 15, 2025, due to non-renewed funding, NSIDC has suspended or reduced several Sea Ice Today tools and services."

nsidc.org/data/user-re...

Updated with new expert comments overnight:

Update on Nathaniel B. Palmer

NSF: The vessel [US Antarctic research vessel NB Palmer] is planned to be returned to the operator after a final cruise in October 2025.  
www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/upda... @carlosmoffat.com

Emerging evidence of abrupt changes in the Antarctic environment - Nature Abrupt changes are developing across Antarctica’s ice, ocean and biological systems; some of these changes are intensifying faster than equivalent Arctic changes, potentially irreversibly, and their i...

"evidence is emerging for rapid, interacting and sometimes self-perpetuating changes in the Antarctic environment"
New review out today led by @climatenerilie.bsky.social brings together the rapid changes unfolding in the Antarctic. It's powerful, and sobering, reading.

I am not sure how many people realize the huge array of field affected by these cut to science agencies. For example, the NSF quietly stopped hosting the public available USAP photo library last month, a resource of thousands of historic United States Antarctic photos dating to the 1940s. #histsci

Also, the ducklings have arrived 🦆🦆

A view of Wellington from the north, with a rainbow in view

It's not uncommon to look across the bay and see Wellington getting drenched.

Photo from Monday: