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6 May 2020
Going against the trend
Global warming has affected the entire planet’s surface, except for one particular area of the ocean, which until 2015 had bucked the trend. A research team has now unraveled what was going on.
4 December 2019
New study models impact of calving on retreat of Thwaites Glacier
A new study in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters modeled how much faster Thwaites, one of West Antarctica’s largest and fastest-retreating glaciers, would retreat in the absence of its ice shelf — the part of the glacier that floats on top of the sea, supporting the thicker ice behind…“Worst-case scenario, it is going to be gone in less than a century. But it may also take much longer.”
24 April 2019
Uncovering polynya: new research unravels 43-year-old Antarctic mystery
Researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi have discovered how the Maud-Rise Polynya that was initially spotted in Antarctica in 1974, reappeared in September 2017 at the same location.
15 April 2019
Earliest life may have arisen in ponds, not oceans
Shallow bodies of water, on the order of 10 centimeters deep, could have held high concentrations of what many scientists believe to be a key ingredient for jump-starting life on Earth: nitrogen.
11 December 2018
Penguins! From space
Today at 2 pm EST, AGU is holding a press conference titled “Penguins! From space” at Fall Meeting 2018. New research will be discussed about how studying satellite images of penguin poop, or guano, in west Antarctica can give scientists an idea of how penguin diets changed over decades or centuries. To help you get a picture of the penguin research, check out this beautiful comic, created by JoAnna Wendel.
14 September 2018
Mummified penguins tell of past and future deadly weather
New research links the mummified remains of penguin chicks in Antarctica to two massive weather-related calamities that could become more commonplace with climate change.
14 August 2018
Diving robots find Antarctic winter seas exhale surprising amounts of carbon dioxide
More than 100 oceanic floats are now diving and drifting in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica during the peak of winter. These instruments are gathering data from a place and season that remains very poorly studied, despite its important role in regulating the global climate.
17 July 2018
New magnetic anomaly map helps unveil Antarctica
The most comprehensive magnetic map of Antarctica ever produced was published online this week in a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
24 May 2018
Subglacial valleys and mountain ranges discovered near South Pole
Extensive ice-penetrating radar data reveal three vast valleys under glaciers in West Antarctica. These valleys could be important in the future as they help to channel the flow of ice from the center of the continent towards the coast.
3 May 2018
Meltwater lakes not only summer phenomenon: Warm wind melts snow in Antarctica in winter as well
Even though the sun does not shine in Antarctica in winter, in some places snow on the glaciers can melt. The cause: warm wind.
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.