Antarctic News

NASA finds evidence of widespread Antarctic melting

Rising temperatures two years ago led to widespread melting of snow cover in west Antarctica, according to scientists examining the impact of global warming on the icy continent.

The melting of snow cover in regions in January 2005 was the most significant Antarctic melting seen since satellites began observing the continent three decades ago, NASA said Tuesday.

NASA's QuikScat satellite detected extensive areas of snowmelt, shown in yellow and red, in west Antarctica in January 2005.
(NASA/JPL)
It was also the first major melting detected using NASA's QuikScat satellite, which can measure both accumulated snowfall and temperatures in various regions.

The team of scientists found evidence of melting in regions not normally affected: up to 900 kilometres inland from the open ocean, farther than 85 degrees south (within 500 kilometres of the South Pole) and higher than 2,000 metres above sea level.

Deep Antarctic waters reveal hundreds of new species

Researchers have found more than 700 previously unknown creatures including carnivorous sponges, free-swimming worms, crustaceans and molluscs in the cold, dark water around Antarctica.

The Weddell Sea has long been thought of as a featureless abyss, devoid of life. But Angelika Brandt, of the zoological institute at the University of Hamburg, who led the expedition aboard the research vessel Polarstern, said the area could potentially be "the cradle of life of the global marine species". She said: "Our research results challenge suggestions that the deep sea diversity in the Southern Ocean is poor. We now have a better understanding in the evolution of the marine species and how they can adapt to changes in climate and environments."

Katrin Linse, of the British Antarctic Survey, who also took part in the expedition, said: "It was a big surprise to discover so many new species because many of us on that expedition had already worked for years in the Antarctic shallow waters.
"The general pattern is that life decreases if you go to the deep sea because you have less food and less light. Actually we have found the opposite pattern."

She said that the most significant result of the trawls, made between 700 metres and 6.5km below the surface, had been the discovery of hundreds of new species of isopods - crustaceans distantly related to woodlice. "We had 371 species known from the Antarctic before the expedition from the trawls taken in shallow waters. From the 50 trawls taken in the deep water, we added another 585 new species."

Other highlights of the three Polarstern expeditions, published today in Nature, included sea spiders that were the size of dinner plates and a 40cm deep-sea octopus. "When you looked at it, it looked back at you, so it was interacting. Octopuses are quite intelligent animals," said Dr Linse.