Antarctica has long been seen as a remote, unchanging environment. Not any more.

The ice-covered continent and the surrounding Southern Ocean are undergoing abrupt and alarming changes. Sea ice is shrinking rapidly, the floating glaciers known as ice shelves are melting faster, the ice sheets carpeting the continent are approaching tipping points and vital ocean currents show signs of slowing down. Read more at The Conversation

Ice loss in Antarctica and its impact on the planet – sea level rise, changes to ocean currents and disturbance of wildlife and food webs – has been in the news a lot lately. All of these threats were likely on the minds of the delegates to the annual Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, which finishes up today in Milan, Italy. Read more at The Conversation

Australian scientists have started analysing the first batch of samples from the "Million Year Ice Core" project. The Antarctic ice was extracted from a depth of 150 metres, where tiny bubbles of trapped air date back almost 4,000 years. Read more at ABC News

From the deck of an enormous research ship, surrounded by icebergs, Chelsea Bekemeier releases a tethered balloon into the air. Read more at ABC News

Australian scientists are warning of a "crisis" in Antarctic research due to the impact of an impending funding cliff. Much of Australia's Antarctic research is overseen by three university-led programs, all of which have funding that is due to expire on a set date over the coming years.. Read more at ABC News

Emperor penguin populations in Antarctica have shrunk by almost a quarter as global warming melts their icy habitat, researchers say. The estimated population of 16 penguin colonies — visible in satellite photos taken between 2009 and 2024 – had declined by 22 per cent. Read more at ABC News

One of the biggest challenges in predicting Antarctica’s deeply uncertain future is understanding exactly what’s driving its ice loss. A vast network of lakes and streams lies beneath the thick ice sheet. This water can lubricate the ice, allowing it to slide more rapidly toward the ocean. Read more at The Conversation

Antarctic sea ice has again fallen to a near-record low as a new study shows the system is undergoing a significant "structural change". Scientists have been using satellite images over the past 45 years to track the extent of sea ice on the fringe of the continent. Read more at ABC NEWS

Studies of ancient DNA have tended to focus on frozen land in the northern hemisphere, where woolly mammoths and bison roamed. Meanwhile, Antarctica has received relatively little attention. We set out to change that. Read more at The Conversation

Flowing clockwise around Antarctica, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the strongest ocean current on the planet. It’s five times stronger than the Gulf Stream and more than 100 times stronger than the Amazon River. Read more at The Conversation

The Denman Glacier spans an area 16 kilometres wide and 110km long in East Antarctica, around 5,000km to the south of Australia. Today, it's melting before our eyes — faster than scientists expected. Read more at ABC NEWS

Australia’s Antarctic territory represents the largest sliver of the ice continent. For decades, Australian scientists have headed to one of our three bases – Mawson, Davis and Casey – as well as the base on sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, to research everything from ecology to climate science. Read more at The Conversation

urious thing is happening underneath the Antarctic oceans: the food chain is changing. Last year, in McMurdo Sound, it changed in some unexpected ways. Read more at COSMOS

The size of the Antarctic ice sheet can be hard to comprehend. Two kilometres thick on average and covering nearly twice the area of Australia, the ice sheet holds enough freshwater to raise global sea levels by 58 metres. Read more at The Conversation