2025 goes down as the ~3rd-warmest year on record (based on ERA5). Like in 2024, every single day this past year was warmer than the average of even the most recent reference period (1991-2020).

🌊BGC-Argo float of the month is 5906497 with 4 years under Antarctic sea ice, just popped out. It was adopted by the American School in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and named “Hedy Lamarr” – the actress who co-invented and patented frequency hopping communications.  Named for her science contribution. 1/2

A picture is worth 1000 words... This appeared on the BBC News today, showing the increase in solar electric generation in the UK. Not sure who produced it, but genuinely think this is a genius piece of scientific communication - the construct and choice of colour scale is near-perfect. Chapeau!

As always, my last post of the year reminder... Reducing emissions will reduce future climate warming and impacts. The time is now. Visualization made by globalcarbonbudget.org. Thanks for being here in 2025! I appreciate all the support 🙂

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working at a university

🧊 Our English press release is out! 👉 Press release: bit.ly/4pRR2EN Using GNSS observations and glacial isostatic adjustment modeling, the study (👉 go.nature.com/4jezEaG) documents a rapid mid-Holocene thinning followed by re-thickening, providing new constraints on long-term ice-sheet behavior.

South Korean RV ARAON is indeed the only ship in the world regularly visiting Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica. US no longer has a dedicated Antarctic RV. ARAON headed south now, with Raymond Zhong (NYT) & Miles O’Brien @pbsnews.org on board documenting! Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/c...

Deepfakes leveled up in 2025 – here’s what’s coming next

Drilling a 200m sediment core from the bedrock beneath 500m of Antarctic ice is a complex process, so we've broken it down step-by-step in this explainer. From melting snow in our flubbers through to filling our core barrels, what we're attempting 700km from the nearest base is no mean feat!

A Gigaton is a billion tons. Or 1000000000000 kg or 2204622621848.78 lbs More than 100 of those lost from Antarctic and Greenland land ice (not sea ice, which is different) each and every year in recent decades. That's the part not replaced by snowfall that helps drive up sea levels.

Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Losses Average Mass Loss 2002–2025: • Antarctica -135 Gigatons ice/year, global sea level rise 0.4mm/yr. • Greenland -264 Gigatons ice/year, global sea level rise 0.8mm/yr. #Antarctic #Greenland #IceSheet NASA&JPL/Caltech LEARN MORE: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31166/

📣 We seek to appoint a Chair (with rank of professor) within the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences. The successful candidate will be an outstanding scholar of international standing in the field. 🗓 Closing Date: 23 March 2026 Full details: www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/I/...

Hey Australia, A new, updated, covid vaccine booster is available. Targets LP.8.1. If you're a healthy adult and haven't had a booster in over 12 months you should get this. Covid is still around. It's not innocuous. If you have a flu shot every year then it's not hard to get this too.

This is beautiful. No AI. Just real art and science.

#AGU25 is just around the corner! 🥳 I want to invite you to visit the "Measurements and Modeling of the Earth's Response to Surface Mass Variability and Human-Hydrosphere Interactions" sessions! @agu.org

Our paper on a new ice shelf basal melt parameterisation is out! tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/... Small-scale processes in the ocean drive ice shelf basal melt, and large-scale ocean models can’t resolve these processes. Therefore, models use melt parameterisations, but these can still be improved.

When the Gadi supercomputer opened in 2020, it was ranked 24th in the world. It’s now dropped to 179th.

Congratulations to the team behind the ARC Centre of Excellence for Our Future Oceans. Funded!! Special congratulations to @profmattengland.bsky.social for his leadership of this major bid.

Pleased to share Achraf Koulali's new paper suggesting low rates of GPS uplift of the Trans Antarctic Mountains We show previous estimates were pushed high by surface mass balance deficits causing elastic uplift 1/2 agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

🌊 Serendipity often drives science forward. A “lost” Argo float drifted under Antarctica’s ice shelves and resurfaced with a warning: warm water is creeping under major glaciers like Denman and Totten. What’s at risk? Up to 5 m of global sea-level rise. theconversation.com/what-our-mis...

Paper here www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Sometimes we get lucky. Nice article led by Steve Rintoul on new findings on the ocean melting the front of Denman Glacier theconversation.com/what-our-mis...

Antarctica’s future beyond 2100: high emissions drive major long-term ice loss. New study in Nature Communications by Vio Coulon and Ann Kristin Klose, showing that the fate of the Antarctic ice sheet, will play a decisive role in future sea level rise. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Antarctica and the Southern Ocean hold critical clues about our changing climate – understanding this change is essential for communities worldwide. Watch our latest video to find out how ACEAS is improving physical climate and ecosystem projections. 🎬 Watch now: youtu.be/Us2a4ulf404

Advertising a fully-funded PhD studentship (3.75 years, inc. 3 month internship with S&T Norway) @cpom-uk.bsky.social, Northumbria, UK: "The Role of Landfast Sea Ice in Antarctic Ice Shelf Stability: Integrating Earth Observation with Low-Carbon AI Modelling" More details: tinyurl.com/yc7v3t5r 🧪❄️🛰️

👏 Congratulations to ACEAS Deputy Director, Professor Zanna Chase (@utas.edu.au), who has been appointed to the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts for 2026. Read more: utas-prod-web.squiz.cloud/utas2020/abo...

New research published today in @nature.com shows the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) – the Southern Hemisphere’s most influential climate driver – has reached its most positive state in more than a millennium. Read the Nature paper: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

🌏 Happy Antarctica Day! ❄️ Today we celebrate global cooperation in protecting and understanding one of Earth’s most unique and fragile environments. A huge thanks to all our researchers for driving this work forward every day. 🎥 Learn more in our new ACEAS video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGg3...

Want a state-of-the-art explainer on the big changes occurring in the Antarctic? Check out this recent briefing, delivered to COP30 @iccinet.bsky.social Very much designed for the non-expert, so don't be afraid to dip in! www.youtube.com/live/YjYkKvw... 1/2

Another Earth sciences course has been killed off. There's no doubt mining has the wrong image, and is far from exciting for many young people, but it is critical for the renewable transition. At some point there may need to be market intervention by the government.

🛰️ How can autonomous robots stay on track in hazardous and remote environments? Our new AI model allows teams of autonomous drones, submarines and satellites to adapt to unexpected mission changes by taking charge of their own planning. Learn more: https://bit.ly/43ZoS1V

🌊 What is the Meridional Overturning Circulation and why is it important? The Meridional Overturning Circulation (#MOC) – critical for transporting heat, carbon, oxygen and nutrients across the globe – is weakening under climate change.

Great to welcome (from @imas-utas.bsky.social) Xue Long, one of China's ice breakers, back to Hobart! Fair winds and following seas as she heads south.

New paper alert ! 🙂 Happy to share our new study published in The Cryosphere ! doi.org/10.5194/tc-1... We modelled the evolution of the Greenland Ice Sheet from the LGM (24 ka) to the present and learned a lot on its former history and dynamics ! @jeremyely.bsky.social @chrisdclark.bsky.social

This is a great example of Australia's Antarctic researchers working together to deliver globally-important messages to policymakers

If you can afford to pay $55 for potato crisps, give it to charity instead

Great idea thedriven.io/2025/11/14/t...

I am hiring 4 postdoctoral researchers for up to 4 years each. Topics include ice sheet reconstruction, GIA, spatial stats, and satellite geodesy. Based in Tasmania. All details are here: careers.utas.edu.au/en/listing/ with titles below I am also recruiting multiple PhD students (see below) 1/n

More than 50 of the world’s leading ocean scientists have gathered in Hobart to explore new ways of using NASA satellite technology to understand how climate change is reshaping the Southern Ocean pulsetasmania.com.au/news/nasa-sa...

Antarctica is in extreme peril | grist.org/climate/anta...

Average temperature departures by month in the #Antarctic since the year 1940. Data from @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social ERA5 reanalysis.

Gathering with this brilliant group of researchers was one of the highlights of the year for me. Some amazing, inspirational work going on, steadily advancing our understanding of Antarctica and how it will affect us in so many ways.

Australia pays special attention to the Indian Ocean bit of the Southern Ocean. Quite alarming that sea ice there is in entirely unexplored territory (top right panel, also a cropped version, click to see full images)

Heading home now, after an awesome week in Hobart! So much great Antarctic science happening here. Also: lovely people. Shame they’re so darn good at cricket 🏏

About as alarming as it gets. Hard to imagine the current regime surviving

So much to like about what the Vice Chancellor of Western Sydney University has to say here www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

📝 Call for all Polar Researchers to take the Science under Pressure survey! Submissions deadline is 15 November 2025 Read more and take the survey: www.rug.nl/research/arc...

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Political Map of Australia in the 1920s showing the very short lived Central Australia territory which only existed from 1927 to 1931 7 more maps in the same series: brilliantmaps.com/new-oxfor...