Matt Harris

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:

A penguin carrying a ticket. On the ticket are details of how to sign up to BAS's 2025 virtual journey to Antarctica.

Get your tickey here for a virtual journey ✈️ to #Antarctica with @bas.ac.uk ! Perfect for kids and adults alike ❄️🥼🧪🇦🇶
Sign up➡️ tickettoantarctica.com

We’ve collected the oldest ice core, now it’s time to analyse it! 🔍 💻

The @newscientist.com have a new icy-cool video, speaking to BAS scientists about the Beyond EPICA project, highlighting why this work is so important in the face of climate change.

www.newscientist.com/video/249042...

Why Did National Geographic Disappear Its Own Documentary About A Queer Climate Scientist? | Defector If you’re not a particular kind of mountain sports nerd, you might not be familiar with the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour. But for people who live their lives in the overlapping circl...

Nat Geo would kill for legit science-driven adventure like they found in “For Winter,” over content less credibly grounded in pursuit of knowledge +humans pushing limits. Instead they’ve (Disney?) gotten cold feet & deeply disrespected my colleague Ali & her family. defector.com/why-did-nati...

🌊❄️🧪 🇦🇶 Please share:

We have learned that the National Science Foundation is moving ahead with plans to decommission the U.S. Research Vessel/Ice Breaker Nathaniel B. Palmer this October.

If you care about Antarctic research, please read on (1/n)

Applications for the Leanne Armand award are now open. This award funds early and mid-career researchers based in Australia to access training in micropaleonotology. Applications are due 28th September, all details can be found on the AQUA website […]

Sea ice controls net ocean uptake of carbon dioxide by regulating wintertime stratification - Communications Earth & Environment Interannual variability of ocean uptake of carbon dioxide is governed by winter sea ice cover, according to analysis of carbonate chemistry observations along the West Antarctic Peninsula.

📢 New paper alert! 📢

New insight into how sea ice controls the ocean uptake of carbon dioxide around Antarctica, obtained from the unique year-round Rothera Time Series.

Delighted to be part of this study, led by the very excellent Elise Droste.

🧪❄️🥼🌊

www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Current Vacancies

For cryosphere/ice core folks: a 3-year postdoc on interpreting the gas records for the Australian Million Year Ice Core project has been advertised at @utas.edu.au. Applications close 13 July.

careers.utas.edu.au/cw/en/job/50...

Available projects for research degrees | University of Tasmania - Machine learning and Australia's shape The project seeks to improve the accuracy of estimates of Australia's ...

We are recruiting a PhD student for a well-supported PhD project (including $12k/yr scholarship topup and project costs).

Helping to resolve Australia's vertical land motion for sea level

More info: www.utas.edu.au/research/deg...
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Wonderful news for the Australian Antarctic Program! Excellent appointment.

Can tropical corals find refuge at higher latitudes under future warming? In our new paper in Science Advances, we argue that coral range expansion will be *far too slow* for most coral species to outpace climate change. 🪸🌊
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A short 🧵 (1/16)

Great forum for palaeo folks in the Australasian region - join us!

Reminder that the #AusQuaternary AGM is happening this Friday! A wonderful time to renew your membership if you haven't already...

https://aqua.org.au/membership/become-an-aqua-member/

#QuaternaryScience

These are really cool little nuggets of knowledge on polar climate science (not just because I made one). Check it out.
https://fediscience.org/@PolarRES/114240081171781681
PolarRES - Big discoveries in bite-sized stories?

👉 Check out our new PolarRES in Practice Stories!

Explore the project's […]

New laser spectrometer for water isotopes arriving on Monday! 😁😁

We're joining the Picarro family after many attempts to resuscitate our venerable LGR-brand analyser.

A new era for the GNS ice core lab continuous flow analysis line!

📈📉📈📉📈

OSU is hiring! Come work at CEOAS - Open rank faculty position and director of the Oregon State Stable Isotope Laboratory. My network is small on Bluesky, please share widely! Reach out if you have questions about living in Corvallis or about CEOAS specifically.

jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/165...

1️⃣ NEW DATA: “The Antarctic Ice Sheet is thicker than we originally realised and has a larger volume of ice that is grounded on a rock bed sitting below sea-level. This puts the ice at greater risk of melting due to the incursion of warm ocean water that’s occurring at the fringes of the continent."

Ice core evidence for the Los Chocoyos supereruption disputes millennial-scale climate impact - Communications Earth & Environment The climate system was resilient over the Atitlán Los Chocoyos volcanic supereruption, one of the largest in the Quaternary, which occurred approximately 79,500 years ago, according to Greenland and A...

Innes et al find a precise date of the Los Chocoyos (Nicaragua) supervolcano eruption from tephra in Greenland ice cores. They found it happened about 80,000 years ago, several thousand years earlier than previously determined. ⚒️🧪🦣 doi.org/10.1038/s432...