Expand View Figure 1 Antarctica and the Australian Antarctic Territory Source: Australian Antarctic Data Centre For more information, go toPhysical environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link
Expand View Figure 2 Ozone mass deficit metric EESC = equivalent effective stratospheric chlorine; Mt = megatonne; OMI = Ozone Monitoring Instrument; OMPS = Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite; ppb = parts per billion; TOMS = Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (a) Estimated daily mass of ozone destroyed within the ozone hole, shown for individual years from 2015 to 2020 as a function of day of year from July to December. (b) Estimated total annual ozone mass loss associated with the ozone hole from 1979 to 2020 (green dots) and EESC (blue line), a measure of the stratospheric concentration of ozone-depleting substances. These figures are obtained from CSIRO analysis of daily total column ozone measurements provided from the OMPS on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite. In (a), the light-blue background shows the range of daily values for 1979–2019 obtained with the TOMS instrument (1979–2003), the OMI (2004–11) and OMPS (2012–19). Gaps in the timeseries are when no TOMS measurements were made. Source: CSIRO; after Klekociuk et al. (2021) Download Go to data.gov For more information, go toPhysical environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link
Expand View Figure 3 Patterns of average maximum temperatures across the Southern Hemisphere in November–December 2019 Note: Shown are differences in the maximum daily temperature averaged over November and December 2019 with respect to the climatological average for 1980–2010. The scale is degrees Celsius. Source: After Robinson et al. (2020). Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute Climate Explorer using data from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts, fifth Reanalysis. For more information, go toPhysical environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link
Expand View Figure 3 Patterns of average maximum temperatures across the Southern Hemisphere in November–December 2019
Expand View Figure 4 History of climate and atmospheric composition from Antarctic ice-core records CO2 = carbon dioxide; ppm = parts per million (a) Law Dome ice-core CO2 record, the world’s most accurate and detailed CO2 record for the past 2,000 years. Note the clear increase in CO2 from the start of the Industrial Revolution and the agreement of the ice-core measurements with more recent atmospheric data from Kennaook/Cape Grim, Tasmania. (b) Data from a composite of Antarctic deep ice cores reveals past changes in Antarctic (b) CO2 and (c) temperature over the past 800,000 years. The modern rise is outside the bounds of natural variability over this period. Note the close coupling of temperature and CO2 throughout the ice age cycles, which have approximately a 100,000-year periodicity. Sources: Kennaook/Cape Grim CO2 – Kennaook/Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station (Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere); Law Dome CO2 – MacFarling Meure et al. (2006); Antarctic ice-core composite CO2 – Bereiter et al. (2015); Antarctic temperature change – Jouzel et al. (2007). For more information, go toPhysical environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link
Expand View Figure 5 Antarctic mass loss Gt = gigatonne; IMBIE = Ice sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise; mm = millimetre (a) Antarctic mass loss was compiled from 24 separate studies by the IMBIE team (2018). (b) Ice-sheet thinning was measured by Smith et al. (2020) over 2003–19. Sources: (a) From IMBIE team (2018). Reprinted by permission from Springer Nature Customer Service Centre GmbH: Springer, Nature. Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017, Andrew Shepherd et al., 2018. (b) From Smith et al. (2020). Reprinted with permission from AAAS; permissions conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. For more information, go toPhysical environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link
Expand View Figure 6 East Antarctic vulnerability to ice retreat Notes: Marine ice-sheet instability (MISI) causes regions of the ice sheet on retrograde slopes to be vulnerable to irreversible retreat, as any retreat of the grounding line increases flux and thinning. Regions of East Antarctica vulnerable to MISI include the Wilkes and Aurora subglacial basins. Source: Produced using the Norwegian Polar Institute’s Quantarctica package. For more information, go toPhysical environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link
Expand View Figure 7 Sea ice extent anomaly km2 = square kilometre Note: Figure shows anomaly (difference from climatological average) of monthly mean (thin lines) and 11-month running mean (thick lines) sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic since 1979. Source: Adapted from Turner & Comiso (2017) and extended using data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Credit: Phillip Reid, BOM For more information, go toPhysical environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link
Expand View Figure 8 December 2016 sea ice concentration anomaly Note: The anomaly is shown with respect to the 1979–2008 December mean. The black line shows climatological ice edge; the magenta line shows December 2016 ice edge. Source: Goddard merged sea ice concentration (Peng et al. 2013) Credit: Dr Will Hobbs, Australian Antarctic Program Partnership For more information, go toPhysical environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link
Expand View Figure 9 DNA metabarcoding Note: DNA was extracted from scats of many different predators. 1. Through DNA metabarcoding, the prey species ingested by predators were identified and compared to species caught by commercial fishing vessels. 2. DNA metabarcoding can also be used to identify seabird species to detect whether they have returned to a previously occupied breeding island. Source: Julie McInnes For more information, go toLiving environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link
Expand View Figure 10 Colony of shy albatrosses at Albatross Island, Tasmania Photo: Julie McInnes For more information, go toLiving environment Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share this link