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Unparalleled Opportunity for Discovery
Pages 4-17

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From page 4...
... Unparalleled Opportunity for Discovery The Antarctic is like nowhere else on Earth. global climate change, which is driven by From the earliest days of human exploration, increasing concentrations of CO2 and other generations of intrepid researchers have greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.4 Antarctica ventured onto its icy expanses, plumbed its is also a place that is changing rapidly, with new formidable waters, and gazed into its endless forces reshaping landforms and ecosystems skies, yielding new discoveries for all to share.
From page 5...
... The size and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change movement of Antarctica's ice sheet and glaciers (IPCC) assessment, global sea level rise is likely are affected by the underlying bedrock, by the to be in the range of 0.28 to 1 meter (about surrounding atmosphere and ocean waters, 1–3 feet)
From page 6...
... When ice shelves break apart through calving, the following: they form icebergs. These features are often enormous in extent -- for instance, the Ross Ice Shelf is roughly the size of An ice sheet is a mass of ice sitting atop land that is France, and an iceberg that broke off from the Ronne Ice greater than 50,000 square kilometers (20,000 square Shelf in 2021 was roughly 80 times the size of Manhattan.
From page 7...
... The third main region of the ice current contribution to sea level rise is relatively sheet, over the Antarctic Peninsula, comprises small, it is likely to increase as the planet warms, hundreds of mountain glaciers. While the with the possibility of reaching "tipping points" Peninsula is being strongly affected by climate that could set off rapid, essentially irreversible warming, overall it does not contain enough ice processes of ice sheet disintegration.
From page 8...
... Where Antarctica's continental and heat absorption thanks to the high ice sheet meets ocean water, the warmer upper reflectivity of its ice and snow cover. In addition, layer of water sinks to become a dense, cold layer Earth's polar regions receive far less solar called Antarctic bottom water.
From page 9...
... For instance, scientists studying sediment cores drilled from beneath the Ross Sea discovered that in the past, Antarctica's ice sheet melted rapidly when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rose to a certain threshold value -- a threshold we are now approaching again.6,7 Other sediment core studies have found evidence of past eras of Earth history, including one about 90 million years ago, when Antarctic winters were Researchers examine a split sediment core. SOURCES: Stockstad, E
From page 10...
... The operated a special facility to continuously collect continent is separated from human populations and analyze air samples in a designated "Clean and industries by sheer distance, while Air Sector" near the South Pole. This area is atmospheric and ocean currents help to buffer strictly protected from contamination by foot, the region from inputs carried via air or water.
From page 11...
... For example, researchers estimate that it takes about a year for particles from large fires in the Northern Hemisphere to reach the South Pole. Scientists are also tracking industrial chemicals, known as persistent organic pollutants, in Antarctica to better understand Scientists launch a balloon to gather air samples near the South Pole for analysis by NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory's how these contaminants may accumulate in polar Global Monitoring Division.
From page 12...
... Studies dinner plate.12 Antarctic researchers are studying have found that Antarctic waters contain high the nature and impacts of these and other concentrations of microplastics -- tiny bits of pollutants in the waters of the Southern Ocean. plastic that are released as plastic objects break Pollution from activities far and near are finding their way into the Southern Ocean.
From page 13...
... flightless birds are indeed important members Antarctic organisms have had to contend with of the continent's ecosystems, they are only one and adapt to environmental challenges such group within a diverse array of life forms that as extremely cold and often arid conditions, call Antarctica home. In contrast to its seeming prolonged dark-light cycles, and even the desolation, researchers have found Antarctica complete absence of light.
From page 14...
... Bottom Right: A king crab. Ocean warming is allowing these high-level predators to move into new areas of the Southern Ocean, where they could disrupt ecosystems.
From page 15...
... Scientists have also explored which could alter the mix of species that thrive, the impressive ability of marine mammals in allow invasive species to become established, or Antarctica to dive and navigate beneath the create new connections among native species ice before surfacing to breathe. Studies have that have evolved in isolation.15 Likewise at sea, suggested that Weddell seals can use their acute rapid warming can upend ecosystems by altering night vision to locate cracks in the ice with the boundaries of species and populations.
From page 16...
... Peering through the South Pole's thin atmosphere allows scientists to see certain astronomical processes and signals more clearly than from anywhere else on Earth. Research agencies from many countries have joined forces to build telescopes and other research facilities, such as the IceCube Neutrino 16
From page 17...
... For instance, "space weather" events 2016, a network of autonomous sensors was such as solar flares, radiation storms, and deployed in the remote East Antarctic Plateau, coronal mass ejections can interfere with radio providing a Southern Hemisphere complement communication, damage power grids and to a network of Northern Hemisphere sensors electronic equipment, harm satellites and GPS deployed in Greenland. This allowed researchers navigation systems, and pose a health risk to to discover important new evidence about how astronauts in space.


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