Posted on 10/22/2025 7:38:07 AM PDT by Red Badger
New research reveals that Antarctica is undergoing a series of rapid, interconnected shifts that could soon reshape the planet’s climate and oceans. Scientists warn these changes may already be pushing critical systems beyond recovery. Credit: Stock Antarctica’s ice, ocean, and ecosystems are approaching tipping points that could trigger irreversible global impacts.
Antarctica faces the growing threat of sudden and possibly irreversible transformations to its ice, oceans, and ecosystems, changes that could carry serious global consequences unless greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly reduced.
This warning comes from new research published in Nature by scientists from the Australian National University (ANU) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), working alongside experts from Australia’s leading Antarctic research centers.
The study highlights that the sweeping changes already underway across the continent are “interlinked,” creating added stress on Earth’s climate systems, rising sea levels, and fragile ecosystems.
Researchers caution that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is in particular danger as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations climb. If the WAIS were to collapse, global sea levels could rise by more than three meters, endangering millions who live in coastal cities and low-lying regions around the world.
According to the study’s lead author Dr. Nerilie Abram, who is the Chief Scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), such a collapse would result in “catastrophic consequences for generations to come.”
Rapid and Interconnected Change
“Rapid change has already been detected across Antarctica’s ice, oceans and ecosystems, and this is set to worsen with every fraction of a degree of global warming,” said Dr. Abram, who carried out this work during her time as Professor of Climate Science at ANU.
“The loss of Antarctic sea ice is another abrupt change that has a whole range of knock-on effects, including making the floating ice shelves around Antarctica more susceptible to wave-driven collapse. The decline in Antarctic sea ice and the slowdown of deep circulation in the Southern Ocean are showing worrying signs of being more susceptible to a warming climate than previously thought.
“As sea ice is lost from the ocean surface, it is also changing the amount of solar heat being retained in the climate system, and that is expected to worsen warming in the Antarctic region.
“Other changes to the continent could soon become unstoppable, including the loss of Antarctic ice shelves and vulnerable parts of the Antarctic ice sheet that they hold behind them.”
Consequences for Australia
Study co-author Professor Matthew England, from UNSW and the ARC Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS), said abrupt changes to Antarctica’s climate and ecosystems could have severe consequences for Australia.
“Consequences for Australia include rising sea levels that will impact our coastal communities, a warmer and deoxygenated Southern Ocean being less able to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, leading to more intense warming in Australia and beyond, and increased regional warming from Antarctic sea ice loss,” Professor England said.
Changes to the Antarctic environment could also have devastating consequences on the region’s wildlife and ocean ecosystems.
“The loss of Antarctic sea ice brings heightened extinction risk for emperor penguins, whose chicks depend on a stable sea ice habitat prior to growing their waterproof feathers,” Professor England said.
“The loss of entire colonies of chicks has been seen right around the Antarctic coast because of early sea ice breakout events, and some colonies have experienced multiple breeding failure events over the last decade.”
According to the researchers, the adult survival or breeding capacity of krill and a number of other penguin and seal species are also at risk, while keystone phytoplankton species are becoming increasingly affected by ocean warming and acidification.
The Collapse of Ocean Circulation
“Another potential risk is a collapse in the Antarctic overturning circulation, which would mean vital nutrients remain at the seafloor, instead of being recirculated back to the surface where biological systems, including marine animals, depend on them,” Professor England said.
Dr. Abram said it was clear existing efforts through the Antarctic Treaty System to reduce pressures on Antarctic ecosystems won’t be enough on their own.
“While critically important, these measures will not help to avoid climate-related impacts that are already beginning to unfold,” she said.
“The only way to avoid further abrupt changes and their far-reaching impacts is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to limit global warming to as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible.
“Governments, businesses and communities will need to factor in these abrupt Antarctic changes that are being observed now into future planning for climate change impacts, including in Australia.”
Reference:
"Emerging evidence of abrupt changes in the Antarctic environment”
by Nerilie J. Abram, Ariaan Purich, Matthew H. England, Felicity S. McCormack, Jan M. Strugnell, Dana M. Bergstrom, Tessa R. Vance, Tobias Stål, Barbara Wienecke, Petra Heil, Edward W. Doddridge, Jean-Baptiste Sallée, Thomas J. Williams, Anya M. Reading, Andrew Mackintosh, Ronja Reese, Ricarda Winkelmann, Ann Kristin Klose, Philip W. Boyd, Steven L. Chown and Sharon A. Robinson, 20 August 2025, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09349-5
Funding:
Australian Research Council, International Space Science Institute, Swiss Federal Research Fellowship
Here we go again……….
OH NOOOOOO! The u.n. was right! NOT!
Paging Al Gore.
The climate has changed. The climate is changing. The climate will change. And there’s nothing we can do about it.
“could” stopped reading right there.
I live next to the ocean. It’s the same place it’s been my 55 years this morning.
Relax, it’s just the pope smoking dope again;-)
Alternate headline
“Scientists warn they are running out of money for their gravy train jobs.”
As a 62 year old dude, this is the first I’ve ever heard of this!
No... Wait. I was 10.
Too late to buy an EV?
Classic. Thanks.
🥱
Me too. Only thing that’s happened is it changed names, from Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.............
So AOC was right?
Fake Scientists going on unemployment ,LOL
We were taught that an New Ice Age was coming...............
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