Antarctic

"Antarctica creates a hostile environment," says the operation director for the British Antarctic Survey.

You can see that we're here to stay, said Vladimir Cheberdak, 57, chief of the Bellingshausen Station, as he sipped tea under a portrait of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, a high-ranking officer in the Imperial Russian Navy who explored the Antarctic coast in 1820.

Yong Yu, a Chinese microbiologist, showed off the spacious building, with empty desks under an illustrated timeline detailing the rapid growth of China's Antarctic operations since the 1980s.

Then there is Antarctic's remoteness, with some mineral deposits found in windswept locations on a continent that is larger than Europe and where winter temperatures hover around minus 55 degrees Celsius.

The old days of the Antarctic being dominated by the interests and wishes of white men from European, Australasian and North American states are over, said Klaus Dodds, a politics scholar at the University of London who specialises in Antarctica.

The large base he leads resembles a snowed-in college campus on holiday break, with the capacity to sleep more than 10 times the 13 people who were staying on through the Antarctic winter.

South Korea opened its second Antarctic research base in 2014, describing it as a way to test robots developed by Korean researchers for use in extreme conditions.

Some of the ventures focus on the Antarctic resources that are already up for grabs, like abundant sea life.

Beyond the Antarctic treaties, huge obstacles persist to tapping these resources, like drifting icebergs that could jeopardise offshore platforms.

117 With Russia's help, Belarus is preparing to build its first Antarctic base.

The whole Antarctic region will be submerged.

How unstable the West Antarctic ice sheet is

The West Antarctic region was once an open ocean.

The West Antarctic ice sheet was about 7,000 feet thick

The West Antarctic ice sheet was once floating ice.

The West Antarctic region used to be warmer than today

Scientists agree that key player in this scenario is the West Antarctic ice sheet, a Brazil-size mass of frozen water that is much as 7000 feet thick.

Surrounded by open ocean, it is also vulnerable, but Antarctic experts disagree strongly on just how unstable it is

Now, new evidence reveals that all or most of the Antarctic ice sheet collapsed at least once during the past 1.3 million years, a period when global temperatures probably were not significantly higher than they are today.

As Herman Engleheart, a co-author from the California Institute of Technology says, 'the West Antarctic ice sheet disappear once and can disappear again

What is the latest information revealed about the West Antarctic ice sheet?

A global campaign has been launched to turn a huge tract of Antarctic seas into ocean sanctuaries, protecting wildlife and banning not just krill fishing, but all fishing.

As such, they are key species for understanding and predicting impacts of global change on Antarctic and sub-Antarctic marine ecosystems.

As the ocean warms, a body of water called the Antarctic Polar Front - an upward movement of nutrient-rich sea that supports a huge abundance of marine life - is being pushed further south. This means that king penguins, which feed on fish and krill in th

Earlier this month a separate study found that a combination of climate change and industrial fishing is threatening the krill (磷蝦) population in Antarctic waters, with a potentially disastrous impact on whales, seals and penguins.

Frida Bengtsson from Greenpeace's Protect the Antarctic campaign said: "If the krill industry wants to show it’s a responsible player, then it should be voluntarily getting out of any area which is being proposed as an ocean sanctuary, and should instead

It also highlights incidents of fishing boats being involved in groundings, oil spills and accidents, which posed a serious threat to the Antarctic ecosystem.

Le Bohec said:"The plight of the king penguin should serve as a warning about the future of the entire marine environment in the Antarctic."

One was created in the Ross Sea in 2016, another reserve is being proposed in a vast area of the Weddell Sea, and a third sanctuary is under consideration in the area west of the Antarctic Peninsula—a key krill fishing area.

Our long-term operation in the region depends on a healthy and thriving Antarctic marine ecosystem, which is why we have always had an open dialogue with the environmental non-governmental organisations.

rising temperatures and overfishing in the pristine waters around the Antarctic could see king penguin populations pushed to the brink of extinction by the end of the century, according to a new study.

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources(CCAMLR) manages the seas around Antarctica.

The findings come amid growing concern over the future of the Antarctic.

The old days of the Antarctic being dominated by the interests and wishes of white men from European, Australasian and North American states are over, "said Klaus Dodds, a politics scholar at the University of London who specialises in Antarctica.

The report, published on Tuesday, comes amid growing concern about the impact of fishing and climate change on the Antarctic.

The study by Greenpeace analysed the movements of krill fishing vessels in the region and found they were increasingly operating "in the immediate vicinity of penguin colonies and whale feeding grounds" It also highlights incidents of fishing boats being

with Russia's help, Belarus is preparing to build its first Antarctic base.

A new collection of photos brings an unsuccessful antArctic voyage back to life.

Frank Hurley, a confident and gifted Australian photographer who knew the antArctic, was hired to make the images, most of which have never before been published.