Antarctica

Latest news

Scientists from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) have returned from a six-week voyage to Antarctica.
As New Zealanders search for the summer sun, 38 researchers and crew will board RV Tangaroa tomorrow for a six-week science voyage deep into the waters of Antarctica.
NIWA scientists are doing what no others have done before. In a mysterious world just below the Antarctic ice, a delicate web of ice crystals forms a habitat that’s unique and largely unknown. Until now…
A NIWA-led collaboration is seeing atmospheric measurements taken from Antarctica’s Ross Island added to a highly respected international climate data reference network.

Latest videos

Dive into the alien world of plankton in the Ross Sea

Plankton are the base of the oceans food web and are vital to our survival. But as our world changes will they be able to continue to play this essential role? Join us as we follow a group of NIWA scientists investigating various aspects of this question in the ocean around Antarctica.

Antarctic science onboard NIWA’s RV Tangaroa

Researchers are working their way through a wealth of new Antarctic marine data after RV Tangaroa successfully completed its five week scientific voyage to the Ross Sea. Voyage leader and principal fisheries scientist Dr Richard O’Driscoll outlines the team’s busy research schedule examining biodiversity and ocean dynamics in the world’s largest marine protected area.

Check out more stories from the 2021 Antarctic voyage

Powering diversity in the Ross Sea

Fisheries scientist Dr Pablo Escobar-Flores delves into Antarctic mesopelagic science with a look at the small animals and organisms that help power the amazing diversity of life in the Ross Sea.

Eavesdropping on sperm whales in Antarctica

Whale researchers such as NIWA Marine Mammal Acoustician Dr Giacomo Giorli are eagerly awaiting the return of RV Tangaroa after its five-week Antarctic voyage.

The moorings team is bringing back precious data from long-term underwater listening devices which the researchers are using to search for signs that sperm whales are finally returning in numbers to the Ross Sea.

Sperm whales were targeted by the whaling industry in the 19th and 20th centuries and more than 70 per cent of their population wiped out. Scientists are now trying to establish if the sperm whale population is making a comeback.
NIWA's Sarah Searson and Jennie Mowatt

If you want to get accurate scientific readings from the icy depths of the Ross Sea, who do you turn to?

None better than NIWA marine physics technician, Sarah Searson and her moorings specialist buddy, Jennie Mowatt.

On Tangaroa’s current Antarctic expedition, the team are responsible for deploying, and safely recovering, sensitive scientific instruments capturing everything from whale song and krill densities to ocean sediment or current movements.

Check out more updates from the 2021 Antarctic voyage

Day 20 and we are now more than halfway through the Ross Sea Life in a Changing Climate (ReLiCC) 2021 voyage on RV Tangaroa.
Tue 19th: At 00:00 this morning we came across an extremely large tabular iceberg. It was easily picked up on the ship’s radar but due to the foggy conditions was only visible at a range of 1.7 miles.
Navigating the "ice bridge"

Marissa Judkins is second mate on RV Tangaroa. Watch her navigating through the "ice bridge" in Antarctica's Ross Sea for the first time.

Check out more updates from the 2021 Antarctic voyage

Day 13 of the Ross Sea Life in a Changing Climate (ReLiCC) 2021 voyage on RV Tangaroa finds us close to Cape Adare on the tip of the Antarctic continent. We’ve had a busy and icy week.
This is now my eighth voyage to Antarctica on Tangaroa. While my medical skills have been called on many occasions, my daily consultation rate at sea is low. So, I fill my time with other activities including getting involved in the science if needed.
We have officially entered Antarctic waters! Five days after leaving Wellington on the Ross Sea Life in a Changing Climate (ReLiCC) 2021 voyage.
Ice Pilot Evan Solly gives an update from the first week on-board NIWA's research vessel Tangaroa as they embark on a six-week voyage to Antarctica.
NIWA’s flagship research vessel Tangaroa leaves soon on a six-week voyage to Antarctica, making it one of the few full scientific expeditions to the continent since the global outbreak of COVID-19.
Emergency food barrel packing for the Antarctic voyage

Earlier this week, one of the most important parts of Tangaroa’s Antarctic voyage preparation was meticulously carried out at NIWA Wellington – barreling up the emergency rations. 

Emergency rations are carried on every voyage to the white continent. Kept in buoyant watertight barrels, the stock of rations includes freeze-dried and non-perishable items. The barrels can be deployed overboard at a moment's notice or, time permitting, loaded onto Tangaroa's life rafts. 

Why are emergency rations carried? Because Antarctica is remote, unforgiving and not highly trafficked by other vessels.  

Every so often, even when taking all precautions, vessels occasionally get trapped in the ice, usually caused by fast changes in ice flows driven by the weather. Over the years, many research organisations have suffered this fate. Usually, vessels can eventually be freed or rescued by ice breakers or by natural changes in the ice and weather conditions.

For the record, emergency food rations have never had to be used while Tangaroa has visited Antarctica. Let’s hope they never are!  

This season’s science voyage exploring the effects of climate change in the Ross Sea is scheduled to leave on 8 January – returning six weeks later.   

Watch Amelia Connell from NIWA Vessels give us the low-down on packing rations in this 30-second clip from Coasts & Oceans Communications Lead Pascale Otis.

RV Tangaroa undertook a 45-day voyage to the Southern Ocean and Ross Sea in January-February, 2021.
Critter of the deep - episode 3: sea spider

Sea spiders are exclusively marine arthropods. They look a little bit similar to land spiders the arachnids, but they are in their own special group the Pycnogonida.

They can be very small, but the large specimen I have in my hands is from the Ross Sea in Antarctica, where sea spiders are found in large numbers and with high species diversity.

Male sea spiders carry eggs under their body with one of their appendages called an oviger, and when they hatch the babies are carried around by their dad while they are still developing.

Sea spiders use their long straw like proboscis to eat their prey - animals like soft corals, anemones and sponges. They have a very skinny body so their guts and reproductive organs extend down into their long skinny legs. They also do not have gills or lungs, so they absorb oxygen through their cuticle, (hard shell-like skin).

Here’s an article about genetic research done on Antarctic sea spiders:
niwa.co.nz/sites/niwa.co.nz/files/import/attachments/spiders.pdf

Here’s an interesting article about how Sea spiders eat:
frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12983-018-0250-4

A journey under the ice, with Peter Marriott

Discover the beauty of Antarctic seafloor communities, with experienced NIWA polar diver Peter Marriott. 

Tour of the NIWA Invertebrate Collection with Sadie Mills

The NIWA Invertebrate Collection (NIC) holds specimens from almost all invertebrate phyla. This is a result of about half a century of marine taxonomic and biodiversity research in the New Zealand region, the South West Pacific and the Ross Sea, Antarctica. 

To learn more about it, visit https://niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/nic

Critter of the deep - episode 2: Antarctic Octopus

This is a really cute little octopus (Pareledone genus) from cold Antarctic waters, and we have records of them living from 62-2804 m deep.

Octopods have three hearts and contractile veins that pump hemolymph (like blood), which is highly enriched with the blue oxygen transport protein hemocyanin (so they are blue-blooded).

One Pareledone species, P. charcoti, has the highest concentration of hemocyanin in its blood – at least 40 percent more compared to the other species, and ranks amongst the highest levels reported for any octopod.

There are five described species in the genus Pareledone and several undescribed species in this group. It is the most commonly found octopus genus in Antarctica.

Secrets of the Ram's horn squid

Sadie Mills is the Collection Manager of the NIWA Invertebrate Collection (NIC), a Nationally Significant Collection and Database holding over 300,000 jars of preserved marine invertebrates from around New Zealand, Antarctica and the wider South West Pacific. Sadie is responsible for the NIC staff and volunteers and manages the MBIE SSIF funded project that supports the long-term care and enhancement of the Collection.

 

The Ram’s Horn squid (Spirula spirula) is a mesopelagic species, meaning that it lives in the mid-water column. It typically lives in dark depths of 500-1000 m in the day and migrates up to the shallows of 300 m at night, part of its diurnal vertical migration pattern (one of the largest daily mass migrations in the world.)

 

Spirula specimens have been collected from tropical and subtropical waters worldwide. As the shells are very buoyant they wash up on beaches all over the world!

 

This species was described by Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, way back in 1758. He originally named it Nautilus spirula, but it has since been transferred to the genus Spirula. Spirula shares similarities with the Nautilus, Cuttlefish and the extinct ammonites and belemnites as they all have a multi-chambered shell, rather than a pen like other types of squid.

At the bottom of the Southern Ocean, near Cape Adare in East Antarctica, lies an undersea ridge which until this month was only known by its co-ordinates: -71.2132 latitude, 172.1649 longitude.
Five specialist NIWA divers were left ‘gasping’ during their recent plunge under the ice near Scott Base.
Evan Solly - the last voyage

For one last time, Evan Solly starts the engines of NIWA’s research vessel Tangaroa and guides her out of Wellington. NIWA staff line the seafront to salute his amazing career that has seen him take the ship to Antarctica and back a dozen times. Bon voyage and happy retirement Evan!

Corals can live hundreds to thousands of years. What do we really know about them?
New measurements from the ocean under the centre of the Ross Ice Shelf have significantly improved our understanding of the complex processes that drive melting in Antarctica.
The rich diversity of marine life near Scott Base in Antarctica has stunned scientists diving under the ice to set up environmental monitoring sites.
The New Zealand ship Janas has recently returned from a six-week winter research voyage to the Ross Sea where scientists made the first observations of developing Antarctic toothfish embryos.
We’re here already – the shortest day is tomorrow (Saturday) and after this, it gets progressively lighter out to the longest day of the year in December.

Pages

All staff working on this subject

Principal Scientist - Fisheries
Principal Scientist - Marine Ecology
Principal Scientist - Climate
placeholder image
Marine Biogeochemistry Technician
Fisheries Population Modeller
Strategy Manager - Coasts & Estuaries
Emeritus Researcher – Atmospheric Radiation
Principal Scientist - Carbon Chemistry and Modelling
Principal Scientist - Atmosphere and Climate
placeholder image
Marine Physics Modeller
Principal Scientist - Marine Physics
Marine Phytoplankton Ecologist
placeholder image
Atmospheric Technician
Marine Ecology Technician
Principal Technician - Marine Biology
Marine Biologist
Algal Ecologist
placeholder image
Principal Technician - Atmosphere
Subscribe to RSS - Antarctica