Advancing Antarctic research on climate change impacts

The Government is investing in Antarctic research to better understand changes on the icy continent and how they could affect New Zealand.

In a second tranche of funding, the Government will invest another $49 million over the next seven years to keep this critical work going.

The Antarctic Science Platform’s objective is to conduct excellent science to understand Antarctica’s impact on the global earth system and how this might change in a +2˚ C (Paris agreement) world. It has four priorities:

• Understanding the stability of the West Antarctic ice sheet.

• Understanding the impacts of change in the Antarctic atmosphere and Southern Ocean.

• Understanding threats to ecosystem dynamics in the Ross Sea.

• Understanding change in terrestrial and nearshore Antarctic environments, and the connections between them.

Over the next seven years, the Antarctic Science Platform seeks to build on their previous work, but with a strategic shift based on extensive consultation with Antarctic researchers and stakeholders, to understand:

• What are the critical signposts of catastrophic climate change and how can they be effectively observed to support timely mitigation?

• What are the drivers and potential implications of unprecedented change in the Ross Sea and Southern Ocean?

• What are the critical vulnerabilities of Antarctica’s ice sheets and glaciers, and what are the implications of likely increased melt?