Tag: antarctica

Strange radio pulses detected coming from ice in Antarctica

A cosmic particle detector in Antarctica has emitted a series of bizarre signals that defy the current understanding of particle physics, according to an international research group that includes scientists from Penn State. The unusual radio pulses were detected by the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment, a range of instruments flown on balloons high above Antarctica that are designed to detect radio waves from cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere.

The goal of the experiment is to gain insight into distant cosmic events by analyzing signals that reach the Earth. Rather than reflecting off the ice, the signals—a form of radio waves—appeared to be coming from below the horizon, an orientation that cannot be explained by the current understanding of particle physics and may hint at new types of particles or interactions previously unknown to science, the team said.

The researchers published their results in the journal Physical Review Letters.

“The radio waves that we detected were at really steep angles, like 30 degrees below the surface of the ice,” said Stephanie Wissel, associate professor of physics, astronomy and astrophysics who worked on the ANITA team searching for signals from elusive particles called neutrinos.

She explained that by their calculations, the anomalous signal had to pass through and interact with thousands of kilometers of rock before reaching the detector, which should have left the radio signal undetectable because it would have been absorbed into the rock.

“It’s an interesting problem because we still don’t actually have an explanation for what those anomalies are, but what we do know is that they’re most likely not representing neutrinos,” Wissel said.

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Prominent Flat Earther Admits He Was Wrong

In a surprise conclusion to a project dubbed The Final Experiment, several well-known believers in a non-spherical Earth have had a change of heart

“All right, guys, sometimes, you are wrong in life,” announced Jeran Campanella, a prominent flat-Earth theorist who joined an all-expenses-paid expedition to Antarctica to see the Sun circle the sky for an entire day.

“And I thought that there was no 24-hour Sun, in fact I was pretty sure of it.”

For the past three years a pastor from Denver, Colorado, named Will Duffy has worked to bring together a selection of ‘globist’ and ‘flat-earther’ YouTube content creators to “settle the shape of the Earth” in a single act of observation.

Traveling to Union Glacier Camp – a full-service private facility just 1,138 kilometers (707 miles) from the South Pole – the two ‘teams’ gathered to see with their own eyes whether reports of a non-setting Sun were fabrications of some greater conspiracy, or truthful observations of planetary physics at work.

Throughout history, various cultures have held mixed views on what lies over the horizon, and how the land beneath our feet connects with what we see over our heads.

In a modern sense, flat-Earth beliefs emerged in the 19th century as a counter to scientific fact, often buoyed by religious convictions or aligning with political values in a shared distrust of an academic authority.

Today, social media has given voice and community to a legion of people who doubt what most of us take for granted as a well-supported fact.

“It’s really about the power of knowledge, and that increasing distrust in what we once considered to be the gatekeepers of knowledge – like academics, scientific agencies, or the government,” University of Melbourne communications expert Jennifer Beckett told Anders Furze in a 2019 article on the topic.

Though there’s no agreement on what this non-curving world looks like from afar, most descriptions need to account for what can be experienced as individuals.

Phenomena such as the changing position of the Sun, or differences in the heights of objects as we travel towards a horizon, still need to make sense if Earth is a huge pancake rimmed in Antarctic frosting.

Scientific explanations of the Sun’s seasonal shifts are relatively straight-forward. Perched on opposing ends of a tilted globe, each pole experiences alternating periods of uninterrupted sunlight or endless night as Earth completes laps of the Solar System.

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Antarctica Sea Ice Has “Slowly Increased” Since 1979, Science Paper Finds

Sea ice around Antarctica has “slowly increased” since the start of continuous satellite recordings in 1979 with any changes caused by natural climate variation. In a paper published earlier this year, four environmental scientists further state that any sign that humans are responsible for any change is “inconclusive”. Not of course for mainstream media that have been crying wolf about the sea ice in Antarctica for decades to promote the Net Zero fantasy. Last year there was a reduced level of winter sea ice and this caused the Financial Times Science Editor Clive Cookson to exclaim that the entire area “faces a catastrophic cascade of extreme environmental events… that will affect climate around the world”.

Over the satellite record, the scientists note there was a “prolonged and gradual” expansion of sea ice to around 2014 followed by a short period of sudden decline from 2014-19. Growth was then resumed, although there was a temporary downturn around 2022. These variations, which can also be observed before 1979, were caused by a number of natural atmospheric and oceanic factors. All of this is known of course, with the EU weather service Copernicus admitting recently that sea ice extent as a whole “shows large year-to-year variability and no clear long-term trend since 1979”. At the other end of the Earth, Copernicus correctly states that the cyclical decline in Arctic sea ice “has levelled off since 2007”.

It must all be very bewildering for narrative-following journalists. Confusion no doubt reigned supreme in their unquestioning ranks when they chanced upon the comments last year of Dr. Walter Meier of the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre. He was in full activist mode when he claimed the 2023 winter sea ice dip was “so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind blowing”. But not perhaps as confused as Dr. Meier himself who 10 years earlier was part of a scientific team that cracked open the secrets of early Nimbus photographic data. These revealed significant Antarctica sea ice variability in the 1960s, including a high in 1964, not seen again until 2014, and a low in 1966, similar to the recent dip. At the time, Dr. Meier commented that extreme ice highs and lows “are not that unusual”.

During the Great 2023 Antarctica Ice Scare, the BBC said that it showed a worrying new benchmark for the region “that once seemed resistant to global warming”. Still does, those striving for accuracy might note. Antarctica has hardly warmed in the last 70 years.

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Scientists Are Searching the South Pole to See if Quantum Gravity Actually Exists

Within physics, there are two enormous foundational systems—quantum mechanics and general relativity—that have been like Macs and PCs for decades. Over time, scientists on both sides have worked toward the other side, because anyone who wants to explain the entire universe has to make the two foundations work together. And, like any decent computer lab, a unifying theory has to be truly cross-platform.

In new research, researchers from the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute (NBI)—alongside 58 other member universities— revealed the secrets of 300,000 neutrinos they studied at the South Pole. Their paper (published in Nature Physics) is one step down a road that they hope will lead to quantum gravity. This hypothesized force, if it’s ever demonstrated in real life measurements, could be the physics dongle that adapts general relativity to quantum mechanics at last.

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Iran claims ownership over Antarctica and plans military base there

Iranian navy Rear Adm. Shahram Irani declared that his country has “property rights” in Antarctica, particularly the South Pole, in a newly surfaced video.

“With regard to the South Pole, we have property rights there, and they belong to the public,” Irani said in the video of a television broadcast from last fall.

He added, “Our plan is to raise the flag there, inshallah. It is not only military work but also scientific work that needs to be carried out.”

Irani said that the move would benefit Iran’s scientific community.

“Our scientists are getting ready for a joint operation, encompassing the efforts of all our people, in keeping with the guidelines of our leader, inshallah,” he said.

The Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute translated the interview on Iran’s Channel 1 television channel in late September 2023.

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NASA TO LAUNCH STADIUM-SIZED CRAFT OVER ANTARCTICA IN NEW MISSION TO EXPLORE COSMIC PHENOMENA

A long-duration aerial mission soon to be carried out by NASA over Antarctica will launch stadium-sized craft in support of a series of record-breaking science missions, the agency announced this week.

The Antarctic Long Duration Balloon (LDB) Campaign, which includes a trio of scientific balloon flights equipped to study a range of different phenomena, will launch at the beginning of December, according to a press release NASA issued on Monday.

The mission will employ a series of massive zero-pressure balloons, which the American space agency says will support five missions in total.

Equipped with open ducts through which gas can escape, thereby eliminating the buildup of pressure within, zero-pressure balloons expand as they accumulate heat from the rising Sun as they are being carried aloft. Conversely, as the Sun sets, heat is lost, which results in a loss of gas, which causes zero-pressure balloons to have a shorter flight duration than other inflatable systems.

However, long-duration missions can be achieved during the polar summer, a period during which the balloons remain in constant sunlight for extended periods.

One of the missions aims to break a previous long-duration balloon flight record of just over 55 days. The balloons will launch from NASA’s facility for balloon launches located close to McMurdo Station, the largest community on Earth’s southernmost continent located on the southern edge of Ross Island, Antarctica.

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Polynesians discovered Antarctica over 1,300 years ago

A review of literary and oral history suggests Polynesians, and not Europeans, were the first to explore Antarctic waters and possibly even spot the frozen continent itself.

European explorers are typically credited for discovering Antarctica 200 years ago, but new research reminds us of a neglected account in which Polynesians are described as sailing through Antarctic waters in the 7th century CE.

This may be news to many people, but it’s “a known narrative,” as Priscilla Wehi, the lead researcher on the new study and a conservation biologist at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research. That Polynesians may have visited Antarctic waters so long ago will hardly be a revelation to the Indigenous Māori of New Zealand, as their legends make note of this account.

Indeed, connections between Indigenous peoples and Antarctica “remain poorly documented and acknowledged in the research literature,” as the scientists write in their study, adding that the new “paper begins to fill this gap.”

To that end, the team, which included researchers from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu (a group representing the Māori people of the southern islands of New Zealand), analyzed literary accounts, oral history, and also representations made on carvings and weavings, to “construct a richer and more inclusive picture of Antarctica’s relationship with humanity,” as Wehi explained in an press release. In so doing, the team sought to build a “platform on which much wider conversations about New Zealand relationships with Antarctica can be furthered,” she added.

A Russian expedition from 1820 is conventionally credited for being the first to spot Antarctica, but Indigenous narratives describe another story, in which Polynesian chief Hui Te Rangiora and his crew, sailing on the vessel Te Ivi o Atea, journeyed through Antarctic waters some 1,320 years ago. The ship is described as venturing a long way south, and by doing so, its crew were “likely the first humans to set eyes on Antarctic waters and perhaps the continent,” according to the paper.

Indigenous legends make note of a “frozen sea” and a “dark place not seen by the Sun.” Hui Te Rangiora called this part of the southern ocean Tai-uka-a-pia, which means “sea foaming like arrowroot,” in which he was likely comparing powdered white arrowroot to icebergs. Incredibly, Te Ivi o Atea may have ventured as far south as the Ross Ice Shelf.

Māori carvings and weavings likewise make note of this history and the cultural connection to Antarctica, including inscriptions of navigational and astronomical knowledge. One carved post represents Tamarereti, a legendary Māori warrior, as being the “protector of the southern oceans” as he “stands on the southernmost tip of the South Island of New Zealand at Bluff,” as Wehi explained in the release. To which she added: “Ngāi Tahu, the largest tribal group in the South Island, and other tribal groups or iwi also cherish other oral repositories of knowledge in relation to these early explorers and voyagers.”

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Antarctica Sensation: Ice Shelves Surrounding the Continent Grew in Overall Size From 2009-2019

The ice shelves surrounding Antarctica grew in overall size during the 11 years to 2019, according to dramatic new evidence published by three climate scientists from the University of Leeds. The growth was significant with overall shelf area increasing by 5,305 km2, adding 0.4% to the total shelf area in the 11 years under review. The paper has just been published by the influential European Geosciences Union, but it raises questions within the ‘settled’ climate science narrative, so it is highly unlikely to be covered by mainstream media

The Leeds researchers looked at satellite data to measure the annual calving position and area of 34 ice sheets accounting for 80% of the Antarctica coastline. They found reductions in the area on the Antarctica Peninsula and West Antarctica of 6,693 km2 and 5,563 km2 respectively were outweighed by growth in East Antarctica of 3,532 km2 and 14,028 km2 in the large Ross and Ronne-Filchner ice shelves. The largest retreat occurred on the Larsen C shelf when 5,917 km2 was lost in a single calving event that made alarmist headlines around the world. The largest increase, noted in slightly less media detail, was the 5,889 km2 advance on the Ronne platform.

Ice shelves around the coast of Antarctica play an important role in the cycle of ice production since they often buttress the glaciers behind them. Remove the plug and glaciers can move at a faster rate towards the coast. The shelves show considerable natural variation allowing alarmists to cherry-pick significant collapses into the sea to promote a hypothesis that the overall climate is breaking down. Typical of this coverage was an article by BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos in 2021 under a ‘climate change’ heading, noting, “The Antarctic ice shelf in the line of fire.” In 2017, i News reported comments broadcast by Sir David Attenborough said to warn that “Antarctica’s melting ice sheets could flood London by end of century”.

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South Pole Temps Refuse to Cooperate With Global-warming Hysteria

Since daily record-keeping began at the South Pole in 1957, three recent November days broke record minimum temperatures in the land of snow and ice. November 16 dropped to -46.0 °C with the previous low temperature for that date -45.7 °C in 1987; November 17 tied its record cold mark for that date with -45.1 °C, the same as in 1999; and November 18 reached -45.2 °C, breaking the previous record of -44.7 °C in 1985.

The record cold temps come on the heels of a record cold winter in 2021, during which a research station on a high plateau in Antarctica recorded an average temperature of -78° degrees Fahrenheit (-61° C) over a six-month period between April and September of 2021.

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Fact Check-Photos allegedly from Admiral Byrd’s Antarctic expedition were generated by artificial intelligence

Social media users are sharing images which they claim show top secret photographs from Admiral Byrd’s Antarctic expedition where traces of a lost ancient civilization can be seen. However, the images were created by artificial intelligence and do not show historic photographs of the expedition.

An example can be seen (here).

The text in one post reads: “This is why no one is allowed to visit Antarctica and why every government in the world signed a treaty together to conspire and hide the truth from the mass population. Below you see Top Secret Lost Photos from Admiral Byrd’s Antarctic Expedition. Traces of a lost ancient advance civilization could be seen in the photographs.”

Comments on the post include: “Most interesting photos I’ve seen for a while….” and “There’s most certainly other reasons, would be nice knowing the entire truth of their discoveries.”

Some users point out that the faces of the individuals seen in the images are not visible and others point out that the images must have been created by artificial intelligence.

Admiral Richard E. Byrd was a U.S. naval officer, aviator and explorer who went on several Antarctic expeditions between 1928 and 1956 (here). Details about each expedition can be seen (www.admiralbyrd.com/).

There is no evidence that Byrd discovered a secret civilization in his expeditions as claimed in the posts. However, the expeditions have fueled conspiracy theories. One example is the “Hollow Earth” theory, which believes that the center of the Earth houses a secret civilization as discussed (here), (here).

Videos of Byrd’s Antarctic expeditions can be seen (here), (here), (here), (here) by Reuters and British Pathe. Photographs can be seen on Getty Images (here).

The images seen in the posts appear in a Medium article (here).

The article says: “Thanks to a source who wishes to remain nameless, we had the opportunity to view a large and compelling image collection of never before seen and highly top secret photos from Byrd’s many missions. They seem to depict concrete proof of an entire forgotten civilization — its architectures, artifacts, technologies, and much more — that once called Antarctica their home.”

A note at the end of the article reads: “Certain elements of these images may have been enhanced or generated by AI for quality purposes.”

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