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Category: Antarctica

  • MIL-OSI USA: Sophia Roberts: Showcasing the Cosmos

    Source: NASA

    Astrophysics Science Video Producer – Goddard Space Flight Center
    Growing up in Detroit with a camera in her hand, Sophia Roberts — now an award-winning astrophysics science video producer—never imagined that one day her path would wind through clean rooms, vacuum chambers, and even a beryllium mine. But framing the final frontier sometimes requires traveling through some of Earth’s less-explored corners.

    Sophia received her first camera from her father, a photography enthusiast, when she was just five or six years old. “I’ve basically been snapping away ever since!” she says. 
    With a natural curiosity and enthusiasm for science, Sophia pursued a degree in biology at Oberlin College in Ohio. There, she discovered that she could blend her two passions.
    “I often lingered in lab sessions, not to finish an experiment but to photograph it,” Sophia says. “I had an epiphany at the beginning of class one day, which always opened with clips from BBC nature documentaries. I decided right then that I would be one of the people who make those videos one day.”

    She initially thought that meant wildlife filmmaking—perched in a blind on a mountainside, waiting hours for an animal to appear. That dream led her to Montana State University, where she learned to blend scientific rigor with visual storytelling through their science and natural history filmmaking master’s program.
    While completing her degree, Sophia worked as a traveling presenter for the Montana Space Grant Consortium. “I was mainly giving presentations about NASA missions and showing kids beautiful images of space,” she says. “That was my first true introduction to NASA. I loved being able to watch the children’s eyes light up when they saw what’s out there in space.”
    Sophia then completed an internship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History while completing her thesis. Once she graduated, she landed a year-long fellowship at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, as an Earth science news fellow. In this role, she focused on packaging up stories through satellite imagery and explanations. 

    She leaned into her videography skills in her next role, as part of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team. 
    “Webb is one of my great loves in life,” she says. “I learned to negotiate with engineers for the perfect shot, navigate NASA’s protocols, and work with mission partners. I only spent five years on Webb, but it feels like it was half my life. Still—it was everything.”
    That mission took her to some unforgettable places, like a mine in Delta, Utah, where raw material for Webb’s mirrors was unearthed. “It was this giant, spiral pit where they were mining beryllium at just 0.02% concentration,” Sophia says. The process was as otherworldly as the location.

    She also documented thermal vacuum testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in a giant pill-shaped chamber with a 40-foot round door. “I had to take confined space training to crawl around in the area underneath the chamber,” she says. “It felt like spelunking.”
    Once Webb launched, Sophia pivoted to covering many of NASA’s smaller astrophysics missions along with the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. These days, she can often be found gowned up in a “bunny suit” in the largest clean room at Goddard to document space telescope assembly, or in a studio recording science explanations. 

    “I love capturing the visual stories and helping fill in the gaps to help people understand NASA research,” Sophia says. “I try to focus on the things that will get people excited about the science so they’ll stop scrolling to find out more.”
    For Sophia, the process is often as exhilarating as the result. “I love venturing out to remote places where science is being done,” she says. “I’d love to film a balloon launch in Antarctica someday!”

    To others who dream of pursuing a similar career, Sophia recommends diving in headfirst. “With cameras readily available and free online platforms, it’s never been easier to get into the media,” she says. “You just have to be careful to research your topic and sources, making sure you really know what you’re sharing and understand that science is always evolving as we learn more.” And Sophia emphasizes how important storytelling is for conveying information, especially when it’s as complex as astrophysics. “Studying science is wonderful, but I also think helping people visualize it is magical.” 
    By Ashley BalzerNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Sophia Roberts: Showcasing the Cosmos

    Source: NASA

    Astrophysics Science Video Producer – Goddard Space Flight Center
    Growing up in Detroit with a camera in her hand, Sophia Roberts — now an award-winning astrophysics science video producer—never imagined that one day her path would wind through clean rooms, vacuum chambers, and even a beryllium mine. But framing the final frontier sometimes requires traveling through some of Earth’s less-explored corners.

    Sophia received her first camera from her father, a photography enthusiast, when she was just five or six years old. “I’ve basically been snapping away ever since!” she says. 
    With a natural curiosity and enthusiasm for science, Sophia pursued a degree in biology at Oberlin College in Ohio. There, she discovered that she could blend her two passions.
    “I often lingered in lab sessions, not to finish an experiment but to photograph it,” Sophia says. “I had an epiphany at the beginning of class one day, which always opened with clips from BBC nature documentaries. I decided right then that I would be one of the people who make those videos one day.”

    She initially thought that meant wildlife filmmaking—perched in a blind on a mountainside, waiting hours for an animal to appear. That dream led her to Montana State University, where she learned to blend scientific rigor with visual storytelling through their science and natural history filmmaking master’s program.
    While completing her degree, Sophia worked as a traveling presenter for the Montana Space Grant Consortium. “I was mainly giving presentations about NASA missions and showing kids beautiful images of space,” she says. “That was my first true introduction to NASA. I loved being able to watch the children’s eyes light up when they saw what’s out there in space.”
    Sophia then completed an internship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History while completing her thesis. Once she graduated, she landed a year-long fellowship at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, as an Earth science news fellow. In this role, she focused on packaging up stories through satellite imagery and explanations. 

    She leaned into her videography skills in her next role, as part of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team. 
    “Webb is one of my great loves in life,” she says. “I learned to negotiate with engineers for the perfect shot, navigate NASA’s protocols, and work with mission partners. I only spent five years on Webb, but it feels like it was half my life. Still—it was everything.”
    That mission took her to some unforgettable places, like a mine in Delta, Utah, where raw material for Webb’s mirrors was unearthed. “It was this giant, spiral pit where they were mining beryllium at just 0.02% concentration,” Sophia says. The process was as otherworldly as the location.

    She also documented thermal vacuum testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in a giant pill-shaped chamber with a 40-foot round door. “I had to take confined space training to crawl around in the area underneath the chamber,” she says. “It felt like spelunking.”
    Once Webb launched, Sophia pivoted to covering many of NASA’s smaller astrophysics missions along with the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. These days, she can often be found gowned up in a “bunny suit” in the largest clean room at Goddard to document space telescope assembly, or in a studio recording science explanations. 

    “I love capturing the visual stories and helping fill in the gaps to help people understand NASA research,” Sophia says. “I try to focus on the things that will get people excited about the science so they’ll stop scrolling to find out more.”
    For Sophia, the process is often as exhilarating as the result. “I love venturing out to remote places where science is being done,” she says. “I’d love to film a balloon launch in Antarctica someday!”

    To others who dream of pursuing a similar career, Sophia recommends diving in headfirst. “With cameras readily available and free online platforms, it’s never been easier to get into the media,” she says. “You just have to be careful to research your topic and sources, making sure you really know what you’re sharing and understand that science is always evolving as we learn more.” And Sophia emphasizes how important storytelling is for conveying information, especially when it’s as complex as astrophysics. “Studying science is wonderful, but I also think helping people visualize it is magical.” 
    By Ashley BalzerNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: The final stage of selection of schoolchildren and students for the Great Arctic Expedition has begun

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    The final stage of selection for the Great Arctic Expedition has begun. More than 40 finalists have gone to a five-day training camp in Karelia, where they will stay until July 4. Based on their results, the participants who will be part of the expedition to the Far North will be determined. This was reported by the press service of the capital’s Department of Education and Science.

    “Every year, thousands of Moscow schoolchildren and students apply to participate in the Great Arctic Expedition. This year, it is dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The journey will begin in late July – early August and will last about two weeks. 14 schoolchildren and college students will travel to the northernmost point of Eurasia – Cape Chelyuskin. The children will be divided into two groups: volunteer builders will be engaged in landscaping the territory of the memorial complex of pilots and winterers, and researchers will study the flora of the Laptev Sea coast. After the expedition, the participants will present their achievements at a large-scale scientific conference,” the department’s press service reported.

    In Karelia, six teams of seven people will work under the guidance of professional tourism instructors. Over the course of five days, young travelers will cover a route of about 60 kilometers. They will have to cook in field conditions, work with tourist equipment, set up tents and conduct scientific research. For example, participants will take photos of plants, mosses, birds and describe the terrain. Experts will evaluate the endurance, responsibility and ability to work in a team of each participant, and then name those who will join the expedition.

    To get to the final, candidates had to pass several tests. The first stage of the selection was the Arctic Dictation, where over five thousand contestants tested their knowledge of the geography, history, ecology and economic importance of the Far North. In the second stage, the participants were treated to the adventure game “Heroes of the Arctic”. More than 500 children completed tasks on six interactive platforms. Personal and team results were counted.

    “I am applying for the position of a volunteer builder in the expedition. All stages of the selection were very interesting. I especially liked the adventure game. I was very pleased that my friends agreed to help me and we did a great job with the tasks. I have high expectations from the final stage of the selection. I hope that this year I will be able to fit into the team. I have been a member of the “Travel Lab” for a year now. Here I was taught to be friends and work in a team, so I hope that the trip will be great,” said Sofia Taranenko, a student at the Ivan Fedorov Moscow Publishing and Printing College.

    The next stage was a professional skills competition, which was held in Sokolniki Park and the Moscow Educational Complex Zapad. Thus, in the volunteer builders’ competition, participants had to demonstrate their skills in painting metal, installing formwork and pouring concrete. In the chefs’ competition, candidates had to prepare certain dishes from the products given to them. The final was the research competition, in which candidates for the team of participants of the Great Arctic Expedition defended their scientific projects before the commission.

    The capital’s Department of Education and Science first organized the Great Arctic Expedition in 2018. In 2024, a group of schoolchildren went to Cape Lasinius, and a group of college students went to Cape Chelyuskin. The children skied in the footsteps of the expeditions of the early 20th-century Arctic explorer Eduard Toll and Soviet scientist Ivan Papanin, and also built a mobile station town on Cape Chelyuskin.

    Umka, melted snow and an ecological station: how the Great Arctic Expedition 2024 went

    The Arctic is not the only place on the globe that Moscow schoolchildren have visited. In the 2024/2025 academic year, 13 young city residents went to the Arctic for the first time.Moscow Youth Antarctic ExpeditionSchoolchildren conducted research on behalf of Russian research institutes, while college students monitored the health of the participants, were responsible for communications, prepared food, and looked after the mobile living module.

    About 80 thousand schoolchildren and college students are involved in tourism in the capital – every 20th student. They are united by the city project “The Route is Built”. Over the past year, the children have gone on almost 300 hikes around Russia and other countries. Among the destinations are Kazbek, Tien Shan, North Ossetia, Altai and Kamchatka.

    You can find out more about additional education in the capital in Telegram channels “Moscow education” And“Moscow Center for Educational Practices”.

    Supplementary education programs develop creative and critical thinking in schoolchildren and develop skills that will be useful to them in their future profession. Events held within the framework of supplementary education contribute to the project “All the best for children” of the national project “Youth and Children”.

    Get the latest news quicklyofficial telegram channel the city of Moscow.

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    Please Note; This Information is Raw Content Directly from the Information Source. It is access to What the Source Is Stating and Does Not Reflect

    https: //vv.mos.ru/nevs/ite/155897073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Earth is trapping much more heat than climate models forecast – and the rate has doubled in 20 years

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

    NASA, CC BY-NC-ND

    How do you measure climate change? One way is by recording temperatures in different places over a long period of time. While this works well, natural variation can make it harder to see longer-term trends.

    But another approach can give us a very clear sense of what’s going on: track how much heat enters Earth’s atmosphere and how much heat leaves. This is Earth’s energy budget, and it’s now well and truly out of balance.

    Our recent research found this imbalance has more than doubled over the last 20 years. Other researchers have come to the same conclusions. This imbalance is now substantially more than climate models have suggested.

    In the mid-2000s, the energy imbalance was about 0.6 watts per square metre (W/m2) on average. In recent years, the average was about 1.3 W/m2. This means the rate at which energy is accumulating near the planet’s surface has doubled.

    These findings suggest climate change might well accelerate in the coming years. Worse still, this worrying imbalance is emerging even as funding uncertainty in the United States threatens our ability to track the flows of heat.

    Energy in, energy out

    Earth’s energy budget functions a bit like your bank account, where money comes in and money goes out. If you reduce your spending, you’ll build up cash in your account. Here, energy is the currency.

    Life on Earth depends on a balance between heat coming in from the Sun and heat leaving. This balance is tipping to one side.

    Solar energy hits Earth and warms it. The atmosphere’s heat-trapping greenhouse gases keep some of this energy.

    But the burning of coal, oil and gas has now added more than two trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. These trap more and more heat, preventing it from leaving.

    Some of this extra heat is warming the land or melting sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets. But this is a tiny fraction. Fully 90% has gone into the oceans due to their huge heat capacity.

    Earth naturally sheds heat in several ways. One way is by reflecting incoming heat off of clouds, snow and ice and back out to space. Infrared radiation is also emitted back to space.

    From the beginning of human civilisation up until just a century ago, the average surface temperature was about 14°C. The accumulating energy imbalance has now pushed average temperatures 1.3-1.5°C higher.

    Ice and reflective clouds reflect heat back to space. As the Earth heats up, most trapped heat goes into the oceans but some melts ice and heats the land and air. Pictured: Icebergs from the Jacobshavn glacier in Greenland, the largest outside Antarctica.
    Ashley Cooper/Getty

    Tracking faster than the models

    Scientists keep track of the energy budget in two ways.

    First, we can directly measure the heat coming from the Sun and going back out to space, using the sensitive radiometers on monitoring satellites. This dataset and its predecessors date back to the late 1980s.

    Second, we can accurately track the build-up of heat in the oceans and atmosphere by taking temperature readings. Thousands of robotic floats have monitored temperatures in the world’s oceans since the 1990s.

    Both methods show the energy imbalance has grown rapidly.

    The doubling of the energy imbalance has come as a shock, because the sophisticated climate models we use largely didn’t predict such a large and rapid change.

    Typically, the models forecast less than half of the change we’re seeing in the real world.

    Why has it changed so fast?

    We don’t yet have a full explanation. But new research suggests changes in clouds is a big factor.

    Clouds have a cooling effect overall. But the area covered by highly reflective white clouds has shrunk, while the area of jumbled, less reflective clouds has grown.

    It isn’t clear why the clouds are changing. One possible factor could be the consequences of successful efforts to reduce sulfur in shipping fuel from 2020, as burning the dirtier fuel may have had a brightening effect on clouds. However, the accelerating energy budget imbalance began before this change.

    Natural fluctuations in the climate system such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation might also be playing a role. Finally – and most worryingly – the cloud changes might be part of a trend caused by global warming itself, that is, a positive feedback on climate change.

    Dense blankets of white clouds reflect the most heat. But the area covered by these clouds is shrinking.
    Adhivaswut/Shutterstock

    What does this mean?

    These findings suggest recent extremely hot years are not one-offs but may reflect a strengthening of warming over the coming decade or longer.

    This will mean a higher chance of more intense climate impacts from searing heatwaves, droughts and extreme rains on land, and more intense and long lasting marine heatwaves.

    This imbalance may lead to worse longer-term consequences. New research shows the only climate models coming close to simulating real world measurements are those with a higher “climate sensitivity”. That means these models predict more severe warming beyond the next few decades in scenarios where emissions are not rapidly reduced.

    We don’t know yet whether other factors are at play, however. It’s still too early to definitively say we are on a high-sensitivity trajectory.

    Our eyes in the sky

    We’ve known the solution for a long time: stop the routine burning of fossil fuels and phase out human activities causing emissions such as deforestation.

    Keeping accurate records over long periods of time is essential if we are to spot unexpected changes.

    Satellites, in particular, are our advance warning system, telling us about heat storage changes roughly a decade before other methods.

    But funding cuts and drastic priority shifts in the United States may threaten essential satellite climate monitoring.

    Steven Sherwood receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Mindaroo Foundation.

    Benoit Meyssignac receives funding from the European Commission, the European Space Agency and the French National Space Agency.

    Thorsten Mauritsen receives funding from the European Research Council, the European Space Agency, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish National Space Agency and the Bolin Centre for Climate Research.

    – ref. Earth is trapping much more heat than climate models forecast – and the rate has doubled in 20 years – https://theconversation.com/earth-is-trapping-much-more-heat-than-climate-models-forecast-and-the-rate-has-doubled-in-20-years-258822

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Kākāpō breeding season raises stakes for Predator Free Rakiura

    Source: NZ Department of Conservation

    With a bumper breeding season forecast for kākāpō in 2026, we explain why eradicating introduced predators from Rakiura/Stewart Island is critical, so this iconic parrot has space to grow along with other threatened species.

    Kākāpō used to thrive here on Rakiura. We want to make it safe for them to return. Photo by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.

    Predator Free Rakiura (PFR) is preparing for its first large-scale attempt to eradicate introduced predators in a trial at the southern tip of the island next year.

    The project has been in development for nearly 30 years, and the aim is to remove rats, possums, feral cats and hedgehogs from the island and prevent them from reinvading.

    The stakes just got higher with the announcement that next year could be the biggest kākāpō breeding season on record. These rare parrots desperately need more space to breed and grow, and Rakiura contains the ideal habitat for them, however, predators need to be eradicated first to ensure their safety.

    Huge ambition behind PFR partnership

    PFR is being led by the Department of Conservation (DOC) in partnership with Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP), with input from the Rakiura community.

    ZIP is planning and delivering the project, building off its successful predator elimination project in South Westland. Priorities this year include ongoing engagement with the Rakiura and Bluff communities and research on the effectiveness of tools and techniques that will be used in the eradication trial.

    Solstice was the last kākāpō to be found on Rakiura in 1997. She currently lives on Whenua Hou. Photo by DOC.

    Te Puka Rakiura Trust is developing a biosecurity system to prevent predators from returning to Rakiura after they are eradicated.

    It’s the largest, most complex predator eradication ever attempted, and there are important conservation, social and economic outcomes at stake:

    • Protecting vulnerable native species on the island, returning threatened wildlife and improving forest health.
    • Developing tools and techniques to eradicate predators on the mainland.
    • On-the-ground results to help generate further funding and public support to make New Zealand Predator Free by 2050.  
    • Social and economic benefits for Rakiura and Southland communities and industries.

    Imagining a predator-free future

    The forecast for a bumper kākāpō breeding season next year is a huge deal because there are less than 250 kākāpō remaining and they only breed every few years when rimu trees have mass fruiting.

    See this blog for more information about the breeding season ahead.

    Tāne Davis, Ngāi Tahu, with tīeke.

    The problem is there’s not enough habitat to safely home these chicks in the long run, with predator free islands including nearby Whenua Hou/Codfish Island close to maximum capacity.

    Tāne Davis, who is a Ngāi Tahu representative on the Kākāpō Recovery Group and a long-time advocate for PFR, says kākāpō need to return home.

    “Rakiura is the original hou kainga for these birds, as many of them or their parents came from here. The pressure is on for us to make it possible for them to return.”

    Imagine a future where Rakiura is free of predators and kākāpō become so abundant again that children can hear their booming calls on bush walks. 

    “The lifeforce of kākāpō and our people will be enhanced through this connection,” Tāne says.

    Rakiura can save kākāpō again

    In 1977, a small population of kākāpō were discovered on Southern Rakiura. Before this, people thought that kākāpō would become extinct because female kākāpō had not been found for decades. It was quickly discovered that kākāpō were not safe on Rakiura due to predation by feral cats.

    Over the next few decades, kākāpō were transferred to predator-free islands, and with a founding population of 50 birds, the Kākāpō Recovery Programme was established. The Operations Manager for the programme, Deidre Vercoe, says Rakiura can save kākāpō again.

    “With the population growing, our biggest challenge is finding safe habitat for kākāpō to thrive in. By creating new predator free sites, we can continue to restore this taonga. Rakiura saved the kākāpō in the past, and a predator-free Rakiura is key for the future of the species.”

    Deidre Vercoe, DOC Operations Manager, Kākāpō Recovery Programme, with Sinbad.

    Extinction prevention part of our DNA

    In 1997, Rakiura DOC Ranger Phred Dobbins helped find the last kākāpō, named Solstice. Phred has spent much of his 40-year conservation career removing predators from smaller offshore islands, including about 3,000 possums from Whenua Hou with traps.

    We can’t afford not to try and make Rakiura predator free, Phred says.

    “The longer predators are here, the poorer the environment and we are becoming. We have the ability, motivation, and duty to make change, and we need to take calculated risks.”

    Rakiura DOC Ranger, Phred Dobbins in Oban. Photo by DOC.

    This vision of a healthier, more harmonious ecosystem holds huge potential for many other native species, including those that still exist on the island like pukunui/southern New Zealand dotterel and other endangered species that could return like mohua/yellowhead and tīeke/South Island saddleback.

    Find out more about the species that belong on Rakiura

    Recent flock counts show pukunui is one of the most critically endangered native birds in New Zealand. There are only 105 left largely because of predation by feral cats, down from 173 in 2020.

    Pukunui were once widespread in the lower part of Te Waipounamu, but now only breed on Rakiura mountain tops. We’re aiming to increase the population to at least 300 birds by 2035 by increasing predator control. However, if we can get rid of predators permanently, the population could expand well beyond this target.

    “Extinction prevention is part of our DNA here at DOC. Imagine if we still had huia and moa and then let them disappear,” Phred says.

    The anchor stone for Predator Free 2050

    Predator Free Rakiura is the anchor-stone for Predator Free 2050. Photo by Greg Lind.

    The vision for PFR expands further when we consider how critical this project is for New Zealand’s Predator Free 2050 goal.

    Rakiura is the missing link in the chain of islands south of Bluff that have already been made predator-free including Codfish Island/Whenua Hou, Ulva Island/Te Wharawhara, Bench Island/Waitaua and most of the Tītī/Muttonbird Islands and the Sub-Antarctic Islands.

    In Māori tradition, Māui fished up Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island), Te Waipounamu (the South Island) was his waka, and Rakiura was the anchor stone.

    Metaphorically, Predator Free Rakiura is the anchor stone project for Predator Free 2050, says Brent Beaven, Predator Free 2050 Manager.

    “Rakiura will help to expand our foundation of knowledge so other eradication projects can be implemented across the country. For example, we are learning more about how to work across large, complex environments that are inhabited and utilised by people and a diverse array of native and introduced species.

    “It’s a vital test of our capabilities. It’s the anchor stone project right now in the bid to make New Zealand predator-free.” 

    Find out more

    Learn more about the critical role DOC has in this project alongside Ngāi Tahu, Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP), and Te Puka Rakiura Trust.

    Predator Free Rakiura: Our work

    Learn more about the PFR elimination trial and the research being done this year.

    Community Updates – Predator Free Rakiura

    Donate today to help eradicate predators from Rakiura/Stewart Island.

    Visit New Zealand Nature Fund to donate

    See frequently asked questions about Predator Free Rakiura.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Drone footage captured orcas crafting tools out of kelp – and using them for grooming

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Vanessa Pirotta, Postdoctoral Researcher and Wildlife Scientist, Macquarie University

    Sara Jenkins/500px/Getty

    The more we learn about orcas, the more remarkable they are. These giant dolphins are the ocean’s true apex predator, preying on great white sharks and other lesser predators.

    They’re very intelligent and highly social. Their clans are matrilineal, centred around a older matriarch who teaches her clan her own vocalisations. Not only this, but the species is one of only six known to experience menopause, pointing to the social importance of older females after their reproductive years. Different orca groups have fashion trends, such as one pod who returned to wearing salmon as a hat, decades after it went out of vogue.

    But for all their intelligence, one thing has been less clear. Can orcas actually make tools, as humans, chimps and other primates do? In research out today by United States and British researchers, we have an answer: yes.

    Using drones, researchers watched as resident pods in the Salish Sea broke off the ends of bull kelp stalks and rolled them between their bodies. This, the researchers say, is likely to be a grooming practice – the first tool-assisted grooming seen in marine animals.

    This video shows whales using kelp tools in what appears to be social grooming behaviour. Credit: Center for Whale Research.

    Self kelp: why would orcas make tools?

    Tool use and tool making have been well documented in land-based species. But it’s less common among marine species. This could be partly due to the challenge of observing them.

    This field of research expands what we know these animals are capable of. Not only are orcas spending time making kelp into a grooming tool, but they’re doing it socially – two orcas have to work together to rub the kelp against their bodies.

    To make the tool, the orcas use their teeth to grab a stalk of kelp by its “stipe” – the long, narrow part near the seaweed’s holdfast, where it tethers to the rock. They use their teeth, motion of their body and the drag of the kelp to break off a piece of this narrow stipe.

    Next, they approach a social partner, flip the length of the kelp onto their rostrum (their snout-like projection) and press their head and the kelp against their partner’s flank. The two orcas use their fins and flukes to trap the kelp while rolling it between their bodies. During this contact, the orcas would roll and twist their bodies – often in an exaggerated S-shaped posture. A similar posture has been seen among orcas in other groups, who adopt it when rubbing themselves on sand or pebbles.

    Why do it? The researchers suggest this practise may be social skin-maintenance. Bottlenose dolphin mothers are known to remove dead skin from their calves using flippers, while tool-assisted grooming of a partner has been seen in primates, but infrequently and usually in captivity.

    Orcas across different social groups, ages and genders were seen doing this. But they were more likely to groom close relatives or those of similar age. There was some evidence suggesting whales with skin conditions were more likely to do the kelp-based grooming.

    Humpback whales are known to wear kelp in a practice known as “kelping”. But this study covers a different behaviour, which the authors dub “allokelping” (kelping others).

    A surprise from well-studied pods

    Interestingly, this new discovery comes from some of the most well-studied and famous orcas in the world – a group known as the southern resident killer whales. If you were a child of the 90s, you would have seen them in the opening scene of Free Willy, the movie which set me on my path to study cetaceans.

    These orcas consist of three pods known as J, K and L pods. Each live in the Salish Sea in the Pacific Northwest on the border of Canada and the US.

    Researchers fly drones over these resident pods most days and have access to almost 50 years of observations. But this is the first time the tool-making behaviour has been seen.

    Unfortunately, these pods are critically endangered. They’re threatened by sound pollution from shipping, polluted water, vessel strike and loss of their main food source – Chinook salmon.

    A pod of killer whales off Vancouver, Canada.
    Vanessa Pirotta, CC BY-NC-ND

    Orcas are smart

    In one sense, the findings are not a surprise, given the intelligence of these animals.

    In the Antarctic, orcas catch seals by making waves to wash them off ice floes. Before European colonisation, orcas and First Nations groups near Eden hunted whales together.

    They can mimic human speech, while different groups have their own dialects. These animals are awe-inspiring – and sometimes baffling, as when a pod began biting or attacking boats off the Iberian peninsula.

    While orcas are often called “killer whales”, they’re not whales. They’re the biggest species of dolphin, growing up to nine metres long. They’re found across all the world’s oceans.

    Within the species, there’s a surprising amount of diversity. Scientists group orcas into different ecotypes – populations adapted to local conditions. Different orca groups can differ substantially, from size to prey to habits. For instance, transient orcas cover huge distances seeking larger prey, while resident orcas stick close to areas with lots of fish.

    Not just a fluke

    Because orcas differ so much, we don’t know whether other pods have discovered or taught these behaviours.

    But what this research does point to is that tool making may be more common among marine mammals than we expected. No hands – no problem.

    Vanessa Pirotta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Drone footage captured orcas crafting tools out of kelp – and using them for grooming – https://theconversation.com/drone-footage-captured-orcas-crafting-tools-out-of-kelp-and-using-them-for-grooming-259372

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA Astronaut Zena Cardman

    Source: NASA

    NASA astronaut Zena Cardman inspects her spacesuit’s wrist mirror in this portrait taken at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on March 22, 2024. Cardman will launch to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission. This will be her first spaceflight.
    Cardman was selected by NASA as a member of the 2017 “Turtles” Astronaut Class. The Virginia native holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology and a Master’s of Science in Marine Sciences from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research focused primarily on geobiology and geochemical cycling in subsurface environments, from caves to deep sea sediments. Cardman’s experience includes multiple Antarctic expeditions. Since completing initial training, Cardman has supported real-time station operations and lunar surface exploration planning.
    This photo was one of the winners of NASA’s 2024 Photos of the Year.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: UN OCEAN CONFERENCE IN NICE (FRANCE) – PARTICIPATION OF PM FIAME NAOMI MATA’AFA

    Source:

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    [PRESS RELEASE] – Since Monday 9th June and until Friday 13th , more than sixty heads of state and government, including many leaders from the Pacific and Latin America, are meeting in Nice, on the French Riviera, for the 3rd United Nation Ocean Conference (UNOC3) aimed at better protecting an overheated, polluted and overfished ocean. This UNOC3 is co-chaired by France and Costa Rica.

    The Samoan delegation is led by Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa. Minister for Natural Resources and Environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Pose Salesa Schuster is accompanying the Prime Minister.

    Independently, the Apia-based Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) has sent an important delegation to Nice.

    This conference will lead to the adoption of the Nice Ocean Action Plan that will consist of a political declaration and a list of voluntary commitments from all stakeholders.

    The priorities of this Conference were set out by the President of the French Republic at the “SOS Ocean” event in Paris on March 31 and include the entry into force of the International Agreement for the Protection of the High Seas and Marine Biodiversity (the so-called “BBNJ” Agreement), the decision to at least 30% of the ocean by 2030 (Global Biodiversity Framework target 30×30), a declaration to fight against plastic pollution and the promotion of sustainable fisheries respectful of ecosystems, for our global food sovereignty.

    Decarbonisation of maritime transport and supporting science and research to better understand the ocean are additional goals of this conference.

    In his opening address, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that” While the Earth is warming, the ocean is boiling” He called for “mobilization”;, explaining that “The first response is therefore multilateralism,”.

    “The climate, like biodiversity, is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of scientifically established facts,” he also insisted. Later on, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also took this view, denouncing “the threat of unilateralism” hanging over the oceans: “We cannot allow what happened to international trade to happen to the sea,” declared President Lula, calling for “clear action” from the International Seabed Authority, while Donald Trump plans to unilaterally authorize the industrial exploitation of minerals at the bottom of the Pacific.

    President Macron also insisted that Greenland, which he is due to visit at the end of the week but is coveted by Donald Trump’s United States, was “not for sale.”

    “The abyss is not for sale, and no more than Greenland is for sale, nor is Antarctica or the high seas for sale,” the French president declared.

    Shortly after, UN Secretary General, who visited Samoa in 2024, declared that the deep seabed must not become a “Far West.” “I hope we can turn this around. That we can replace plunder with protection,” Mr Gutteres added.

    Mr. Macron also assured that the High Seas and Marine Biodiversity (the so-called “BBNJ” Agreement) would be ratified by enough countries to enter into force. “In addition to the fifty ratifications already submitted here in the last few hours, fifteen countries have formally committed to joining them,” Emmanuel Macron declared.

    Samoa is one of them. “This means that the political agreement has been reached, which allows us to say that this High Seas Treaty will be properly implemented. So it’s a done deal,” he added, without specifying a timeline. The treaty, signed in 2023, will enter into force 120 days after the sixtieth ratification. France initially hoped to obtain these sixty ratifications by the Nice conference.

    Finally, several countries could also use the Nice summit to announce the creation of new marine protected areas or the banning of certain fishing practices, such as bottom trawling, in some of them.

    France announced on Saturday, through Emmanuel Macron, a limitation of bottom trawling in its marine protected areas (MPAs) to preserve the seabed, but failed to convince NGOs, who criticized the “lack of ambition” of these announcements.

    Many side events are also taking place during this week during this largest conference ever organized for the protection of the oceans.

    Prime Minister Fiame addressed the audience in her capacity of a leader of an island country that is a victim of climate change, in particular the sea rise. Samoa has taken very strong decision recently in favour of the protection of the environment. And sent a good signal before the UN Conference of Nice, in adopting on 6 June its Marine Spatial Plan, a milestone step to fully protect 30 per cent (%) and ensure sustainable management of 100 per cent (%) of its vast ocean 120,000-square-kilometer ocean territory.

    Doing such, Samoa became one of the first Pacific Island nations to adopt a legally binding plan.

    END.

    Photo credits: SPREP / French Embassy in Samoa).

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    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Sechin points out the scientific groundlessness of climate alarmism

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Rosneft – Rosneft – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    From a scientific point of view, large-scale implementation of renewable energy sources will not have the expected effect on the climate. The refusal of the main initiators of the climate agenda to implement it and the termination of preferential financing of “green” projects is confirmed by the objective findings of a number of scientists. This was stated by the Chief Executive Officer of PJSC “NK” Rosneft “Igor Sechin during the Energy Panel of the XXVIII St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

    Sechin noted that the entire concept of “net zero” is based on the assumption of climate destruction due to the growth of carbon dioxide concentrations. However, recent studies by Western experts have confirmed earlier findings by Nobel laureate John Clauser on the dominant influence of clouds on climate processes. “Even a slight decrease in cloudiness at an altitude of less than 2,000 meters can increase the heating of the Earth’s surface by solar rays by several percent. This effect is several times greater than the impact that doubling the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could have on the climate,” said the head of Rosneft.

    According to the conclusions of American physicists Richard Lindzen and William Happer, achieving “net zero” in the United States by 2050 will allow avoiding a temperature increase of only two hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit, and worldwide – only thirteen hundredths of a degree. The effect looks clearly incommensurate with the volume of required costs, Igor Sechin emphasized.

    He also noted the ambiguity of the thesis about the reduction of ice cover, which is often used by supporters of the “green” transition theory. Recent studies by Chinese scientists have shown that from 2021 to 2023, there was a significant increase in ice mass in Antarctica, 108 gigatons annually.

    The head of Rosneft believes that the development of renewable energy sources should be based on time-tested traditional energy sources, so as not to undermine global energy security. Historically, the energy transition has always been the result of growing inter-fuel competition based on the principle of greatest efficiency. Therefore, today coal remains the largest source of electricity in the world and the second largest source of energy with a share of 25% in the global energy balance.

    “The global demand for this type of fuel last year set a new record of 8.8 billion tons, and international agencies were once again forced to revise their expectations for peak demand for it,” Sechin summed up. Despite the growing concern of the world community about global warming, since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, coal consumption in the world has grown by 75%, and after the conclusion of the Paris Agreement in 2015 – by almost 15%.

    Department of Information and Advertising of PJSC NK Rosneft June 21, 2025

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What ancient ice sheets can tell us about future sea level rise

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ed Gasson, Royal Society University Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter

    When visiting Godrevy beach on the north Cornish coast, most people look out to sea at the lighthouse, surfers and seals rather than the cliffs behind. But these cliffs hold a history of past climate and sea level that is incredibly valuable to scientists like me who are trying to determine how quickly sea level is going to rise in the future.

    Scramble up the slate rocks a few metres and you’ll reach a flat platform cut by waves breaking over 100,000 years ago. On top, there’s a cliff of sand and pebbles, an incredibly clear indicator of where the shoreline used to be, several metres higher than it is today.

    Beaches like this exist all around the Cornish coastline, near Falmouth at Bream Cove and at the furthest western point near Lands End at Porth Nanven.

    Searching for the source of these higher sea levels takes us to the poles. In a climate similar to today, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets retreated, raising global sea level. Although exactly where this ice was lost from remains a mystery that continues to frustrate scientists.

    Godrevy lighthouse, Cornwall, UK.
    Vivi_784/Shutterstock

    Local science, global stories.

    This article is part of a series, Secrets of the Sea, exploring how marine scientists are developing climate solutions.

    In collaboration with the BBC, Anna Turns travels around the West Country coastline to meet ocean experts making exciting discoveries beneath the waves.

    When ice gets trapped on land as giant ice sheets, it causes the sea level to change, but it doesn’t change by the same amount all around the planet. Like the moon, the gravity of the ice sheets pulls the ocean towards them, causing sea levels to rise near to the ice sheets.

    The opposite happens when they melt. As the ice on Greenland retreats today, it’s causing the sea level nearby to fall, rather than rise. Only as far as Scotland, some 1,500 miles from Greenland, does this sea level fall switch to a sea level rise.

    The cliffs at Godrevy reveal historic sea level rise.
    Ed Gasson, CC BY-NC-ND

    This gravity effect leaves behind a distinctive fingerprint in past sea level markers, such as raised beaches and fossil coral reefs. By piecing together data from around the world we can work out the source of past high sea levels.

    The raised beaches such as those in north Cornwall are likely caused by the retreat of ice from Antarctica, rather than the ice from Greenland. But direct evidence for ice loss from Antarctica has proven very hard to come by.

    I’m involved with an international drilling project that aims to solve this mystery. Following two challenging seasons of drilling, our team of scientists and engineers will return to Antarctica in late 2025 and attempt to recover sediments from deep underneath the ice, to analyse for signals of past ice retreat.

    If we’re lucky, we’ll recover records from warm climates millions of years ago. This will help us understand how the west Antarctic ice sheet may change in the future as our climate continues to warm.

    Drilling down

    Next winter, this international team is travelling to Scott Base, a New Zealand research station at the edge of the Ross ice shelf in west Antarctica. From there, the journey continues over 500 miles to the other end of the ice shelf, an extremely remote corner of an already remote continent.

    Everything we need is taken across the ice in a convoy of tracked snow vehicles. A hot water drill is used to make a small hole through the 500m ice shelf, providing access to the sediment below. Up to 200m of valuable sediment core will be retrieved with a custom-designed drilling system.

    The geological data contained in these sediments will help us to improve models and refine our predictions of how sea level will rise in the future. As the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, it is as if we are rapidly moving backwards through geological time.

    Today, there is as much CO₂ in the atmosphere as during a geological epoch known as the mid-Pliocene, more than 3 million years ago. The average estimate for the mid-Pliocene is a concentration of around 400 parts per million (ppm), a value we reached only 12 years ago.

    We’ll exceed the highest concentrations of the Pliocene this year. The next warmest interval is probably the mid-Miocene, 12 million years earlier.

    Back in Cornwall, some communities are already planning for the effects of sea level rise. In Bude, local people have come together to form a “climate jury”, a panel chosen to give local people a voice as to how to best manage and reduce the impacts of a rising sea.

    This approach could be adopted by other communities at risk from sea level rise, alongside other adaptations. Hopefully, the world can avoid a return to the very high sea levels that formed the raised beaches at Godrevy.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Ed Gasson receives funding from The Royal Society and the Natural Environment Research Council.

    – ref. What ancient ice sheets can tell us about future sea level rise – https://theconversation.com/what-ancient-ice-sheets-can-tell-us-about-future-sea-level-rise-251185

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: At Antarctica’s midwinter, a look back at the frozen continent’s long history of dark behavior

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniella McCahey, Assistant Professor of History, Texas Tech University

    Is this visitor to Antarctica going crazy or having a good time? Tim Bieber/Photodisc via Getty Images

    As Midwinter Day approaches in Antarctica – the longest and darkest day of the year – those spending the winter on the frozen continent will follow a tradition dating back more than a century to the earliest days of Antarctic exploration: They will celebrate having made it through the growing darkness and into a time when they know the Sun is on its way back.

    The experience of spending a winter in Antarctica can be harrowing, even when living with modern conveniences such as hot running water and heated buildings. At the beginning of the current winter season, in March 2025, global news outlets reported that workers at the South African research station, SANAE IV, were “rocked” when one worker allegedly threatened and assaulted other members of the station’s nine-person winter crew. Psychologists intervened – remotely – and order was apparently restored.

    The desolate and isolated environment of Antarctica can be hard on its inhabitants. As a historian of Antarctica, the events at SANAE IV represent a continuation of perceptions – and realities – that Antarctic environments can trigger deeply disturbing behavior and even drive people to madness.

    Long hours of constant near-darkness take their toll in the Antarctic winter.
    Andrew Smith, via Antarctic Sun, CC BY-ND

    Early views

    The very earliest examples of Antarctic literature depict the continent affecting both mind and body. In 1797, for instance, more than two decades before the continent was first sighted by Europeans, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It tells a tale of a ship blown by storms into an endless maze of Antarctic ice, which they escape by following an albatross. For unexplained reasons, one man killed the albatross and faced a lifetime’s torment for doing so.

    In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe published the story of “Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,” who journeyed into the Southern Ocean. Even before arriving in Antarctica, the tale involves mutiny, cannibalism and a ship crewed by dead men. As the story ends, Pym and two others drift southward, encountering an enormous, apparently endless cataract of mist that parts before their boat, revealing a large ghostly figure.

    H.P. Lovecraft’s 1936 story “At the Mountains of Madness” was almost certainly based on real stories of polar exploration. In it, the men of a fictitious Antarctic expedition encounter circumstances that “made us wish only to escape from this austral world of desolation and brooding madness as swiftly as we could.” One man even experiences an unnamed “final horror” that causes a severe mental breakdown.

    The 1982 John Carpenter film “The Thing” also involves these themes, when men trapped at an Antarctic research station are being hunted by an alien that perfectly impersonates the base members it has killed. Paranoia and anxiety abound, with team members frantically radioing for help, and men imprisoned, left outside or even killed for the sake of the others.

    Whether to gird themselves for what may come or just as a fun tradition, the winter-over crew at the United States’ South Pole Station watches this film every year after the last flight leaves before winter sets in.

    A trailer for the 1982 film ‘The Thing,’ set at an Antarctic research station.

    Real tales

    These stories of Antarctic “madness” have some basis in history. A long-told anecdote in modern Antarctic circles is of a man who stabbed, perhaps fatally, a colleague over a game of chess at Russia’s Vostok station in 1959.

    More certain were reports in 2018, when Sergey Savitsky stabbed Oleg Beloguzov at the Russian Bellingshausen research station over multiple grievances, including the one most seized upon by the media: Beloguzov’s tendency to reveal the endings of books that Savitsky was reading. A criminal charge against him was dropped.

    In 2017, staff at South Africa’s sub-Antarctic Marion Island station reported that a team member smashed up a colleague’s room with an ax over a romantic relationship.

    Mental health

    Concerns over mental health in Antarctica go much further back. In the so-called “Heroic Age” of Antarctic exploration, from about 1897 to about 1922, expedition leaders prioritized the mental health of the men on their expeditions. They knew their crews would be trapped inside with the same small group for months on end, in darkness and extreme cold.

    American physician Frederick Cook, who accompanied the 1898-1899 Belgica expedition, the first group known to spend the winter within the Antarctic Circle, wrote in helpless terms of being “doomed” to the “mercy” of natural forces, and of his worries about the “unknowable cold and its soul-depressing effects” in the winter darkness. In his 2021 book about that expedition, writer Julian Sancton called the ship the “Madhouse at the End of the Earth.”

    Cook’s fears became real. Most men complained of “general enfeeblement of strength, of insufficient heart action, of a mental lethargy, and of a universal feeling of discomfort.”

    “When at all seriously afflicted,” Cook wrote, “the men felt that they would surely die” and exhibited a “spirit of abject hopelessness.”

    And in the words of Australian physicist Louis Bernacchi, a member of the 1898-1900 Southern Cross expedition, “There is something particularly mystical and uncanny in the effect of the grey atmosphere of an Antarctic night, through whose uncertain medium the cold white landscape looms as impalpable as the frontiers of a demon world.”

    Footage from 1913 shows the force of the wind at Cape Denison, which has been called ‘the home of the blizzard.’

    A traumatic trip

    A few years later, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which ran from 1911 to 1914, experienced several major tragedies, including two deaths during an exploring trip that left expedition leader Douglas Mawson starving and alone amid deeply crevassed terrain. The 100-mile walk to relative safety took him a month.

    A lesser-known set of events on that same expedition involved wireless-telegraph operator Sidney Jeffryes, who arrived in Antarctica in 1913 on a resupply ship. Cape Denison, the expedition’s base, had some of the most severe environmental conditions anyone had encountered on the continent, including winds estimated at over 160 miles an hour.

    Jeffryes, the only man in the crew who could operate the radio telegraph, began exhibiting signs of paranoia. He transmitted messages back to Australia saying that he was the only sane man in the group and claiming the others were plotting to kill him.

    In Mawson’s account of the expedition, he blamed the conditions, writing:

    “(T)here is no doubt that the continual and acute strain of sending and receiving messages under unprecedented conditions was such that he eventually had a ‘nervous breakdown.’”

    Mawson hoped that the coming of spring and the possibility of outdoor exercise would help, but it did not. Shortly after his return to Australia in February 1914, Jeffryes was found wandering in the Australian bush and institutionalized. For many years, his role in Antarctic exploration was ignored, seeming a blot or embarrassment on the masculine ideal of Antarctic explorers.

    After five months of isolation in trying conditions on a remote Antarctic island, 22 men rejoice at their rescue in August 1916.
    Frank Hurley, Underwood & Underwood, via Library of Congress

    Wider problems

    Unfortunately, the general widespread focus on Antarctica as a place that causes disturbing behavior makes it easy to gloss over larger and more systemic problems.

    In 2022, the United States Antarctic Program as well as the Australian Antarctic Division released reports that sexual assault and harassment are common at Antarctic bases and in more remote field camps. Scholars have generally not linked those events to the specifics of the cold, darkness and isolation, but rather to a continental culture of heroic masculinity.

    As humans look to live in other extreme environments, such as space, Antarctica represents not only a cooperative international scientific community but also a place where, cut off from society as a whole, human behavior changes. The celebrations of Midwinter Day honor survival in a place of wonder that is also a place of horror, where the greatest threat is not what is outside, but what is inside your mind.

    Daniella McCahey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. At Antarctica’s midwinter, a look back at the frozen continent’s long history of dark behavior – https://theconversation.com/at-antarcticas-midwinter-a-look-back-at-the-frozen-continents-long-history-of-dark-behavior-253906

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: At Antarctica’s midwinter, a look back at the frozen continent’s long history of dark behavior

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniella McCahey, Assistant Professor of History, Texas Tech University

    Is this visitor to Antarctica going crazy or having a good time? Tim Bieber/Photodisc via Getty Images

    As Midwinter Day approaches in Antarctica – the longest and darkest day of the year – those spending the winter on the frozen continent will follow a tradition dating back more than a century to the earliest days of Antarctic exploration: They will celebrate having made it through the growing darkness and into a time when they know the Sun is on its way back.

    The experience of spending a winter in Antarctica can be harrowing, even when living with modern conveniences such as hot running water and heated buildings. At the beginning of the current winter season, in March 2025, global news outlets reported that workers at the South African research station, SANAE IV, were “rocked” when one worker allegedly threatened and assaulted other members of the station’s nine-person winter crew. Psychologists intervened – remotely – and order was apparently restored.

    The desolate and isolated environment of Antarctica can be hard on its inhabitants. As a historian of Antarctica, the events at SANAE IV represent a continuation of perceptions – and realities – that Antarctic environments can trigger deeply disturbing behavior and even drive people to madness.

    Long hours of constant near-darkness take their toll in the Antarctic winter.
    Andrew Smith, via Antarctic Sun, CC BY-ND

    Early views

    The very earliest examples of Antarctic literature depict the continent affecting both mind and body. In 1797, for instance, more than two decades before the continent was first sighted by Europeans, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It tells a tale of a ship blown by storms into an endless maze of Antarctic ice, which they escape by following an albatross. For unexplained reasons, one man killed the albatross and faced a lifetime’s torment for doing so.

    In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe published the story of “Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,” who journeyed into the Southern Ocean. Even before arriving in Antarctica, the tale involves mutiny, cannibalism and a ship crewed by dead men. As the story ends, Pym and two others drift southward, encountering an enormous, apparently endless cataract of mist that parts before their boat, revealing a large ghostly figure.

    H.P. Lovecraft’s 1936 story “At the Mountains of Madness” was almost certainly based on real stories of polar exploration. In it, the men of a fictitious Antarctic expedition encounter circumstances that “made us wish only to escape from this austral world of desolation and brooding madness as swiftly as we could.” One man even experiences an unnamed “final horror” that causes a severe mental breakdown.

    The 1982 John Carpenter film “The Thing” also involves these themes, when men trapped at an Antarctic research station are being hunted by an alien that perfectly impersonates the base members it has killed. Paranoia and anxiety abound, with team members frantically radioing for help, and men imprisoned, left outside or even killed for the sake of the others.

    Whether to gird themselves for what may come or just as a fun tradition, the winter-over crew at the United States’ South Pole Station watches this film every year after the last flight leaves before winter sets in.

    A trailer for the 1982 film ‘The Thing,’ set at an Antarctic research station.

    Real tales

    These stories of Antarctic “madness” have some basis in history. A long-told anecdote in modern Antarctic circles is of a man who stabbed, perhaps fatally, a colleague over a game of chess at Russia’s Vostok station in 1959.

    More certain were reports in 2018, when Sergey Savitsky stabbed Oleg Beloguzov at the Russian Bellingshausen research station over multiple grievances, including the one most seized upon by the media: Beloguzov’s tendency to reveal the endings of books that Savitsky was reading. A criminal charge against him was dropped.

    In 2017, staff at South Africa’s sub-Antarctic Marion Island station reported that a team member smashed up a colleague’s room with an ax over a romantic relationship.

    Mental health

    Concerns over mental health in Antarctica go much further back. In the so-called “Heroic Age” of Antarctic exploration, from about 1897 to about 1922, expedition leaders prioritized the mental health of the men on their expeditions. They knew their crews would be trapped inside with the same small group for months on end, in darkness and extreme cold.

    American physician Frederick Cook, who accompanied the 1898-1899 Belgica expedition, the first group known to spend the winter within the Antarctic Circle, wrote in helpless terms of being “doomed” to the “mercy” of natural forces, and of his worries about the “unknowable cold and its soul-depressing effects” in the winter darkness. In his 2021 book about that expedition, writer Julian Sancton called the ship the “Madhouse at the End of the Earth.”

    Cook’s fears became real. Most men complained of “general enfeeblement of strength, of insufficient heart action, of a mental lethargy, and of a universal feeling of discomfort.”

    “When at all seriously afflicted,” Cook wrote, “the men felt that they would surely die” and exhibited a “spirit of abject hopelessness.”

    And in the words of Australian physicist Louis Bernacchi, a member of the 1898-1900 Southern Cross expedition, “There is something particularly mystical and uncanny in the effect of the grey atmosphere of an Antarctic night, through whose uncertain medium the cold white landscape looms as impalpable as the frontiers of a demon world.”

    Footage from 1913 shows the force of the wind at Cape Denison, which has been called ‘the home of the blizzard.’

    A traumatic trip

    A few years later, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which ran from 1911 to 1914, experienced several major tragedies, including two deaths during an exploring trip that left expedition leader Douglas Mawson starving and alone amid deeply crevassed terrain. The 100-mile walk to relative safety took him a month.

    A lesser-known set of events on that same expedition involved wireless-telegraph operator Sidney Jeffryes, who arrived in Antarctica in 1913 on a resupply ship. Cape Denison, the expedition’s base, had some of the most severe environmental conditions anyone had encountered on the continent, including winds estimated at over 160 miles an hour.

    Jeffryes, the only man in the crew who could operate the radio telegraph, began exhibiting signs of paranoia. He transmitted messages back to Australia saying that he was the only sane man in the group and claiming the others were plotting to kill him.

    In Mawson’s account of the expedition, he blamed the conditions, writing:

    “(T)here is no doubt that the continual and acute strain of sending and receiving messages under unprecedented conditions was such that he eventually had a ‘nervous breakdown.’”

    Mawson hoped that the coming of spring and the possibility of outdoor exercise would help, but it did not. Shortly after his return to Australia in February 1914, Jeffryes was found wandering in the Australian bush and institutionalized. For many years, his role in Antarctic exploration was ignored, seeming a blot or embarrassment on the masculine ideal of Antarctic explorers.

    After five months of isolation in trying conditions on a remote Antarctic island, 22 men rejoice at their rescue in August 1916.
    Frank Hurley, Underwood & Underwood, via Library of Congress

    Wider problems

    Unfortunately, the general widespread focus on Antarctica as a place that causes disturbing behavior makes it easy to gloss over larger and more systemic problems.

    In 2022, the United States Antarctic Program as well as the Australian Antarctic Division released reports that sexual assault and harassment are common at Antarctic bases and in more remote field camps. Scholars have generally not linked those events to the specifics of the cold, darkness and isolation, but rather to a continental culture of heroic masculinity.

    As humans look to live in other extreme environments, such as space, Antarctica represents not only a cooperative international scientific community but also a place where, cut off from society as a whole, human behavior changes. The celebrations of Midwinter Day honor survival in a place of wonder that is also a place of horror, where the greatest threat is not what is outside, but what is inside your mind.

    Daniella McCahey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. At Antarctica’s midwinter, a look back at the frozen continent’s long history of dark behavior – https://theconversation.com/at-antarcticas-midwinter-a-look-back-at-the-frozen-continents-long-history-of-dark-behavior-253906

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: 2025 Australian Antarctic Medals announced

    Source: Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission

    Medical practitioner, Dr Jan Wallace
    Dr Jan Wallace has been a pioneering force in Antarctic medicine, with a career spanning over 40 years as a general practitioner, remote medicine specialist, educator, and mentor.
    She has served across all Australian Antarctic stations, Macquarie Island, and aboard Antarctic vessels, providing medical care in some of the world’s most remote and challenging environments. Her roles have included not only direct clinical care, but also leadership in research, education, and support for both expeditioners and fellow medical practitioners.
    Dr Wallace’s research into first aid training for expeditioners directly shaped the Australian Antarctic Division’s first aid program, resulting in improved safety and operational protocols.
    She has guided generations of Antarctic medical practitioners and inspired many, including future doctors and women in medicine, to pursue careers in remote and expeditionary healthcare.
    “I felt quite overwhelmed and emotional that my fellow expeditioners considered me worthy of a nomination,” Dr Wallace said.
    “I am particularly proud that the medal citation mentions that my research into expeditioner first aid training has improved safety for our teams down south.”
    Dr Wallace’s dedication, compassion, and pragmatic leadership have helped set the standard for Antarctic medical care, strengthened the wellbeing of the Australian Antarctic community, and ensured the next generation of practitioners are well prepared for the unique challenges of polar medicine.
    “Receiving this honour is the cherry on top of my amazing Antarctic journey over many years, which would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of many others in the Antarctic family,” she said.

    Dr Jan Wallace (seen here at Mawson station) has been a pioneering force in Antarctic medicine. Photo: Geoff Wallace

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: New start date for the Anthropocene proposed – when humans first changed global methane levels

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vincent Gauci, Professorial Fellow, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham

    Robsonphoto/Shutterstock

    Humans have been reshaping the environment for at least 10,000 years. But the Anthropocene is the name given to the specific period of Earth history during which humans have had a global effect on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. Despite formal rejection as a geological epoch, it’s widely understood within academic research as useful shorthand for the age of human interference in the Earth system.

    Various dates have been proposed for when the anthropocene effectively began, from the early 17th century to the mid-20th century, when the first atomic weapons were detonated. My new research into atmospheric methane concentration supports the idea of an early date, when European arrival in the Americas first had a notable impact on the atmosphere, but slightly before previous estimates.

    Ice cores – cylinders of ice drilled from glaciers and ice sheets – provide important evidence of historical changes in the global atmospheric composition. It is from these records that a date for the Anthropocene’s pre-industrial beginnings was first proposed in 2015 by two Earth systems scientists at the University College London, Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin.

    They suggested that an unprecedented drop in the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere that was recorded in ice cores – known as the “Orbis spike” – dates back to 1610. This unusually low level reflects additional atmospheric CO₂ absorption into trees from forest regrowth in the Americas following European arrival in the late 1400s.

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

    From European arrival in 1492 and colonisation in the 1500s, the introduction of disease, mostly smallpox, resulted in demographic collapse of around 50 million people across the Americas. Lewis and Maslin proposed that, as millions of hectares of farmland went untended, forests could regrow and this increased CO₂ removal from the atmosphere.

    This happened in sufficient quantities to be recorded in glacial ice. And that change became a global marker for the start of the so-called Anthropocene.



    Read more:
    Why the Anthropocene began with European colonisation, mass slavery and the ‘great dying’ of the 16th century

    My own research into changing methane concentrations indicates that the Anthropocene began slightly earlier than that, in 1592. Ice core records show a minimum atmospheric methane concentration exactly 100 years after explorer Christopher Columbus first set foot in the Americas. This, I believe, strengthens support for the hypothesis put forward by Lewis and Maslin a decade ago.

    In a paper published in Nature Reviews, Earth and Environment, I consider the effects of global fluctuations in how trees and forests exchange methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is around 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Crucially, methane has a short lifetime of just under ten years, so any ice core record will be far more responsive to changes to the methane cycle than that of longer-lived CO₂.



    Read more:
    Methane is pitched as a climate villain – could changing how we think about it make it a saviour?

    Trees are a methane sink

    So what’s the link to trees? Trees and their woody bark surfaces, despite their biologically inert appearance when compared to leaves, are important interfaces of methane exchange. In swamps and forested floodplains like the Amazon, they are exit points of methane to the atmosphere from the saturated soils where the methane is formed by anaerobic soil microbes.

    However, last year, my team uncovered how the more extensive areas of forest growing on free-draining soils interact with atmospheric methane. The trees host microbes that directly remove methane from the atmosphere.

    This is one of two mechanisms that, together, might explain an unprecedented drop in atmospheric methane concentrations recorded in Antarctic ice cores in the first century following European arrival in the Americas. This would support Lewis and Maslin’s idea that regrowing forests in that period had global effects.

    With more trees growing on abandoned farmland, there was more woody tree surface area in contact with the atmosphere. This meant more methane being taken up by the microbes they host.

    Measuring methane uptake of trees.
    Vincent Gauci, CC BY-NC-ND

    The second mechanism relates to how trees intercept incoming rainfall. Some rainfall is re-evaporated before reaching the soil. Any rain reaching the soil may then be taken up by tree roots and released back to the atmosphere. The rest moves into the soil or washes off into rivers and wetlands.

    It is possible that the spike in forest regrowth led to more evaporation and transpiration. So more water was released by the trees back to the atmosphere and less washed off over the soil surface.

    This limited water flowing into wetlands. Those wetlands are a major methane source. So a small shrinkage in wetland area, combined with more trees absorbing atmospheric methane, could have reduced the atmospheric methane concentration and explain the minimum methane levels observed in 1592.

    When exactly the Anthropocene began may be an argument that has been overtaken by the decision to not label it a new epoch. Indeed, it’s possible that forest clearance for early agriculture by humans around 5,000-8,000 years ago in the mid-Holocene, (a period of relative climate stability in the Neolithic period) contributed to the atmospheric methane increase observed in Antarctic ice from that time.

    As well as an ancient trace of human influence over our forests, the ice core methane records provide a chance to evaluate newly discovered processes operating in the world’s forests. This is something I’m now investigating with my colleague Peter Hopcroft, a palaeoclimate modeller at the University of Birmingham.

    Whether through forest clearances for early agriculture or through the effects on forests of massive depopulation of Indigenous peoples following European contact, these traces of our past influence point to something significant: that there has always been an intimate and evolving connection between humanity and the natural world. A connection so fundamental that, for the vast span of our existence as a species, we have been inseparable from nature itself.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Vincent Gauci receives funding from or has received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council, The Royal Society, Spark Climate Solutions, AXA Research Fund, Defra and the JABBS Foundation.

    – ref. New start date for the Anthropocene proposed – when humans first changed global methane levels – https://theconversation.com/new-start-date-for-the-anthropocene-proposed-when-humans-first-changed-global-methane-levels-258834

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • Climate change: As the planet hits record temperatures, what is the science is telling us?

    Source: Government of India

    Source: Government of India (4)

    Concentrations in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, reached a fresh high of 422 parts per million in 2024 the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has said.

    After another record-breaking year for global temperatures in 2024, pressure is rising on policymakers to step up efforts to curb climate change.

    The last global scientific consensus on the phenomenon was released in 2021 through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but scientists say evidence shows global warming and its impacts have since been unfolding faster than expected.

    Here is some of the latest climate research:

    CRITICAL POINT

    The world may already have hit 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) of warming above the average pre-industrial temperature – a critical threshold beyond which it is at risk of irreversible and extreme climate change, scientists say.

    A group of researchers made the suggestion in a study released in November based on an analysis of 2,000 years of atmospheric gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores.

    Scientists have typically measured today’s temperatures against a baseline temperature average for 1850-1900. By that measure, the world is now at nearly 1.3 C (2.4 F) of warming.

    But the new data suggests a longer pre-industrial baseline, based on temperature data spanning the year 13 to 1700, which put warming at 1.49 C in 2023, the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience said.

    OCEAN CHANGES

    The warming of the Atlantic could hasten the collapse of a key current system, which scientists warn could already be sputtering.

    The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which transports warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, has helped to keep European winters milder for centuries.

    Research in 2018 showed that AMOC has weakened by about 15% since 1950, while research published in February 2024 in the journal Science Advances suggested it could be closer to a critical slowdown than previously thought.

    In addition, with the world in the throes of a fourth mass coral bleaching event — the largest on record — scientists fear the world’s reefs have passed a point of no return.

    Scientists will be studying bleached reefs from Australia to Brazil for signs of recovery over the next few years if temperatures fall.

    EXTREME WEATHER

    Ocean warming is not only fuelling stronger Atlantic storms, it is also causing them to intensify more rapidly, with some jumping from a Category 1 to a Category 3 storm in just hours.

    Growing evidence shows this is true of other ocean basins. In October 2024 Hurricane Milton needed only one day in the Gulf of Mexico to go from tropical storm to the Gulf’s second most powerful hurricane on record, slamming Florida’s west coast.

    Warmer air can also hold more moisture, helping storms carry and eventually release more rain. As a result, hurricanes are delivering flooding even in mountain towns like Asheville, North Carolina, inundated in September 2024 by Hurricane Helene.

    FORESTS AND FIRES

    Global warming is drying waterways and sapping moisture from forests, creating conditions for bigger and hotter wildfires from the U.S. West and Canada to southern Europe and Russia’s Far East.

    Research published in October in Nature Climate Change calculated that about 13% of deaths associated with toxic wildfire smoke during the 2010s could be attributed to the climate effect on wildfires.

    Brazil’s Amazon in 2024 was in the grip of its worst and most widespread drought since records began in 1950. River levels sank to all-time lows last year, while fires ravaged the rainforest.

    That added concern to scientific findings earlier last year that between 10% and 47% of the Amazon will face combined stresses of heat and drought from climate change, as well as other threats, by 2050.

    That could push the Amazon past a tipping point, with the jungle no longer able to produce enough moisture to quench its own trees, at which point the ecosystem could transition to degraded forests or sandy savannas.

    Globally, forests appear to be struggling. A July 2024 study found that forests overall failed to absorb the year before as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as in the past, due largely to the Amazon drought and wildfires in Canada. That means a record amount of CO2 entered the atmosphere.

    In addition, scientists with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found in December 2024 that while the vast Arctic tundra has been a carbon sink for thousands of years, rising wildfire emissions mean the tundra is now releasing more carbon than it stores.

    VOLCANIC SURGE

    Scientists fear climate change could even boost volcanic eruptions. In Iceland, volcanoes appear to be responding to rapid glacier retreat. As ice melts, less pressure is exerted on the Earth’s crust and mantle.

    (REUTERS)

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Largest maritime navigation system upgrade in decades

    Source: New Zealand Government

    The Government is making New Zealand more attractive to international shipping lines with the first major investment in navigation services in more than 30 years.

    Land Information Minister Chris Penk says the $28.6 million Budget 2025 funding secures the future of shipping, tourism and the maritime economy – highlighting the Government’s commitment to back economic growth.

    “The investment enables safer and faster access to New Zealand’s ports, keeping trade flowing smoothly and reliably and provides confidence in shipping. This is key as more than 99 percent of our imports and exports move by sea.

    “Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) and Maritime New Zealand are working together to create high-tech digital navigation tools based on the global S-100 standard. These tools will make navigation more precise, helping ships save fuel and cut costs while operating in our waters.

    “The initiative will transform how mariners access and use data such as electronic charts, water levels, ocean surface currents and navigational warnings.”

    Associate Transport Minister James Meager says the investment benefits both economic growth and maritime safety.

    “Modern digital maritime data and services will enable freight-efficient, environmentally responsible shipping routes that boost trade and investment across the Pacific.

    “The investment in high-tech infrastructure ensures our maritime and tourism sectors are ready to thrive, while enhancing safety and efficiency.

    “Importantly, it positions New Zealand at the forefront of the shift to digital navigation technology, and signals to the world that we’re serious about supporting innovation, sustainabilitty and welfare at sea.

    “Beyond New Zealand’s coastline, this initiative supports safer, more efficient shipping across our wider maritime region – including Antarctica and South-West Pacific nations such as the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, and Tokelau.

    “As we celebrate Matariki and reflect on New Zealand’s rich cultural history of navigating by the stars, now is the perfect time to look ahead toward building a resilient maritime economy for future generations.”

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: New Zealand’s Foreign Policy Reset: Progress & Reflections

    Source: New Zealand Government

    [Keynote speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs (NZIIA) national conference, Takina Convention Centre, Wellington]

    Good afternoon.

    National Chair of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, Dr James Kember, Executive Director Dr Hamish McDougall, members of the Diplomatic Corps, distinguished guests. 

    It is a pleasure to speak here today at the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs’ Annual Conference.

    The NZIIA contributes to, and facilitates, discussion and debate about New Zealand’s foreign policy, and we thank you for hosting us. 

    In May last year, it was the NZIIA that hosted us in Parliament for a speech that addressed the challenges we face in a more fractious world and outlined how the Coalition Government was bringing more energy, more urgency and a sharper focus to our foreign policy.

    Just over a year later, we thought we’d reflect on the Government’s Foreign Policy Reset, where progress has been made, and the foreign policy themes we have accentuated in the year since we last spoke to you.

    This is also the time for a clear-eyed appraisal of New Zealand’s strategic circumstances, and the sharply deteriorating international outlook, as evidenced by the protracted illegal war in Ukraine and in the catastrophic escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. 

    Twenty-five years ago, New Zealand enjoyed a world that was becoming more open, more democratic, and more free. Trade liberalisation was gathering pace. Effective multilateralism helped underpin a liberal- oriented international rules-based system.

    Turning to the world of today – and looking out to tomorrow – the changes are stark. Uncertainty is now pervasive across the globe. We face an international operating environment under serious strain, one that poses complex challenges while exposing structural weaknesses in that operating environment.

    While geography remains a constant, distance is no buffer. There is no opting out from the geopolitical realities we face. So, this is a timely reminder of what is at stake, and why our foreign policy matters for all New Zealanders. 

    Foreign policy can often be perceived as far removed from New Zealanders’ daily lives. But recognising how our foreign and trade policy underpins New Zealanders’ security and prosperity is crucial to the open and mature national conversation we must continue to have in our vibrant democracy.

    While operating for the most part quietly and in the background, our foreign and trade policy helps deliver outcomes that matter for all of us.

    From the export dollars our farmers and manufacturers earn in key markets and helping to remove barriers for our exporters.

    • To new international market opportunities being opened for our innovative services firms.
    • To the international rules that provide us with our Exclusive Economic Zone and its resources, preserve Antarctica as a zone of peace and science, and which govern behaviours in outer space and cyber space.
    • To the international security partnerships that enable us to tackle common threats, such as the flow of illegal drugs into our country, or terrorist threats.
    • To the standards that underpin everyday fundamentals we all rely on, whether international air and sea shipping, our telecommunication devices, or biosecurity measures.
    • And to the opportunities for young New Zealanders to travel and work overseas and return with new skills and experiences.

    So while foreign and trade policy may seem abstract, how we act in the world matters for New Zealanders every day.

    This fundamental link between how we advance our interests abroad, and our security and prosperity at home, is why the Coalition Government prioritises foreign policy as a crucial instrument to achieve both. That, after all, is how we maintain support from the taxpayers who underwrite our efforts.

    This demands being present, engaged, and explaining ourselves. There remains no substitute for in-person diplomacy, relationship building, and educating the public about the choices we face. 

    Now, our critics complain that we are leading a radical repositioning of our foreign policy. But only in one very narrow and important respect are they right. We have radically increased the tempo of our diplomacy, in recognition of our predecessors’ torpor, but also because of the sheer magnitude of the challenges we face. 

    Since being sworn into office in November 2023, we have visited 46 countries, several more than once, met with well over 100 Presidents, Prime Ministers, Deputy Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, and had over 400 political engagements. 

    Through this engagement we are better informed about the world around us, as are counterparts about New Zealand’s foreign policy perspectives and the values that underpin them.

    And we continue the important duty of communicating New Zealand’s foreign policy priorities to the public and explaining the nature of our changing strategic circumstances and the choices that flow from them.

    We push ourselves to work harder, and explain ourselves better, because New Zealand has understood these past 80 years, that as a small state geographically isolated from the great landmasses of Asia, Europe and the Americas, only through the conduct of a highly active foreign policy can we advance our national interests, defend our region, and make it more prosperous.

    Foreign Policy Reset: Progress

    Distinguished guests, in our speech to you last year we outlined the six priorities that form the Government’s foreign policy reset. Today’s speech is an opportunity to recap the ambition that Cabinet set out and highlight key areas of effort and progress.

    First, we are significantly increasing our focus and resources applied to South and Southeast Asia. 

    With 34 outward Prime Ministerial and Ministerial visits to the region since February 2024 – advancing new business and investment opportunities, while expanding defence and security cooperation, and upgrading a range of key relationships – we are investing in the wider region, commensurate with its strategic and economic significance.

    In 2025, we have upgraded our Viet Nam relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and we are working hard to similarly achieve upgrades in our ASEAN and Singapore relationships.

    It was a pleasure to again visit India last month, and to contribute to this important and growing relationship, including welcoming the negotiations underway towards a comprehensive free trade agreement.

    Complementing this investment in South and Southeast Asia, the Government also remains focused on the depth and breadth of our important relationships across North Asia. Our bilateral relationship with China is New Zealand’s largest trade relationship. It’s proven mutually beneficial and significant for both countries.  The relationship is supported by regular people exchange, including political dialogue, business, education and tourism links. And we are pleased that with the Prime Minister visiting China this week we will have completed reciprocal visits between our respective counterparts over the past two years.

    Our long-standing political connections enable frank and comprehensive discussions on areas of disagreement, including those that stem from our different histories and different systems. Indeed, it is a sign of healthy relationships that we can and do express disagreement on important issues. 

    Japan and Korea are two likeminded democracies in the Indo-Pacific, who view the region and the world in the same way we do and are increasingly central to achieving our interests.

    Second, we are renewing and reinvigorating meaningful engagement with traditional and likeminded partners. 

    Our circumstances underscore the importance of an even deeper strategic partnership with Australia as well as other partners with which we share a deep history and enduring interests.

    Consultations with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Adelaide last month highlighted that New Zealand has no closer or more important partner that Australia, our one formal ally, with whom we share interests across the full expanse of regional and international issues.

    We have grown the important partnership with the United Kingdom, including advancing trade opportunities and reiterating our shared commitment to tackling international security challenges. 

    Similarly, enhanced engagement with the European Union and its member states is a significant focus for New Zealand.

    The change in the US Administration in January has inevitably generated changes in the priorities and direction of US foreign policy. But the significance of the US’ continued role in the security and stability in the Indo-Pacific and as an essential economic partner remains, and this continues to be the focus of our engagement, including during discussions with Secretary Rubio in Washington and Admiral Paparo, Commander of US INDOPACOM in Honolulu.

    Third, we are sustaining a deeper focus on the Pacific, working in collaboration with Pacific Leaders to protect and advance our interconnected security, economic, social and environmental interests.

    In a more complex global environment, coming together as a region is even more important.  Which is why Pacific regionalism sits at the core of our Pacific approach, with the Pacific Islands Forum at its centre. 

    We will always be members of the same Pacific family. A series of cross-party Parliamentary delegations into the region, alongside our exhaustive travel around Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, have demonstrated that New Zealand’s commitment to the region spans the political spectrum and is foundational to who we are as a country.

    Our Pacific-focused International Development Cooperation programme – reshaped to achieve more impact by doing fewer, bigger, projects better – is helping to build climate and economic resilience, strengthen governance and security, and to lift heath, education and connectivity.

    Fourth, we are targeting our multilateral engagement on priority global and transboundary issues, working to defend and preserve core principles of international law that underpin our security and prosperity.

    Respect for the UN Charter principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the prohibition on the use of force is essential to avoid a return to a world where the exercise of hard power reigns supreme.

    Where these principles are flagrantly violated, such as in Russia’s continued illegal invasion of Ukraine, we must stand against such aggression and lend our efforts to achieving a just and sustainable peace.

    New Zealand’s response to the Israel-Hamas conflict is also grounded in upholding international law, including international humanitarian law.

    While the multilateral system has served us all well for many decades, it most certainly is not without flaws. We recognise that defending, strengthening, and modernising the rules-based system also means supporting reform of multilateral institutions. 

    We actively support efforts to make these institutions more responsive, efficient and effective to ensure they are focused on making a difference for our citizens, and we feel an urgency around necessary reform.   

    Fifth, we are supporting new groupings that advance and defend our interests and capabilities. 

    The relationship between the Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) countries – Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand – is an example of this new support. 

    Deeper political-level engagement between NATO and the IP4, begun by predecessor governments, has allowed us to raise the profile of shared strategic challenges in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific, and to drive enhanced cooperation on priority areas including cyber, artificial intelligence, and defence capability.

    This effort will be given further momentum next week, when the Prime Minister travels to The Hague for engagements with fellow IP4 partners and NATO countries, during the NATO Summit.

    And sixth, we are working hard to advance the Government’s goal of seriously lifting New Zealand’s export value over the next decade. 

    This means harnessing every potential gain from our trade and economic agenda; promoting New Zealand as a place to do business; and creating opportunities for our world-class exporters. 

    This Government has conducted eleven successful trade missions, as we work towards the target of 20 missions involving New Zealand businesses during this Parliamentary term.

    New trade agreements concluded with the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf Cooperation Council will open doors and provide greater certainty as well as create more chances for our exporters to grow and diversify their businesses. 

    As will our efforts to leverage and expand existing trade agreements – such as through the United Kingdom’s accession last year to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

    Mid-term reflections

    In recent speeches we have outlined that the priorities identified in the foreign policy reset are underpinned by three key concepts:

    • The realism that informs the Government’s foreign policy.
    • Our view of the crucial role that diplomacy needs to play in our troubled world.
    • And our unshakeable belief that small states matter and that all states are equal.

    In fashioning foreign policy responses, the realist tendency is to err on the side of prudence. That is, we are careful in what we say, and when and how we say it. 

    We leave it to the small cabal of ill-informed critics of our foreign policy approach to shout impotently at clouds. They are good at that. Take AUKUS. In our speech to the NZIIA last year we were candid about what AUKUS Pillar 2 was, why the Ardern/Hipkins Governments launched work on it, and we laid out the necessary pre-conditions for participation. 

    A year on, there is nothing new to report, which you might think says something about the current dynamic, but still critics insist dark clouds have formed around our independent foreign policy. Their arguments were ill-informed and rubbish then. They’re ill-informed and rubbish now.

    We said we would update New Zealanders on Pillar 2 when there was something new to say. And we will.       

    In conditions of great uncertainty and disorder, such as we are currently experiencing, prudence is a both a logical and necessary guiding principle for a small state like New Zealand.

    We see our responsibility to the New Zealand people, in conducting foreign policy, as making cool-headed calculations of the country’s own strengths and weaknesses as we fashion our responses to events large or small that impact upon New Zealand’s interests.

    For a small state like New Zealand, the role of diplomacy is a crucial instrument of our foreign policy. In our complex geostrategic environment never has effective diplomacy been more needed. 

    Summing up our wide foreign policy discussions in our National Statement to the United Nations last year, we said it has never been more apparent just how much diplomacy and the tools of statecraft matter in our troubled world. 

    Since war and instability is everyone’s calamity, diplomacy is the business of us all. We have observed that at this moment in time the ability to talk with, rather than at, each other has never been more needed. 

    Those who share our values, and even those who do not, gain from understanding each other’s position, even when we cannot agree. From understanding comes opportunity and from diplomacy comes compromise, the building block of better relations between nations. We said we need more diplomacy, more engagement, more compromise. 

    As Churchill also said in his later years, “meeting jaw-to-jaw is better than war.”

    The inherent tensions and imbalances in the global order – between the desire for a rules-based order that protects small states against aggression, and the unjustified exercise of power by certain Great Powers – have only grown over the last past eight decades. 

    Yet small states matter now as much as they did then. New Zealand holds the foundational belief that all states are equal and that our voices matter as much as more powerful states. Adopting a prudential approach to our diplomacy also means not reacting to everything that happens around us. 

    In closing, it’s fitting to return to the broad theme of the event – New Zealand’s foreign policy in a contested world.

    The outlook is challenging, to say the least, and we – government and public alike – must grapple with the reality of the fraught strategic circumstances that New Zealand faces.

    We have many friends in the world, but no-one owes New Zealand a living. It is incumbent upon us to chart our course, assert our priorities, cultivate our partnerships, and pursue our interests with the vigour we have injected into our diplomatic efforts these past 18 months.

    Amidst serious challenges and risk, there are also opportunities. Realising these means that we must continue to bring energy, urgency and a sharper focus to our foreign policy. 

    Through the Foreign Policy Reset, we are focused on doing exactly that and ensuring that we continue to deliver security and prosperity for all New Zealanders.

    Thank you

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Ancient termite poo reveals 120 million-year-old secrets of Australia’s polar forests

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alistair Evans, Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University

    Witsawat.S/Shutterstock

    Imagine a lush forest with tree-ferns, their trunks capped by ribbon-like fronds. Conifers tower overhead, bearing triangular leaves almost sharp enough to pierce skin. Flowering plants are both small and rare.

    You’re standing in what is now Victoria, Australia, about 127 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Period. Slightly to your south, a massive river – more than a kilometre wide – separates you from Tasmania. This river flows along the valley forming between Australia and Antarctica as the two continents begin to split apart.

    During the Early Cretaceous, southeastern Australia was some of the closest land to the South Pole. Here, the night lasted for three months in winter, contrasting with three months of daytime in summer. Despite this extreme day-night cycle, various kinds of dinosaurs still thrived here, as did flies, wasps and dragonflies.

    And, as our recently published research in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology reveals, termites also chewed through the decaying wood of fallen trees. This is the first record of termites living in a polar region – and their presence provides key insights into what these ancient forests were like.

    Home makers, not homewreckers

    Termites might have a public reputation as homewreckers.

    But these wood-eating bugs are a key part of many environments, freeing up nutrients contained in dead plants. They are one of the best organisms at breaking down large amounts of wood, and significantly speed up the decay of fallen wood in forests.

    Ancient polar forests roughly 120 million years ago in southeastern Australia were dominated by conifer trees.
    Bob Nicholls

    The breakdown of wood by termites makes it easier for further consumption by other animals and fungi.

    Their role in ancient Victoria’s polar forests would have been just as important, as the natural decay of wood is very slow in cold conditions.

    Although the cold winters would have slowed termites too, they may have thrived during long periods of darkness, just as modern termites are more active during the night.

    The oldest termite nest in Australia

    Our new paper, led by Monash University palaeontology research associate Jonathan Edwards, reports the discovery of an ancient termite nest near the coastal town of Inverloch in southeastern Victoria. Preserved in a 80-centimetre-long piece of fossilised log, the nest tunnels carved out by termites were first spotted by local fossil-hunter extraordinaire Melissa Lowery.

    Without its discoverers knowing what it was then, the log was brought into the lab and we began investigating the origins of its structures.

    Understanding the nest was challenging at first: the tunnels exposed on the surface were filled with what looked like tiny grains of rice, each around 2 millimetres long. We suspected they were most likely the coprolites (fossilised poo) of the nest-makers. Once we took a look under the microscope we noticed something very interesting: this poo was hexagonal.

    Termite poo has a distinct hexagonal shape, as seen in these thin sections of the fossilised log we examined.
    Jonathan Edwards & William Parker

    How did this shape point to termites as the “poopetrators”?

    Modern termites have a gut with three sets of muscle bands. Just before excretion, their waste is squeezed to save as much water as possible, giving an almost perfect hexagonal shape to the pellets.

    The size, shape, distribution and quantity of coprolites meant we had just discovered the oldest termite nest in Australia – and perhaps the largest termite wood nest from dinosaur times.

    A global distribution

    We continued to investigate the nest with more specific methods.

    For example, we scanned parts of it with the Australian Synchrotron – a research facility that uses X-rays and infrared radiation to see the structure and composition of materials. This showed us what the unweathered coprolites inside the log looked like.

    MicroCT imagery of termite coprolites within the nest.
    Jonathan Edwards

    We also made very thin slices of the nest and looked at these slices with high-powered microscopes. And we analysed the chemistry of the log, which further supported our original theory of the nest’s identity.

    The oldest fossilised termites have been found in the northern hemisphere about 150 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic Period.

    What is exciting is that our trace fossils show they had reached the southernmost landmasses by 127 million years ago. This presence means they had likely spread all over Earth by this point.

    The termites weren’t alone

    Surprisingly, these termites also had smaller wood-eating companions.

    During our investigation, we also noticed coprolites more than ten times smaller than those made by termites. These pellets likely belonged to wood-eating oribatid mites – minuscule arachnids with fossils dating back almost 400 million years. Many of their tunnels ring those left by the termites, telling us they inhabited this nest after the termites abandoned it.

    CT reconstructions of termite and mite coprolites show the huge difference in size between them.
    Jonathan Edwards

    Termite tunnels may have acted as mite highways, taking them deeper into the log. Moreover, because both groups ate the toughest parts of wood, these two invertebrates might have directly competed at the time. Modern oribatid mites only eat wood affected by fungi.

    Regardless, our study documents the first known interaction of wood-nesting termites and oribatid mites in the fossil record.

    This nest also provides important support for the idea that Australia’s polar forests weren’t dominated by ice, as modern termites can’t tolerate prolonged freezing.

    This is the first record of termites living in a polar region, and their presence suggests relatively mild polar winters — something like 6°C on average. Termites would’ve been key players in these ecosystems, kickstarting wood breakdown and nutrient cycling in an otherwise slow environment.

    So maybe next time you spot a termite nest, you’ll see a builder, not a bulldozer.

    The authors would like to acknowledge the work of Jonathan Edwards who led the research and helped prepare this article.

    Alistair Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.

    Anthony J. Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Ancient termite poo reveals 120 million-year-old secrets of Australia’s polar forests – https://theconversation.com/ancient-termite-poo-reveals-120-million-year-old-secrets-of-australias-polar-forests-258399

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The historic High Seas Treaty is almost reality. Here’s what it would mean for ocean conservation

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Lothian, Senior Lecturer in Maritime Law and Academic Barrister, University of Wollongong

    J Nel/Shutterstock

    The high seas are set to gain a greater level of protection when a long-sought after treaty finally enters into force.

    For almost 20 years, nations have debated the need for the High Seas Treaty, intended to protect marine life in the high seas and the international seabed. These marine areas together account for nearly two-thirds of the world’s ocean and harbour a rich array of unique species and ecosystems. The treaty is formally known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement.

    Many hoped last week’s United Nations Oceans Conference would result in enough nations ratifying the treaty to bring it into force. As of today, 50 states of the 60 required have done so, while another 19 have promised to do so by the year’s end. A greater level of protection for our high seas is well and truly in sight.

    By United Nations standards, this is a cracking pace. The treaty-making process itself can take years, particularly as states need to incorporate the treaty into their domestic laws. This speaks to the urgency of the moment. Researchers and authorities have warned that the world’s oceans are now in deep trouble, threatened by climate change effects, overfishing, plastic pollution and other human-caused issues.

    Once the treaty enters into force, nations can begin to propose high seas marine protected areas, which could limit fishing and other activities. The question then will be how to police these marine protected areas.

    How did we get here?

    In June 2023, the High Seas Treaty was adopted by consensus at the UN Headquarters in New York. It was a long time coming.

    For decades, nations argued and negotiated over what this treaty might look like. How could the marine genetic resources of this global commons be shared fairly and equitably? How could protected areas be designated and managed? What was eventually thrashed out was a comprehensive international legal framework able to better protect and safeguard the rich and diverse web of life inhabiting the deep sea.

    Getting to this point was a real achievement.

    But for this treaty to enter into force, 60 countries have to ratify it. This means their governments must consent to be legally bound by the terms of the treaty.

    While Australia has pledged to ratify the treaty, it is still working through the ratification and domestic legal process. On a positive note, Environment Minister Murray Watt has indicated this will happen before the end of the year.

    What will the treaty actually do?

    At present, the high seas are regulated by a patchwork of global, regional and sectoral frameworks, instruments and bodies. However, none of these have a core mandate of protecting the biodiversity of the oceans.

    In 1982, the Law of the Sea Convention was adopted, giving every coastal nation rights over the waters extending to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from their coastline.

    Once you are past this, you’re in the high seas – the swathes of ocean not controlled by any one nation.

    If and when it comes into effect, the High Seas Treaty would give the world a way to set up large marine protected areas in the high seas. It would also apply to the international seabed – the seabed, subsoils and ocean floor lying beyond the continental shelf of a coastal state.

    Any new protected areas would likely have restrictions on activities such as fishing and shipping. But this will need to be done in consultation with relevant international bodies such as the International Maritime Organisation and regional fisheries management organisations.

    The treaty would go a long way to reaching key conservation goals set under the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Pact, which calls for protection of at least 30% of the world’s marine and coastal habitats by 2030.

    The treaty also sets up a mechanism for the sharing of benefits from marine genetic resources, financial and otherwise. Bacteria living in deep-sea ecosystems have attracted much scientific and commercial attention for potential use in medical research or pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries. Genetic resources from sea sponges have given rise to antiviral drugs targeting COVID and HIV as well as anti-cancer drugs.

    These resources were a major sticking point during the long negotiations.

    Many coastal countries lack the ability to participate in high seas research. As a result, they can miss out on these and other benefits. The High Seas Treaty recognises this and sets up a strong framework for capacity-building, technology transfer and technical assistance for developing nations.

    As nations fish out their territorial waters, some send fishing boats into the unregulated high seas.
    Richard Whitcombe/Shutterstock

    When will the oceans get a reprieve?

    Once the 60th nation ratifies the High Seas Treaty, it will enter into force 120 days later. This date could be as soon as May 1 next year, if the threshold is reached on January 1.

    Once this happens, this will be the date upon which the treaty gains legal force, meaning nations will have to comply with its obligations.

    That doesn’t mean huge new marine parks will come into being. There’s still much work to do to hash out the mechanics of how the treaty would actually work, how it would be overseen and how it would work with the International Seabed Authority which oversees deep-sea mining and the Antarctic Treaty System, among others. Negotiators face more work ahead to solve these outstanding issues before the real work can begin.

    That’s not to diminish this achievement. The progress on this treaty has been very hard won. Once it’s in effect, it will make a concrete difference.

    Sarah Lothian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. The historic High Seas Treaty is almost reality. Here’s what it would mean for ocean conservation – https://theconversation.com/the-historic-high-seas-treaty-is-almost-reality-heres-what-it-would-mean-for-ocean-conservation-258710

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: A 3-tonne, $1.5 billion satellite to watch Earth’s every move is set to launch this week

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Petrie, Earth Observation Researcher, Swinburne University of Technology

    Artist’s concept of the NISAR satellite in orbit over Earth. NASA/JPL-Caltech

    In a few days, a new satellite that can detect changes on Earth’s surface down to the centimetre, in almost real time and no matter the time of day or weather conditions, is set to launch from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre near Chennai.

    Weighing almost 3 tonnes and boasting a 12-metre radar antenna, the US$1.5 billion NISAR satellite will track the ground under our feet and the water that flows over and through it in unprecedented detail, providing valuable information for farmers, climate scientists and natural disaster response teams.

    Only when the conditions are right

    Satellites that image the Earth have been an invaluable scientific tool for decades. They have provided crucial data across many applications, such as weather forecasting and emergency response planning. They have also helped scientists track long-term changes in Earth’s ecosystems and climate.

    Many of these Earth observation satellites require reflected sunlight to capture images of Earth’s surface. This means they can only capture images during daytime and when there is no cloud cover.

    As a result, these satellites face challenges wherever cloud cover is very common, such as in tropical regions, or when nighttime imagery is required.

    The NISAR satellite – a collaboration between the national space agencies of the United States (NASA) and India (ISRO) – overcomes these challenges by using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology to take images of the Earth. This technology also gives the satellite its name. NISAR stands for NASA-ISRO SAR.

    So what is SAR technology?

    SAR technology was invented in 1951 for military use. Rather than using reflected sunlight to passively image the Earth’s surface, SAR satellites work by actively beaming a radar signal toward the surface and detecting the reflected signal. Think of this as like using a flash to take a photo in a dark room.

    This means SAR satellites can take images of the Earth’s surface both during the day and night.

    Since radar signals pass through most cloud and smoke unhindered, SAR satellites can also image the Earth’s surface even when it is covered by clouds, smoke or ash. This is especially valuable during natural disasters such as floods, bushfires or volcanic eruptions.

    Radar signals can also penetrate through certain structures such as thick vegetation. They are useful for detecting the presence of water due to the way that water affects reflected radar signals.

    The European Space Agency used the vegetation-penetrating properties of SAR signals in its recent Biomass mission. This can image the 3D structure of forests. It can also produce highly accurate measurements of the amount of biomass and carbon stored in Earth’s forests.

    Sang-Ho Yun, Director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore’s Remote Sensing Lab, is a key proponent of using SAR for disaster management. Yun has previously used SAR data to map disaster-affected areas across hundreds of natural disasters over the last 15 years, including earthquakes, floods and typhoons.

    NISAR, which is due to launch on June 18, will significantly build on this earlier work.

    NISAR data will be used to create images similar to this 2013 image of a flood-prone area of the Amazonian jungle in Peru that’s based on data from NASA’s UAVSAR satellite.
    NASA/JPL-Caltech

    Monitoring Earth’s many ecosystems

    The NISAR satellite has been in development for over a decade and is one of the most expensive Earth-imaging satellites ever built.

    Data from the satellite will be supplied freely and openly worldwide. It will provide high-resolution images of almost all land and ice surfaces around the globe twice every 12 days.

    This is similar in scope to the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 SAR satellites. However, NISAR will be the first SAR satellite to use two complementary radar frequencies rather than one, and will be capable of producing higher resolution imagery compared with the Sentinel-1 satellites. It will also have greater coverage of Antarctica than Sentinel-1 and will use radar frequencies that penetrate further into vegetation.

    The NISAR satellite will be used to monitor forest biomass. Its ability to simultaneously penetrate vegetation and detect water will also allow it to accurately map flooded vegetation.

    This is important for gaining a deeper understanding of Earth’s wetlands, which are important ecosystems with high levels of biodiversity and massive carbon storage capacity.

    The satellite will also be able to detect changes in the height of Earth’s surface of a few centimetres or even millimetres, because changes in height create tiny shifts in the reflected radar signal.

    The NISAR satellite will use this technique to track subsidence of dams and map groundwater levels (since subsurface water affects the height of the Earth’s surface). It will also use the same technique to map land movement and damage from earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity.

    Such maps can help disaster response teams to better understand the damage that has occurred in disaster areas and to plan their response.

    Improving agriculture

    The NISAR satellite will also be useful for agricultural applications, with a unique capability to estimate moisture levels in soil with high resolution in all weather conditions.

    This is valuable for agricultural applications because such data can be used to determine when to irrigate to ensure healthy vegetation, and to potentially improve water use efficiency and crop yields.

    Further key applications of the NISAR mission will include tracking the flow of Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers, monitoring coastal erosion and tracking oil spills.

    We can expect to see many benefits for science and society to come from this highly ambitious satellite mission.

    Steve Petrie has previously received funding for satellite data analysis projects from XPrize Foundation, from Ernst & Young, and from the Cooperative Research Centre for Smart Satellite Technologies and Analytics (SmartSat CRC, which is funded by the Australian Government).

    – ref. A 3-tonne, $1.5 billion satellite to watch Earth’s every move is set to launch this week – https://theconversation.com/a-3-tonne-1-5-billion-satellite-to-watch-earths-every-move-is-set-to-launch-this-week-258283

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ER Report: A Roundup of Significant Articles on EveningReport.nz for June 13, 2025

    ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on June 13, 2025.

    As Antarctic sea ice shrinks, iconic emperor penguins are in more peril than we thought
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dana M Bergstrom, Honorary Senior Fellow in Ecology, University of Wollongong When winter comes to Antarctica, seals and Adélie penguins leave the freezing shores and head for the edge of the forming sea ice. But emperor penguins stay put. The existence of emperor penguins seems all but

    Bougainville legal dept looking towards sorcery violence policy
    RNZ Pacific The Department of Justice and Legal Services in Bougainville is aiming to craft a government policy to deal with violence related to sorcery accusations. The Post-Courier reports that a forum, which wrapped up on Wednesday, aimed to dissect the roots of sorcery/witchcraft beliefs and the severe violence stemming from accusations. An initial forum

    NZ has a vast sea territory but lags behind other nations in protecting the ocean
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Conrad Pilditch, Professor of Marine Sciences, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images For the past fortnight, the city of Nice in France has been the global epicentre of ocean science and politics. Last week’s One Ocean Science Congress ended with a unanimous call for action

    US Army’s image of power and flag-waving rings false to Gen Z weary of gun violence − and long-term recruitment numbers show it
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacob Ware, Adjunct Professor of Domestic Terrorism, Georgetown University A recruit participates in the Army’s future soldier prep course at Fort Jackson in Columbia, S.C., on Sept. 25, 2024. AP Photo/Chris Carlson The U.S. Army will celebrate its 250th birthday on Saturday, June 14, 2025, with a

    It took more than a century, but women are taking charge of Australia’s economy – here’s why it matters
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Duygu Yengin, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Adelaide For the first time in its 124-year history, Treasury will be led by a woman. Jenny Wilkinson’s appointment is historic in its own right. Even more remarkable is the fact she joins Michele Bullock at the Reserve Bank

    With Trump undoing years of progress, can the US salvage its Pacific Islands strategy?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Tidwell, Director, Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies, Georgetown University Donald Trump signs a proclamation expanding fishing rights in the Pacific Islands, April 17. Getty Images Since 2018, the United States has worked, albeit often haltingly, to regain its footing with Pacific Island countries.

    Workers need better tools and tech to boost productivity. Why aren’t companies stepping up to invest?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Head, Canberra School of Government, University of Canberra As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers turn their attention to improving productivity growth across the economy, it will be interesting to see what the business community brings to a planned summit in August. Labour

    AI overviews have transformed Google search. Here’s how they work – and how to opt out
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University cosma/Shutterstock People turn to the internet to run billions of search queries each year. These range from keeping tabs on world events and celebrities to learning new words and getting DIY help. One of the

    ‘Like an underwater bushfire’: SA’s marine algal bloom is still killing almost everything in its path
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Barrera, PhD Candidate, School of Public Health, University of Adelaide Paul Macdonald of Edithburgh Diving South Australian beaches have been awash with foamy, discoloured water and dead marine life for months. The problem hasn’t gone away; it has spread. Devastating scenes of death and destruction mobilised

    Sunday Too Far Away at 50: how a story about Aussie shearers launched a local film industry
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Walsh, Associate Professor, Screen and Media, Flinders University Released 50 years ago, Sunday Too Far Away deals episodically with a group of shearers led by Foley (Jack Thompson), and the events leading up to the national shearers’ strike of 1956. The shearers are a ragtag group

    Khartoum before the war: the public spaces that held the city together
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ibrahim Z. Bahreldin, Associate Professor of Urban & Environmental Design, University of Khartoum What makes a public space truly public? In Khartoum, before the current conflict engulfed Sudan, the answer was not always a park, a plaza or a promenade. The city’s streets, tea stalls (sitat al-shai),

    Politics with Michelle Grattan: Senator Tammy Tyrrell on wild days in Tasmania
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Tasmanian politics has been thrown into chaos after a Labor motion of no confidence forced Premier Jeremy Rockliff to either resign or call for a new election. The premier opted for the latter, with Tasmanians to vote on July 19,

    Chris Hedges: The last days of Gaza
    Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – The genocide is almost complete. When it is concluded it will have exposed the moral bankruptcy of Western civilisation, writes Chris Hedges. ANALYSIS: By Chris Hedges This is the end. The final blood-soaked chapter of the genocide. It will be over soon. Weeks. At most. Two

    Grattan on Friday: the galahs are chattering about ‘productivity’, but can Labor really get it moving?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Former prime minister Paul Keating famously used to say the resident galah in any pet shop was talking about micro-economic policy. These days, if you encounter a pet shop with a galah, she’ll be chattering about productivity. Productivity is currently

    Greenpeace activists aboard Rainbow Warrior disrupt Pacific industrial fishing operation
    By Emma Page Greenpeace activists on board the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior disrupted an industrial longlining fishing operation in the South Pacific, seizing almost 20 km of fishing gear and freeing nine sharks — including an endangered mako — near Australia and New Zealand. Crew retrieved the entire longline and more than 210 baited hooks

    View from The Hill: Is the US playing cat and mouse ahead of expected Albanese-Trump talks?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra For the first time in memory, an Australian prime minister is approaching a prospective meeting with a US president with a distinct feeling of wariness. Of course Anthony Albanese would deny it. But it’s undeniable the government is relieved that

    Caitlin Johnstone: Staring down the barrel of war with Iran once again
    Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone Well it looks like the US is on the precipice of war with Iran again. US officials are telling the press that they anticipate a potential impending Israeli attack on Iran while the family members of US military personnel are being assisted

    Global outrage over Gaza has reinforced a ‘siege mentality’ in Israel – what are the implications for peace?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eyal Mayroz, Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney After more than 20 months of devastating violence in Gaza, the right-wing Israeli government’s pursuit of two irreconcilable objectives — “destroying” Hamas and releasing Israeli hostages — has left the coastal strip in ruins. At

    The weight loss drug Mounjaro has been approved to treat sleep apnoea. How does it work?
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yaqoot Fatima, Professor of Sleep Health, University of the Sunshine Coast coldsnowstorm/Getty Images Last week, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved the weight-loss drug Mounjaro to treat sleep apnoea, a condition in which breathing stops and starts repeatedly during sleep. The TGA has indicated Mounjaro can be

    Not all insecure work has to be a ‘bad job’: research shows job design can make a big difference
    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rose-Marie Stambe, Adjunct Research Fellow, social and economic marginalisation, The University of Queensland Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock Inflation has steadied and interest rates are finally coming down. But for many Australians, especially those in low-paid, insecure or precarious work, the cost-of-living crisis feels far from over. The federal government

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: As Antarctic sea ice shrinks, iconic emperor penguins are in more peril than we thought

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dana M Bergstrom, Honorary Senior Fellow in Ecology, University of Wollongong

    When winter comes to Antarctica, seals and Adélie penguins leave the freezing shores and head for the edge of the forming sea ice. But emperor penguins stay put.

    The existence of emperor penguins seems all but impossible. Their lives revolve around seasons, timing and access to “fast ice” – sea ice connected to the Antarctic coast. Here, the sea ice persists long enough into summer for the penguins to rear their chicks successfully.

    But climate change is upending the penguins’ carefully tuned biological cycles. The crucial sea ice they depend on is melting too early, plunging the chicks from some colonies into the sea before they are fully fledged.

    In the latest bad news for these penguins, research by the British Antarctic Survey examined satellite images from 2009 to 2024 to assess fast-ice conditions at 16 emperor penguin colonies south of South America. They noted an average 22% fall in numbers across these colonies. That translates to a decrease of 1.6% every year.

    This rate of loss is staggering. As the paper’s lead author Peter Fretwell told the ABC, the rate is about 50% worse than even the most pessimistic estimates.

    Emperor penguin colonies can number in the tens of thousands. But these numbers obscure an alarming trend.
    Robert Harding Video/Shutterstock

    Breeding while it’s freezing

    Just like polar bears in the Arctic, emperor penguins are the iconic species threatened by climate change in Antarctica.

    Emperor penguins are a highly successful species. They’re the tallest and heaviest penguin alive today. They evolved about one million years ago, and are highly adapted to life in one of Earth’s harshest environments. As of 2009, the emperor penguin population was estimated at just shy of 600,000 birds.

    Unfortunately, they are now in real trouble, because their breeding habitat appears to be reducing.

    At the beginning of every Antarctic winter, the surface of the ocean begins to freeze and sea ice forms. Over March and April, emperor penguins aggregate into raucous breeding colonies along the coast of the ice continent. They need about nine months to care for their chicks, until the young penguins can go to sea and look after themselves.

    The males frequently huddle to keep each other warm and their eggs safe. Meanwhile, the females spend months at sea catching krill, squid and fish, returning in July/August to feed their hungry chicks. When summer finally comes in December, the chicks start to shed their down and grow a dense, waterproof plumage – like a feathery armour against the intensely cold seas off the icy continent.

    Breeding locations are a kind of “Goldilocks” zone. When choosing a home, the penguins have to find a place that is safe but not too far from the fast ice edge where they go to start hunting.

    The greater the distance they have to travel, the longer it takes to return to their offspring, and the chicks may miss out on meals. But if a colony is too close to the edge of the fast ice, the risk increases that the ice breaks up before the chicks are ready to go to sea. Although fast ice can cover vast areas of the ocean surface, its edge is exposed to the swell of the Southern Ocean.

    In recent years, the fast ice in different parts of Antarctica has been breaking up early, before the chicks have moulted into their adult plumage. Without waterproof plumage, chicks perish because the cold water kills quickly. As this happens more often, the size of a colony shrinks.

    How bad is it?

    We don’t yet know if this rate of loss is happening right across Antarctica. The study only covers a the part of the continent that includes the Antarctic Peninsula and the Weddell Sea.

    What we do know is that Antarctica and its unique biodiversity are not immune to the consequences of still-rising global greenhouse gas emissions.

    In 2021, emperor penguins were listed as endangered by the United States, because the risk of extinction by century’s end had increased. Australia has not yet listed the emperor penguin as a threatened species.

    The new research suggests the future of these iconic birds is not looking good. Until the world gets serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, sea ice will retreat – and more chicks will fall into the icy water before they are ready to launch.

    Seabird ecologist Dr Barbara Wienecke contributed to this article.

    Dana M Bergstrom is affiliated with the Pure Antarctic Foundation, a group of scientists and artists interested in communicating science and knowledge to the broader community.

    – ref. As Antarctic sea ice shrinks, iconic emperor penguins are in more peril than we thought – https://theconversation.com/as-antarctic-sea-ice-shrinks-iconic-emperor-penguins-are-in-more-peril-than-we-thought-258807

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: As Antarctic sea ice shrinks, iconic emperor penguins are in more peril than we thought

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Dana M Bergstrom, Honorary Senior Fellow in Ecology, University of Wollongong

    When winter comes to Antarctica, seals and Adélie penguins leave the freezing shores and head for the edge of the forming sea ice. But emperor penguins stay put.

    The existence of emperor penguins seems all but impossible. Their lives revolve around seasons, timing and access to “fast ice” – sea ice connected to the Antarctic coast. Here, the sea ice persists long enough into summer for the penguins to rear their chicks successfully.

    But climate change is upending the penguins’ carefully tuned biological cycles. The crucial sea ice they depend on is melting too early, plunging the chicks from some colonies into the sea before they are fully fledged.

    In the latest bad news for these penguins, research by the British Antarctic Survey examined satellite images from 2009 to 2024 to assess fast-ice conditions at 16 emperor penguin colonies south of South America. They noted an average 22% fall in numbers across these colonies. That translates to a decrease of 1.6% every year.

    This rate of loss is staggering. As the paper’s lead author Peter Fretwell told the ABC, the rate is about 50% worse than even the most pessimistic estimates.

    Emperor penguin colonies can number in the tens of thousands. But these numbers obscure an alarming trend.
    Robert Harding Video/Shutterstock

    Breeding while it’s freezing

    Just like polar bears in the Arctic, emperor penguins are the iconic species threatened by climate change in Antarctica.

    Emperor penguins are a highly successful species. They’re the tallest and heaviest penguin alive today. They evolved about one million years ago, and are highly adapted to life in one of Earth’s harshest environments. As of 2009, the emperor penguin population was estimated at just shy of 600,000 birds.

    Unfortunately, they are now in real trouble, because their breeding habitat appears to be reducing.

    At the beginning of every Antarctic winter, the surface of the ocean begins to freeze and sea ice forms. Over March and April, emperor penguins aggregate into raucous breeding colonies along the coast of the ice continent. They need about nine months to care for their chicks, until the young penguins can go to sea and look after themselves.

    The males frequently huddle to keep each other warm and their eggs safe. Meanwhile, the females spend months at sea catching krill, squid and fish, returning in July/August to feed their hungry chicks. When summer finally comes in December, the chicks start to shed their down and grow a dense, waterproof plumage – like a feathery armour against the intensely cold seas off the icy continent.

    Breeding locations are a kind of “Goldilocks” zone. When choosing a home, the penguins have to find a place that is safe but not too far from the fast ice edge where they go to start hunting.

    The greater the distance they have to travel, the longer it takes to return to their offspring, and the chicks may miss out on meals. But if a colony is too close to the edge of the fast ice, the risk increases that the ice breaks up before the chicks are ready to go to sea. Although fast ice can cover vast areas of the ocean surface, its edge is exposed to the swell of the Southern Ocean.

    In recent years, the fast ice in different parts of Antarctica has been breaking up early, before the chicks have moulted into their adult plumage. Without waterproof plumage, chicks perish because the cold water kills quickly. As this happens more often, the size of a colony shrinks.

    How bad is it?

    We don’t yet know if this rate of loss is happening right across Antarctica. The study only covers a the part of the continent that includes the Antarctic Peninsula and the Weddell Sea.

    What we do know is that Antarctica and its unique biodiversity are not immune to the consequences of still-rising global greenhouse gas emissions.

    In 2021, emperor penguins were listed as endangered by the United States, because the risk of extinction by century’s end had increased. Australia has not yet listed the emperor penguin as a threatened species.

    The new research suggests the future of these iconic birds is not looking good. Until the world gets serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, sea ice will retreat – and more chicks will fall into the icy water before they are ready to launch.

    Seabird ecologist Dr Barbara Wienecke contributed to this article.

    Dana M Bergstrom is affiliated with the Pure Antarctic Foundation, a group of scientists and artists interested in communicating science and knowledge to the broader community.

    – ref. As Antarctic sea ice shrinks, iconic emperor penguins are in more peril than we thought – https://theconversation.com/as-antarctic-sea-ice-shrinks-iconic-emperor-penguins-are-in-more-peril-than-we-thought-258807

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ has a vast sea territory but lags behind other nations in protecting the ocean

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Conrad Pilditch, Professor of Marine Sciences, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

    Getty Images

    For the past fortnight, the city of Nice in France has been the global epicentre of ocean science and politics.

    Last week’s One Ocean Science Congress ended with a unanimous call for action to turn around the degradation of the ocean. And this week, the United Nation’s Ocean Conference agenda focused on better protection of marine biodiversity, sustainable fisheries and emissions cuts.

    The message is clear. With only five years to the UN’s 2030 target for its sustainable development goal – to conserve the oceans, seas and marine resources – and the Global Biodiversity Framework requirement to protect 30% of the ocean, we need to make significant progress.

    We all attended last week’s meeting, together with more than 2,000 marine scientists from 120 countries. Here, we reflect on New Zealand’s role and obligations to contribute to these global goals.

    Legal imperatives

    Globally, the ocean is warming and acidifying at accelerating rates. New Zealand’s waters are not immune to this, with more marine heatwaves which further stress our threatened marine biodiversity.

    We depend directly on these ocean ecosystems to provide the air we breathe, moderate the impacts of climate change and feed millions of people.

    New Zealand has significant influence on ocean policy – from Antarctica to the sub-tropical Pacific, and within its sea territory, which is 15 times the size of its landmass and spans 30 degrees of latitude.

    The government is required by law to take action to secure a healthy ocean.

    A recent advisory opinion from the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea unanimously found that states, including New Zealand, have obligations under international law to reduce the impacts of climate change on marine areas, to apply an ecosystem approach to marine law and policy, reduce pollution and support the restoration of the ocean.

    New Zealand courts have recognised the need to take a precautionary and ecosystem-based approach to marine management, based on science, tikanga and mātauranga Māori. These legal cases are part of a global upswell of strategic environmental and climate litigation.

    If New Zealand does not comply with these marine legal obligations, it may well find itself before the courts, incurring significant legal and reputational costs.

    New Zealand committed to protecting at least 30% of the world’s coastal and marine areas by the end of this decade.
    Getty Images

    International agreements

    In 2022, New Zealand was one of 196 countries that committed to protecting at least 30% of the world’s coastal and marine areas by 2030 under the Global Biodiversity Framework. New Zealand was an enthusiastic supporter, but only 0.4% of its marine territory is fully protected in no-take marine reserves.

    Former prime minister Helen Clark has criticised the current government for lagging behind on marine protection, especially in failing to ban bottom trawling.

    At this week’s UN ocean summit, a further 18 countries have ratified an agreement known as the High Seas Treaty, bringing the total to 50, still short of the 60 nations needed for it to enter into force.

    New Zealand signed this treaty just before the last general election, but is yet to ratify it. Foreign Minister Winston Peters represented New Zealand at the UN ocean conference, but focused mainly on issues in the Pacific.

    Meanwhile, the government announced sweeping changes to the national direction on environmental policy, including reworking the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement to better enable the use and development of the coastal environment for “priority activities” such as aquaculture, resource extraction, infrastructure and energy.

    Oceanic environmental change is real and accelerating

    Some countries showed that effective leadership can help navigate to a safe future for the oceans. For example, China’s commitment to clean energy has seen carbon dioxide emissions begin to fall for the first time despite higher power consumption.

    At the UN ocean summit, French Polynesia’s president announced his administration would establish one of the world’s largest networks of marine protected areas.

    The cost of inaction far outweighs the economics of the status quo. Ongoing ocean warming is already affecting weather patterns, with more extreme storms.

    It is possible for marine ecosystems to recover quite rapidly if they are protected, at least temporarily. Yet this year, New Zealand’s government found itself in hot water (once again) with both conservationists and Māori for its management of fisheries.

    We argue New Zealand has an opportunity and responsibility to demonstrate it can shift the downward spiral of oceanic degradation.

    The overwhelming message at the half-way point of the UN Ocean Decade is that for marine science to transform the state of our oceans it needs to include Indigenous peoples who have routinely been sidelined from ocean policy discussions despite their longstanding rights and relationships with the ocean.

    New Zealand already has a foundation of transdisciplinary and Indigenous ocean research to develop ocean policies that are fit for local purposes and to answer global calls to action. We have a unique window of opportunity to lead the changes needed.

    Conrad Pilditch currently receives funding from the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment.

    Elizabeth Macpherson receives funding from Te Apārangi The Royal Society.

    Karin Bryan receives funding from the Marsden Fund, the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment, the George Mason Centre for the Natural Environment and Waikato Regional Council.

    Simon Francis Thrush receives funding from ERC, Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment and the Auckland Foundation

    Joanne Ellis, Karen Fisher, and Rachael Mortiaux do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. NZ has a vast sea territory but lags behind other nations in protecting the ocean – https://theconversation.com/nz-has-a-vast-sea-territory-but-lags-behind-other-nations-in-protecting-the-ocean-258470

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Assessing the Global Climate in May 2025

    Source: US National Oceanographic Data Center

    May Highlights:

    • May and March–May were much warmer than normal for the globe.
    • Global land average precipitation in May was record high, according to preliminary data.
    • Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was below-normal for the month.
    • Sea ice extent was below average for both poles.
    • Global tropical cyclone activity was below normal with two named storms.
     Map of global selected significant climate anomalies and events in May 2025.

    Temperature

    Globally, May 2025 was the second-warmest May in NOAA’s 176-year record, with a temperature 1.98°F (1.10°C) higher than the 20th-century baseline. This is 0.14°F (0.08°C) cooler than the record set last May (2024). According to NCEI’s Global Annual Temperature Outlook, it is very likely that 2025 will rank among the five warmest years on record, with less than a 1% chance of ranking as the warmest year on record. 

     Land and Ocean Temperature Percentiles for May 2025 (°C). Red indicates warmer than average and blue indicates colder than average.

    May temperatures were above average across much of the globe’s surface, in particular across most ocean areas and parts of every continent. Warm temperature departures were most notable in northern North America, the central and southern parts of South America, the British Isles and surrounding ocean, northern and southwestern Asia and across much of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Pockets of below-average temperatures were present across parts of Alaska, eastern Europe, India and Antarctica.

    Regionally, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and the Arctic all saw their May temperature rank among the 10 highest on record. Europe, Oceania and the Antarctic region also had above-average May temperatures, although they did not rank among the 20 warmest on record. India, parts of the northern Atlantic Ocean, the eastern and southeastern Pacific Ocean, central and eastern Europe and eastern Antarctica had May temperatures that were below average.

    Globally, the March–May 2025 surface temperature was the second-highest in NOAA’s 176-year record, just behind the record set in 2024. This three-month period, defined as meteorological spring for the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, was also the second warmest on record for both hemispheres individually.

    Surface Temperature Departure from the 1991–2020 Average for May 2025 (°C). Red indicates warmer than average and blue indicates colder than average.

    Precipitation

    May saw varied precipitation patterns globally. Many regions experienced drier-than-average conditions, including parts of North and South America, as well as northern Europe, southwestern Asia, southern Australia and areas in Russia and China. Southern Alaska, the eastern U.S., northern and southern parts of South America, northern and southeastern Australia and widespread parts of Asia had wetter-than-average conditions. Preliminary data indicate that the May 2025 globe land, averaged as a whole, had the wettest May in the historical record, which spans from 1979 to present.

    Snow Cover

    The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was the 15th-smallest May extent on record, with 370,000 square miles below average. Snow cover over North America and Greenland was below average by 200,000 square miles and was the 10th-smallest snow cover extent in the 59-year record. Eurasia was also below average by 170,000 square miles–the 16th-smallest extent for May. Below-normal snow cover was observed over Canada, parts of the Rockies in the United States and northern parts of Eurasia, as well as a band from western Mongolia through western China.

    Sea Ice

    Global sea ice extent was 550,000 square miles below the 1991–2020 average, ranking as the fifth-smallest May extent in the historical record. Arctic sea ice extent was also below average by 140,000 square miles, tying with 2004 as the seventh-smallest extent in the 47-year record. The Barents, Okhotsk and Bering Seas had lower than normal sea ice extent. The Antarctic sea ice extent was the fifth-smallest for May at 410,000 square miles below average.

    Map of the Arctic (left) and Antarctic (right) sea ice extent in May 2025.

    Tropical Cyclones

    Globally, tropical cyclone activity was below normal during May, with only two named storms. Neither storm reached tropical cyclone strength. One storm formed in the East Pacific basin, while the other formed in the Australian region. 
     

    For a more complete summary of climate conditions and events, see our May 2025 Global Climate Report or explore our Climate at a Glance Global Time Series.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Australian Antarctic Program appoints Chief Scientist

    Source: Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission

    The Australian Antarctic Program has appointed Professor Nerilie Abram from the Australian National University as its new Chief Scientist.
    Professor Abram is a professor of climate science, and was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2024.
    “I’m incredibly excited and honoured to be taking up the role of Chief Scientist of the AAD,” Professor Abram said.
    “Antarctica is such a special place, and the science that the Australian Antarctic Program does is critical for protecting Antarctica, and for preparing Australia and the world for how changes in Antarctica will affect us all.”

    Professor Abram has extensive experience as a climate and Antarctic scientist, most recently taking part in the Denman Terrestrial Campaign.
    She is a former Chair of the Academy of Science National Committee on Antarctic Research, where she served as Australia’s delegate to the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) and on Australia’s Antarctic Science Council.
    “It is great to be coming into this role with a new and ambitious Decadal science strategy,” she said.
    “One of my first priorities will be to work with the community to develop the plans for how we will implement this strategy within the AAD, and through bringing together the expertise that we have across the whole of the Australian Antarctic science community.”
    Professor Abram said she is taking up the role of Chief Scientist at an incredibly exciting time for Australian Antarctic science.
    “Major investments in Australia’s new icebreaker, RSV Nuyina, the Million Year Ice Core traverse and our national climate modelling capabilities are opening up research possibilities that we haven’t seen before,” she said.
    “The way that the Australian Antarctic science community has come together around major campaign-style research priorities offers a new way of tackling really big and important science problems.”
    The Head of the Australian Antarctic Division, Emma Campbell, said Professor Abram will be a welcome addition to the Science branch of the Division.
    “Professor Abram will be playing a key role in what will be a crucial time for Antarctic and Southern Ocean science,” she said.
     “We are planning the first environmental management voyage to Heard Island and McDonald Islands in over 20 years, which will have a significant Southern Ocean and sub-Antarctic science component,” she said.
    “We are also making excellent progress in the Million Year Ice Core campaign, as we chase the longest ice core climate record in history.
    “And the monitoring work done by our seabird teams will be crucial as we prepare for the arrival of avian influenza.”
    Professor Abram will take up the Chief Scientist posting in August.
    This content was last updated 16 minutes ago on 12 June 2025.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: The Earth Observer Editor’s Corner: April–June 2025

    Source: NASA

    NASA’s Earth science missions have continued to demonstrate remarkable adaptability and innovation, balancing the legacy of long-standing satellites with the momentum of cutting-edge new technologies. The Terra platform, the first of three Earth Observing System flagship missions, has been in orbit since December 1999. Over a quarter-century later, four of its five instruments continue to deliver valuable data, despite recent power challenges. As of this writing, Terra’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) – Visible–Near Infrared (VNIR) and Thermal Infrared (TIR) bands, Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and one of the two Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy Systems (CERES) instruments onboard, are all still producing science data. For reasons explained below, only the Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument has been shut down completely, after 25 years of successful operations. The longevity of the Terra instruments is credited to Terra’s instrument team members, who have skillfully adjusted operations to compensate for the reduction in power and extend Terra’s scientific contributions for as long as possible.
    Terra has been experiencing power-based limitations caused by platform orbital changes and solar array impacts. On November 28, 2024, one of Terra’s power-transmitting shunt units failed. A response team reviewed Terra’s status, and discussed potential impacts and options. Consequently, the team changed the battery charge rate and reduced spacecraft power demands by placing the ASTER instrument into safe mode.
    In order to maintain power margins, the Terra team also moved the MOPITT instrument from science mode into safe mode on February 4, 2025, ceasing data collection. On April 9, 2025, the Terra project determined that additional power was needed for the platform and MOPITT was moved from safe mode and fully turned off, ending the instrument’s carbon monoxide data record of near-global coverage every three days.
    MOPITT was the Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA) contribution to the Earth Observing System. Launched as part of Terra’s payload in 1999, it became the longest-running air quality monitor in space, and the longest continuously operating Canadian space mission in history. MOPITT’s specific focus was on the distribution, transport, sources, and sinks of carbon monoxide (CO) in the troposphere – see Figure. The spectrometer’s marquee Earthdata products have included MOPITT Near Real-Time Datasets and offerings from the MOPITT Science Investigator-led Processing System (MOPITT SIPS). From tracking pollution from wildfires to providing data that informs international climate agreements, MOPITT served as a powerful tool for gathering data about pollution in the lowest portion of Earth’s atmosphere, informing research, policies, and even helping to advance forecasting models used by scientists worldwide. Congratulations to the MOPITT team for more than 25 years of groundbreaking science and international collaboration!

    As chance would have it, the MOPITT Team had planned a 25th anniversary celebration in April, 10–11, 2025, at CSA headquarters in Longueuil, Quebec and online – which began one day after the instrument was shut down. The celebration was a fitting closeout to the MOPITT mission and a celebration of its accomplishments. Over the two days, more than 45 speakers shared memories and presented findings from MOPITT’s quarter-century record of atmospheric carbon monoxide monitoring. Its data showed a global decline in carbon monoxide emissions over two decades and could also track the atmospheric transport of the gas from fires and industry from individual regions. MOPITT is a testament to remarkable international collaboration and achievement. As it is officially decommissioned, its data record will continue to drive research for years to come.
    The Director General of the Canadian Space Agency—a key MOPITT partner—delivered remarks, and both Ken Jucks [NASA HQ— Program Manager for the Upper Atmosphere Research Program (UARP)] and Helen Worden [National Center for Atmospheric Research— MOPITT U.S. Principal Investigator] attended representing the U.S.
    More information is available in a recently-released Terra blog post and on the Canadian Space Agency MOPITT website.
    After continued investigation and monitoring of platform battery status, the Terra Flight Operations Team (FOT) determined there was sufficient power to resume imaging with ASTER’s VNIR bands, and as a result, ASTER once again began collecting VNIR data on January 17, 2025. Subsequently, ASTER resumed acquisitions for the TIR bands on April 15, 2025. (The ASTER Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) bands have been shut down since 2008).
    As one long-serving mission sunsets its operations, new missions are stepping in to carry forward the legacy of Earth system science with fresh capabilities and approaches. Launched on May 25, 2023, the NASA Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission provides a groundbreaking approach to studying tropical cyclones using a passive microwave sounder CubeSat constellation. TROPICS uses multiple small satellites flying in a carefully engineered formation to measure precipitation structure as well as temperature and humidity profiles both within and outside of storms.
    Unlike traditional polar-orbiting satellites, TROPICS’ low-inclination orbits allow for hourly revisits over tropical regions, enabling scientists to better monitor storm structure, intensity changes, and key processes like upper-level warm core formation and convective bursts.
    The mission has already significantly contributed to operational forecasting and scientific research. With over 10 billion observations to date, TROPICS data have been used to validate storm models, support early-warning systems, and improve forecasts for events like Hurricane Franklin and Typhoon Kong-rey. Collaborations with agencies like the National Hurricane Center and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center have shown the value of TROPICS channels, particularly the 204.8 GHz channel, in identifying storm structure and intensity. The data are publicly available through the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), and TROPICS continues to set the stage for the next generation of rapid-revisit Earth observation missions. To read more about the last two years of successful science operations with TROPICS, see NASA’s TROPICS Mission: Offering Detailed Images and Analysis of Tropical Cyclones.
    While some missions focus on monitoring atmospheric processes, others are expanding the frontiers of Earth observation in entirely different domains—ranging from seafloor mapping to land surface monitoring and beyond. NASA’s Ice, Clouds, and land Elevation Satellite–2 (ICESat-2) mission continues to provide critical data on Earth’s changing ice sheets, glaciers, and other environmental features. In March 2025, the satellite achieved a significant milestone by firing its two trillionth laser pulse, measuring clouds off the coast of East Antarctica. Despite challenges, such as a solar storm in May 2024 that temporarily disrupted operations, the mission has resumed full functionality, providing high-resolution data that has enabled scientists to map over 16 years of ice sheet changes. The mission’s advanced laser altimeter system, ATLAS, continues to deliver unprecedented detail in monitoring Earth’s changing ice sheets, glaciers, forests, and ocean floor.
    The ICESat-2 Satellite-Derived Bathymetry (SDB) workshop, held on March 17, 2025, in conjunction with the US-Hydro meeting, brought together experts and stakeholders from government, academia, and industry to explore the current capabilities and future potential of satellite-based seafloor mapping. With over 2000 journal articles referencing ICESat-2 in the context of bathymetry, the workshop underscored the growing importance of this technology in coastal management, navigation, habitat monitoring, and disaster response. For more details, see the ICESat-2 Applications Team Hosts Satellite Bathymetry Workshop report.
    As satellite technologies continue to evolve, so do the scientific communities that rely on them, bringing researchers together to share insights, refine data products, and explore new applications across a range of Earth and atmospheric science disciplines. As of early 2025, NASA’s Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) aboard the International Space Station (ISS) continues to provide critical insights into Earth’s atmospheric composition. In addition to scientific advancements, SAGE III/ISS has enhanced public accessibility to its data. In February 2025, the mission launched updates to its Quicklook and Expedited data portal, introducing a new ‘Highlights’ tab to showcase major stratospheric events and a ‘Comparisons’ tab for validating measurements with ground-based stations. These enhancements aim to make SAGE III/ISS data more accessible and increase its utilization for atmospheric research.
    The most recent SAGE III/ISS Science Team Meeting took place in October 2024 at NASA Langley Research Center and was held in hybrid format. Around 50 scientists gathered to discuss recent advancements, mission updates, and future directions in upper troposphere–stratosphere (UTS) research. The SAGE III/ISS team celebrated eight years of continuous data collection aboard the ISS and presented Version 6.0 of SAGE III/ISS data products during the meeting, which addresses previous data biases and enhances aerosol profile recovery. Presentations also covered aerosol and cloud studies, lunar-based aerosol retrievals, and collaborative projects using data from multiple satellite platforms and instruments. To learn more, see the full Summary of the 2024 SAGE III/ISS Meeting.
    Moving on to personnel announcements, I wish to extend my condolences to the friends and family of Dr. Stanley Sander, who passed away in March 2025. Sander devoted over 50 years to atmospheric science at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, making groundbreaking contributions to stratospheric ozone research, air pollution, and climate science. His precise laboratory work on reaction kinetics and spectroscopy became foundational for atmospheric modeling and environmental policy, including the Montreal Protocol. Sander also played a key role in satellite calibration, mentored dozens of young scientists, and held several leadership positions at JPL. Remembered for his brilliance, humility, and kindness, his legacy endures through both his scientific achievements and the many lives he influenced. See In Memoriam: Dr. Stanley Sander.
    On a happier, though bittersweet, note, my congratulations to Jack Kaye [NASA HQ—Associate Director for Research, Earth Science Division (ESD)] who retired from NASA on April 30, 2025, after 42 years of distinguished service. With a background in chemistry and atmospheric science, he played a leading role in NASA’s efforts to understand Earth’s atmosphere and climate using satellite data and modeling. Throughout his career, Kaye has held various key leadership positions, managed major missions, e.g., the series of Shuttle-based Atmospheric Laboratory of Applications and Science (ATLAS) experiments, and supported the development of early-career scientists. He also represented NASA in national and international science collaborations and advisory roles. Kaye received numerous awards, published extensively, and was widely recognized for his contributions to Earth science and global climate research. I extend my sincere thanks to Jack for his many years of vital leadership and lasting contributions to the global Earth science community!
    Barry Lefer [NASA HQ—Tropospheric Composition Program Manager] has taken over as Acting Associate Director for Research in ESD. Reflecting on Kaye’s impact, Lefer said, “Jack has been a wonderful friend and mentor. The one thing about Jack that has had the biggest impact on me (besides his incredible memory) is his kindness. He has an enormous heart. He will be missed, but his impact on Earth Science will endure for a very long time!” See the full announcement, Jack Kaye Retires After a Storied Career at NASA.
    Steve PlatnickEOS Senior Project Scientist

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Foreign Minister strengthens relationship with Italy

    Source: New Zealand Government

    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has concluded a constructive visit to Italy, marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. 

    Mr Peters and Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani met in Rome overnight and confirmed the strength of the bilateral relationship that New Zealand and Italy share.   

    “New Zealand and Italy are long-standing partners,” Mr Peters says. “We have agreed to work more closely together, in order to expand strategic and trade and economic relations.

    “We work closely in Antarctica and have shared interests in supporting the rules-based international order and multilateral system, including cooperation on human rights and UN reform,” Mr Peters says. 

    Mr Peters signed an arts, science and sport arrangement with Minister Tajani, which supports cooperation between New Zealand and Italy in these areas. 

    While in Rome, Mr Peters also met:

    • a range of Italian businesses with investment and commercial interests in New Zealand; and
    • Elizabeth Dibble, the Director-General of the Multinational Forces and Observers (MFO), the international peace monitoring organisation in the Sinai which New Zealand has supported since its inception in 1982. 

    Mr Peters now travels to Jakarta, to attend the annual Indonesia-New Zealand Joint Ministerial Commission meeting.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: UN chief warns against turning deep sea into ‘Wild West’

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    NICE, France, June 10 (Xinhua) — Countries must respect science and international law when it comes to exploiting the seabed to prevent it from becoming a lawless “Wild West,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday at the opening of the third U.N. Ocean Conference in Nice, southeastern France.

    He said there was a need to balance legitimate concerns about environmental impacts with legitimate interests in using ocean resources to support economic sustainability and the transition to green energy. He stressed that future actions should be “science-based, precautionary and consistent with the rights and obligations enshrined in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

    “I support the ongoing work of the International Seabed Authority on this important issue. The deep sea cannot become the Wild West,” the Secretary-General added.

    The third UN Ocean Conference, co-hosted by France and Costa Rica, aims to contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG14): conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.

    Speaking at the opening of the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke out against deep-sea exploitation, warning that much of the seabed remains largely unexplored. “It is madness to exploit the deep sea before exploration has even begun… A moratorium on deep sea exploitation is an international imperative,” Macron said.

    “The deep sea is not for sale, just like Greenland, Antarctica or the open sea,” he said.

    In April, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing deep-sea mining, a unilateral move that drew criticism from the International Seabed Authority. –0–

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Australia’s government is pledging better protection for our vulnerable seas – but will it work?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carissa Klein, Associate Professor in Conservation Biology, The University of Queensland

    Nigel Marsh/Getty

    Ahead of this week’s crucial United Nations ocean conference, federal Environment Minister Murray Watt promised that by 2030, 30% of Australian waters would be “highly protected”.

    This is a telling pledge. After all, 52% of Australian waters are now protected following years of rapid expansion. But many are “paper parks” – lines on a map with very little real protection.

    Watt is proposing to expand the area under gold-standard protection, meaning fishing, mining and drilling would be banned inside the parks. This is welcome. But it must be done strategically, protecting ecologically representative and high biodiversity areas.

    If Watt is serious, he must ensure these upgraded marine parks cover poorly protected habitats important for biodiversity. These include shallow coastal zones, submarine canyons, seamounts and rocky reefs on the continental shelf. It’s not just about protecting 30% of the seas – marine parks must protect the full range of species and habitats in Australia.

    Bottom trawling and other fishing practices can do great damage to underwater ecosystems.
    mjstudio.lt/Shutterstock

    Impressive on paper

    Australia’s waters cover all five of the world’s climate zones, from the coral reefs of the tropics to the icy shores of Antarctica. At least 33,000 marine species are found in the nation’s marine boundaries – the most on Earth. Australia also has the most endemic marine species.

    For more than 30 years, successive federal and state governments in Australia have claimed global leadership roles in conserving ocean areas. Just last year, the Albanese government claimed the latest expansion meant Australia now protected “more ocean than any other country on earth”.

    When 196 countries committed to the goal of “30% by 2030” – the effective protection and management of at least 30% of the world’s coastal and marine areas by decade’s end – Australia was already well past that in terms of the size of areas considered marine protected areas.

    About 45% of marine waters were protected in 2022, up from 7% in 2002. Now that figure is 52%.

    Job done? Not even close. Even as Australia’s marine protected areas have rapidly expanded, marine species populations have shrunk while entire ecosystems hover on the brink.

    More than half of Australia’s marine parks allow commercial fishing and mining. The latest large protection around the sub-Antarctic Heard and McDonald Islands doesn’t give strong protection to species-rich areas such as seamounts and undersea canyons.

    Losses everywhere

    Tasmania’s giant kelp forests once ringed the island state. At least 95% have vanished since the 1990s, wiped out by warmer waters and voracious sea urchins.

    Before European settlement, oyster reefs carpeted shallow sea floors in temperate east coast waters. But 99% of these have gone.

    Half the Great Barrier Reef’s coral cover died between 1995 and 2017 – a period with only two mass bleaching events. Bleaching has become more regular and more severe since then.

    Many marine species are in serious trouble. The most comprehensive assessment to date found populations of 57% of species living on coral, rocky and kelp reefs had fallen between 2011 and 2021. In 2020, a Tasmanian endemic species, the smooth handfish, became the first marine fish officially listed as extinct on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

    As the oceans get hotter, coral reefs are forecast to be wiped out. Poor marine water quality is drowning coastal species and ecosystems in sediments, nutrients, chemicals, and pathogens, including in The Great Barrier Reef.

    That’s not to say marine park expansion and other government efforts have been worthless. Far from it.

    Some whales have rebounded strongly due to the moratorium on commercial whaling. Good management of the southern bluefin tuna led to its removal from the threatened species list last year.

    Efforts to phase out gill net fishing are bearing fruit, while water quality has improved a little in the Great Barrier Reef.

    But these wins don’t offset an overall rapid decline.

    Action needed on climate and improving marine parks

    Giving Australia’s marine parks better protection won’t solve the problem of hotter, more acidic oceans due to climate change.

    Australia’s current emission target is consistent with a 2°C warming pathway. That level of warming would mean the loss of 99% of the world’s coral reefs.

    Australia is one of the world’s biggest producers of coal and liquefied natural gas and still has one of the world’s highest rates of land clearing, accounting for up to 12% of the country’s total emissions in some years.

    Protecting life in the seas means Australia must dramatically reduce emissions, end widespread land clearing and halt the approval of new coal and gas projects.

    Better protection inside marine parks will stop other major threats, such as seabed mining, gas and oil exploration and fishing.

    To date, Australia’s marine parks with high levels of protection are typically in remote areas with minimal human activity threatening biodiversity.

    From paper parks to real conservation leadership

    For decades, Australian leaders have touted their efforts to protect the seas. It’s now abundantly clear that paper protection isn’t enough.

    To arrest the steep decline in marine life, Australia must properly protect its marine areas by preventing fishing and mining in areas important for all marine species, while expanding its highly protected marine parks to save unprotected ecosystems.

    Minister Watt’s pledge is welcome. But it must actually prevent damaging human activities such as fishing and oil and gas extraction which are major contributors to the extinction crisis.

    Leaders must also focus on sustainable production and consumption of seafood and ramp up their ambition to tackle climate change and marine pollution.

    If Australia continues to expand paper parks without doing the hard work of genuine protection, it will set a dangerous precedent.

    Carissa Klein receives funding from the Australian Research Council

    James Watson has received funding from the Australian Research Council, National Environmental Science Program, South Australia’s Department of Environment and Water, Queensland’s Department of Environment, Science and Innovation as well as from Bush Heritage Australia, Queensland Conservation Council, Australian Conservation Foundation, The Wilderness Society and Birdlife Australia. He serves on the scientific committee of BirdLife Australia and has a long-term scientific relationship with Bush Heritage Australia and Wildlife Conservation Society. He serves on the Queensland government’s Land Restoration Fund’s Investment Panel as the Deputy Chair.

    Amelia Wenger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Australia’s government is pledging better protection for our vulnerable seas – but will it work? – https://theconversation.com/australias-government-is-pledging-better-protection-for-our-vulnerable-seas-but-will-it-work-258286

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –