While you may not have been quite this isolated over the last few months, reentry into life after lockdown might be bumpier than you expect.

The loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic is now very likely before 2050, new research shows, even if the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis are cut rapidly. The result has alarmed scientists but they said slashing greenhouse gases remained vital as this would determine whether Arctic summer ice vanished permanently or could recover over time. If emissions remain very high, there is a risk the Arctic could be ice-free even in the dark, cold winter months, a possibility described as “catastrophic”.

When paleontologist Thomas Mörs was peering into a microscope while sorting through tiny 40 million-year-old fossils unearthed on Seymour Island near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, he came across quite a surprise - hip and skull bones of a frog.

Antarctica and Greenland lost thousands of gigatons of ice in the last 16 years, according to results

Snow algae bloom along the coast of Antarctica and are likely to be biogeochemically important. Here, the authors produced the first map of such blooms, show that they are driven by warmer temperatures and proximity to birds and mammals, and are likely to increase given projected climate changes.

It's not grass growing along the Antarctic Peninsula. The culprits are a lot smaller.

Rob Robbins and Steve Rupp have been diving under the Antarctic sea ice for a combined 60 years. Hang around their dive headquarters at McMurdo Station and you’ll see rows of oxygen tanks, wetsuits, and breathing apparatus.

Scientists say they have discovered compelling evidence that diamonds exist in the icy mountains of Antarctica.

Parts of ancient Antarctica were as warm as today’s California coast, and polar regions of the southern Pacific Ocean registered 21st-century Florida heat, according to scientists using a new way to measure past temperatures.

Scientists are monitoring an iceberg roughly six times the size of Manhattan - one of the largest now in existence - that broke off from an Antarctic glacier and is heading into the open ocean.

Canadian author Matt Chatelain's video trailer for The Vostok Juncture promises adventure and intrigue. We help authors from around the world put their ideas into words.

Scientists have revealed that Earth's mantle under Antarctica is at a lower viscosity and moving at such a rapid rate it is changing the shape of the land at a rate that can be recorded by GPS. They have explained for the first time why the upward motion of Earth's crust in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula is currently taking place so quickly.

Teams of scientists say the long-feared collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun, kicking off what's likely to be a centuries-long process that could raise sea levels by as much as 15 feet.

Seven countries have laid claim to parts of Antarctica and many more have a presence there - why do they all want a piece of this frozen wasteland? I pick a path between rock pools and settle my bottom on a boulder. A spectacular, silent view unfolds across a mountain-fringed bay. Then there is a flash in the shallows by my feet - an arrow of white and black.

Behind the Argentina's Esperanza Base, on the Antarctic peninsula, it's possible to stand on a cliff and look down on a colony of 250 000 Adelie penguins. This area, the most frequented by penguins going to and from the sea, changes its appearance daily, depending on snowfall, blooms of algae in the ice, or the colors that the penguins drag along with their feet.

An incredible ice-berg wave, frozen in time, hangs delicately over the serene waters of Paradise Harbour along the Antarctic Peninsula. The textures in this berg were breathtaking. By Tim McCullough.

Iceberg collapsed a couple of seconds, no injuries

Scientists have pulled up thousands of different types of micro-organisms from Lake Whillans, a large body of water buried 800m under the ice sheet.

Researchers have for the first time extensively mapped Greenland's and Antarctica's ice sheets with the help of the ESA satellite CryoSat-2 and have thus been able to prove that the ice crusts of both regions momentarily decline at an unprecedented rate. In total the ice sheets are losing around 500 cubic kilometers of ice per year.

More than 9,000 species, from single-cell organisms to penguins and whales, are chronicled in the first Antarctic atlas since 1969.