Red alert in Antarctica: the year rapid, dramatic change hit climate scientists like a ‘punch in the guts’

Research suggests that accelerated melting of ice shelves over the Amundsen Sea in west Antarctica is locked in and beyond human control for the rest of this century, even if emissions are significantly reduced. Photograph: Michael Shortt/AP

Morning is a construct in the Antarctic summer. It’s 7.30am and Nerilie Abram, a climate science professor at the Australian National University, is having breakfast at Casey station when she takes Guardian Australia’s call in late November. The sun barely kissed the horizon the night before, and won’t fall below it for weeks.

Constant daylight can be famously discombobulating for first-time visitors to Antarctica, but for experienced researchers such as Abram, it is just the backdrop to life at the end of the Earth. This year, though, something else is deeply strange.