A lone Adélie penguin on the sea ice. Photo: Claire Concannon / RNZ
New Zealand's neighbour in Antarctica, the US, is making cuts to research programmes that will inevitably have flow on effects for Kiwi researchers - at a time where it's needed more than ever.
Alarm over Donald Trump's sweeping funding cuts has spread to the earth's far corners with fears that US scientific research in Antarctica will be hit hard and spill over to New Zealand's work on the frozen continent.
The uncertainty has been dragging on for weeks but some Antarctica scientists have already lost their jobs and programmes are at risk after cuts to the US$9 billion (NZ$15.3b) National Science Foundation which finances polar research.
US news website Nature reports that the Trump administration has already withdrawn construction funds previously set aside to update its largest base McMurdo, while several programme officers have been fired and rehired.
The New York Times reported that one of those scientists who lost his job was David Porter, who had been supporting scientists embarking from New Zealand on a 10-week expedition in the Southern Ocean.
"This is such a fast moving chaotic time," says RNZ's Our Changing World presenter Claire Concannon, who was in Antarctica in November and has just released a series, Voices of the Sea Ice.
"If cuts do happen to the National Science Foundation, it is hard to see how it wouldn't affect New Zealand research in Antarctica."
The US is one of the largest funders of Antarctica research, with three bases on the continent, including McMurdo a close neighbour of New Zealand's own Scott Base.
Concannon said the collaboration between the two goes beyond science to logistics.
"There's a huge, huge amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to have the bases there, to keep them running, to have the infrastructure, to have the safety that you need.
"The US team maintains the South Pole Highway across the Ross Ice Shelf, making sure that there's no crevasses there that are going to be a danger."
The extent of the cuts is still not clear but the matter is so sensitive that the director of the Antarctic Research Project Rob McKay declined to talk to The Detail.
In an email he said the two countries have worked together in Antarctica since the 1950s and they are working on the assumption that US support and collaboration will be ongoing.
Earlier this month Antarctica New Zealand announced a boost for Antarctic and Southern Ocean research, after it received new Strategic Catalyst funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
"Up to five million dollars over five years will advance joint Antarctic research between New Zealand and the United States, contributing significantly to global scientific understanding," a statement said.
But the uncertainty over future funding makes it difficult to plan, says Professor Gary Wilson, deputy vice chancellor research at Waikato University and president of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), which leads and develops all the scientific activities among 46 countries.
"Time is just not on our side," says Wilson. "That's why it's potentially going to be a blow to what we do."
This year alone we hit the lowest ever global sea ice, Antarctica recorded the second lowest summer sea ice extent and lowest winter sea ice extent on record.
US programmes are not the only ones facing funding insecurity, Wilson said.
"We're all struggling a bit with respect to funding as we've come out of the Covid years and we're trying to restart economies around the world. Quite a few countries are making choices as to how they spend money.
"The challenge for us is that Antarctica can't wait. We're already seeing the planet, last year it reached 1.5 degrees (Celsius) above pre-industrial levels and it's on track to be another degree warmer in the next decade or 15 years."
He said that New Zealand Antarctica scientists collaborate with researchers from several countries, enabling them to work at a scale that is greater than New Zealand could afford on its own.
Despite the uncertainty scientists from around the world, through SCAR, are working towards large, collaborative programmes to mark a fifth International Polar Year in 2032.
Wilson said we have the tools to tackle climate change but more urgency is needed and carbon zero should no longer be the goal.
"We need to think about carbon negative. To do that, I don't mean how we get into taking CO2 out of the atmosphere in a technical sense, I mean actually the planet does it naturally and there are an awful lot of carbon sinks that we have not paid attention to.
"There are tools available to us that we could use to start to make a difference, we're just not making good enough progress on it."
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