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Hidden ocean heat is creeping toward Antarctica’s fragile ice shelves

Deep beneath the Southern Ocean, a quiet but alarming shift is underway: warm water is creeping closer to Antarctica, and scientists are now seeing it clearly for the first time. By combining decades of ship data with robotic float measurements and machine learning, researchers uncovered that a massive pool of heat—circumpolar deep water—has expanded and edged toward the continent over the past 20 years.

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