Abstract: The Cook Ice Cap (CIC) on the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands recently experienced extremely negative surface mass balance. Further deglaciation could have important impacts on endemic and invasive fauna and flora. To put this exceptional glacier evolution into a multi-centennial-scale context, we refined the evolution of the CIC over the last millennium, investigated the associated climate conditions and explored its potential evolution by 2100 ce. A glaciological model, constrained by cosmic ray exposure dating of moraines, historical documents and recent direct mass balance observations, was used to simulate the ice-cap extents during different phases of advance and retreat between the last millennium and 2100 ce. Cosmogenic dating suggests glacial advance around the early Little Ice Age (LIA), consistent with findings from other sub-Antarctic studies, and the rather cold and humid conditions brought about by the negative phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). This study contributes to our currently limited understanding of palaeoclimate for the early LIA in the southern Indian Ocean. Glaciological modelling and observations confirm the recent decrease in CIC extent linked to the intensification of the SAM. Although affected by large uncertainties, future simulations suggest a complete disappearance of CIC by the end of the century.

Abstract: The present work resolved the long-standing taxonomic problem associated with the enigmatic ?Mastigoteuthis B Clarke, 1980, by demonstrating that these lower beaks correspond to those of the large deep-sea chiroteuthid Asperoteuthis acanthoderma (Lu, 1977). A review of the existing literature listed 22 specimens of A. acanthoderma, but synonymizing ?Mastigoteuthis B with A. acanthoderma increased 14 times the species record worldwide. Pooling the data from both specimens and beaks (a total of 329 individuals) indicates that the species has a circumglobal distribution, since it occurs in tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. The synonymization also highlights trophic relationships of the species as a prey of top marine predators. Lower beaks of A. acanthoderma were mostly found in stomachs of sperm whales, but a few beaks were also recorded from stomach contents of sharks, swordfish and the wandering albatross.

Abstract: Using significant technological breakthroughs and unconventional approaches, the goal of the in situ probing of glacier ice for a better understanding of the orbital response of climate (SUBGLACIOR) project is to advance ice core research by inventing, constructing and testing an in situ probe to evaluate if a target site is suitable for recovering ice as old as 1.5 million years. Embedding a laser spectrometer, the probe is intended to make its own way down into the ice and to measure, in real time and down to the bedrock, the depth profiles of the ice ?D water isotopes as well as the trapped CH4 gas concentration and dust concentration. The probe descent is achieved through electromechanical drilling combined with continuous meltwater sample production using a central melting finger in the drill head. A key aspect of the project lies in the design and implementation of an efficient method to continuously transfer to the surface the ice chips being produced by the drill head and from the refreezed water expulsed downstream from the melting finger, into the borehole. This paper presents a detailed calculation and analysis of the flow rates and pressure conditions required to overcome friction losses of the drilling fluid and to effectively transport ice chips to the surface.