These last few months have been a turbulent time to be an oceanographer, particularly one specialising in the vast Southern Ocean around Antarctica and its role in our climate. The media has been awash with stories of marine heatwaves across the northern hemisphere, the potential collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation by mid-century and the record-breaking deficit in Antarctic sea ice emerging this southern winter. Alongside heatwaves and bushfires in North America and southern Europe, flooding in China and South American winter temperatures above 38C, the climate has moved from a “future problem” to a “now problem” in the…