$24m for Antarctic gateway

The federal government will spend $24 million over three years promoting Hobart as the ideal gateway for global researchers heading to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica.

A partnership between the Australian Antarctic Division, CSIRO and University of Tasmania, launched on Thursday hopes to get more scientists on the ice and will include a major research voyage in early 2016 looking at tipping points in waters surrounding the frozen continent, as ecosystems deal with changing conditions.

"This includes determining which key species will be more sensitive to change, which species may contribute to change and how change will vary from region to region," the university said in a statement.