The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 10 letter word ANTARCTICA
I've seen this crossword clue in Independent
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More clues leading to the result ANTARCTICA
- Sinfonia by VW includes start of coda in large-scale mass
- Soldier with truck advanced across cold continent
- Social worker caught in lorry north of a cold place
- Artist turned and entered: “I can’t act romantically; the atmosphere’s frosty here”
- Lark circling sailor caught — a bleak prospect?
- Worker getting cold in truck area? He definitely would be here
- Sailor caught in funny business at a place down south
- Insect on top of the world – a long way from that
- Cold environment results from tip of iceberg leaving Titanic a wreck around bow
- Art: I can act crazy in the deep deep South?
Buddy explains!

The straight part
We know that "bleak prospect?" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case bleak prospect? = antarctica.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.