Articles & Interviews
Sciencepoles articles look at key findings from a range of polar science and research fields. Our articles RSS feed will inform you when new articles are published on this website.
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Arctic Climate Change: ACIA Report Summary
08.11.2006
Our climate is already changing, particularly in the Arctic where the permafrost is melting, glaciers are receding, and sea ice is disappearing. Changes in the Arctic not only affect local people and ecosystems but also the rest of the world, because the Arctic plays a special role in global climate.
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Atmosphere, Isotopes and the Polar Record of Global Climate
27.10.2006
Dr. Pieter Tans is a Senior Scientist at the NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESLR). Dr. Tans is an acclaimed expert in carbon cycle and greenhouse gases. He has been studying atmospheric chemistry for over 30 years, utilizing every available resource from field measurements of gas exchange in current atmosphere…
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International Polar Year Focuses on Climate Change
28.09.2006
Of the nearly 220 international research projects endorsed by the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-08, around half will be looking at the effects of climate change in the Polar Regions, and the implications of this change for the Earth's climate system as a whole. In this feature, SciencePoles examines the…
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The ABCs of the IPY 2007-2008
01.09.2006
The International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 has adopted the slogan "Polar Science - Global Impact" as the IPY will be an interdisciplinary and internationally coordinated research campaign, expected to usher in a new era of polar science. The international scientific community is eagerly anticipating its start in March 2007, as…
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The 125-Year Legacy of the International Polar Year
12.07.2006
Mark McCaffrey is associate scientist and science communications specialist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado, Boulder. He is also working with the International Polar Foundation in its efforts to communicate on the reality of climate change through the findings of Polar sciences. As…
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Connecting Arctic Sea Ice and Tibetan Plateau Snow Cover
07.06.2006
Rising global temperatures are melting glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau at an increasingly rapid rate. This may have caused many serious flooding occurrences in the past decade and could contribute to future serious water shortages (and other ecological problems). In response to this growing problem, the Polar Research Institute of…
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Polar Albedo: The Earth’s White Caps Help Keep the Climate in Balance
31.01.2006
Albedo lowers the planet's average temperature. Albedo is a technical term (from the Latin alba for "white") but a very simple concept: the extent to which a surface reflects the Sun's rays. So in the case of the Earth as a whole, the darker its surface on average the more…
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Climate Change: The Essentials
21.12.2005
Climate change linked to global warming is a critical issue for polar scientists and researchers. The climate of the poles is changing faster than the rest of the world and what once seemed immutable aspects of the polar climate, such as Arctic sea ice at the North Pole, are now…
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Flora and Fauna: The Essentials
27.10.2005
The Arctic and Southern Oceans may be comparable in the abundance and adaptation methods of the species they harbour in their waters, but the flora and fauna of the polar lands could not be more different. Whereas Antarctica is a continent on which the largest land based animal is a…
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Greenland’s Ice Sheet Becoming Top-Heavy
20.10.2005
Scientists from Norway, Russia and the United States have released findings from their study published in Science Express of satellite data over the period 1992-2003 - revealing a new picture of what is happening to Greenland's massive ice-sheet.
