SciencePoles news
Recent Polar Science and Climate Change news are featured here. Our news RSS feed will inform you when news are published on this website.
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Current Arctic Sea Ice Loss Unprecedented for past 1,500 Years
25.11.2011
Scientists at Natural Resources Canada have reported in a study published in Nature that recent dramatic Arctic sea ice loss is greater than any natural variation in the past 1,500 years. The loss has been driven by a series of factors that never coincided in historical periods of major sea ice…
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Origins of Gamburtsev Sublacial Mountains Explained
17.11.2011
An international team of scientists from seven nations recently published in Nature their findings regarding the origins of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, located 3 km beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. How the mountains formed is a mystery that has interested scientists since they were first discovered in 1958 as…
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Treeline in Alaska seeing Faster-Growing Tree Species in a Warming Climate
14.11.2011
A study recently published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that some white spruce trees in the far north of Alaska have experienced a growth spurt over the course of the past century, particularly since 1950. The study covers 1,000 years of climate history and suggests that ecosystems in…
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Colossal Storm Hits Alaska
14.11.2011
During the second week of November, a major storm that meteorologists refer to as an “extra tropical cyclone” hit Alaska’s western coastline, pounding the region with heavy snow and unusually strong winds. The storm displaced thousands of coastal residents and left behind widespread damage, including flooding, power outages and destroyed…
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Improving Our Understanding of Ice Formation in Arctic Clouds
07.11.2011
It is quite common to find shallow, persistent cloud layers made from a mixture of both liquid water droplets and ice crystals in the Arctic. In cloud tops warmer than -38°C, aerosols that freeze at warmer temperatures, known as ice nuclei, are needed for ice crystals to form.
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Studying How Microbes in Permafrost Respond to Thawing
07.11.2011
Recent assessments estimate that Arctic permafrost stores as much as 1,672 billion metric tons of carbon – 250 times what the United States emitted in greenhouse gasses in 2009. As temperatures rise, scientists worldwide are concerned about the possible consequences of a massive release of carbon from the soils thawing…
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IceBridge Project Finds Major Crack in Pine Island Glacier
31.10.2011
A team of scientists participating in NASA's IceBridge mission were flying over a portion of West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier on October 14th when they discovered a 29 km crack across the glacier’s tongue. The 80-metre wide crack is the first step in the creation of a massive new 800…
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Underwater Ridge Key to Better Understanding Thwaites Glacier Flow
31.10.2011
According to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, the retreat of the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is likely to accelerate within the next two decades. Due to its potential to contribute to sea level rise, the Thwaites Glacier is being closely monitored, along with the Getz Ice Shelf…
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Reindeer’s Cooling Strategy Examined
31.10.2011
Reindeer fur keeps the animals well protected from the freezing Arctic temperatures. However what’s puzzled scientists has been how reindeer manage to keep cool during sustained physical activity. A team from the University of Tromsø in Norway determined reindeer’s strategies to keep cool in a study published in The Journal…
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Greenland Mud Volcanoes Possible Birthplace of Terrestrial Life
31.10.2011
In a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of scientists lead by by researchers from the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon identified the mud volcanoes at Isua in southwest Greenland as a possible source of primitive life on Earth. During the…
