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.

Warm Mid-Pliocene a Warning for Today’s Warming Arctic

31.12.2009

Scientists from the US Geological Survey found that the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas were too warm to support summer sea ice during the mid-Pliocene warm period (3.3 to 3 million years ago) in a study published in Stratigraphy.
Melting Tundra to Lead to Increased Carbon Emissions in Arctic Ocean

30.12.2009

According to research conducted by the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, the release of organic material from the Arctic tundra as it thaws will ultimately result in additional carbon dioxide emissions.
Snow Flakes Could Shed Light on Ozone Depletion in the Arctic

08.12.2009

Ice chemists from Purdue University in Indiana are currently studying the variability of snowflake geometry to gain better insight into the dynamics of ground-level ozone depletion in the Arctic.
New Fossils Show Antarctica May Have Been Refuge during End-Permian Extinction

03.12.2009

Researchers have identified a new fossil species, Kombuisia antarctica, a species they believe survived the massive End-Permian Extinction 252 million years ago (an extinction event that wiped out most living species on the planet and may have been caused by global warming) by living in cooler climates in Antarctica.
Using Satellites to Track Wolves during the Arctic Winter

02.12.2009

Scientists are tracking the movements of wolves using satellites. In July on Ellesmere Island in Canada, US Geological Survey wolf researcher David Mech and Canadian biologist Dean Cluff equipped Brutus, a 9-year old wolf pack leader they first encountered in 2003, with a satellite collar.
Onset of Younger Dryas Happened in Matter of Months Not Decades

02.12.2009

While investigating a mud core retrieved from ancient Lake Lough Monreach in Ireland, Dr. William Patterson from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, has succeeded to show that the North Atlantic circulation might have stopped in a matter of months and not decades as was previously thought, triggering rapid climate…
Accelerating Climate Change Requires Urgent Emission Reductions

30.11.2009

With ice sheets melting at an increasing rate and Arctic sea ice vanishing faster than projected, The Copenhagen Diagnosis, a new report documenting the key findings in climate change science since the publication of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, has been released to give an update on scientific…
Satellites Give False Estimates of Multiyear Arctic Sea Ice Extent

30.11.2009

In 2008 and 2009, satellites that surveyed the Arctic sea ice extent provided data showing the multiyear sea ice extent recovering. However while sailing an icebreaker research vessel, the NGCC Amundsen, in the southern Beaufort Sea, University of Manitoba researcher Dr. David Barber found thin, "rotten" ice instead of thick…
Cryosat-2 Gets Go-ahead for Launch

26.11.2009

Now that is has completed its Flight Acceptance Review, Cryosat-2, the European Space Agency's new satellite destined to measure land icethickness, is set to be launched on February 25th, 2009 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Built to replace the original CryoSat, which was destroyed in a failed launch attempt in 2005, Cryosat-2…
International Expedition on Arctic Quest to Find Alternative Fuels

26.11.2009

An international team of scientists from the Marine Biogeochemistry and Geology and Geophysics departments of the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) led a team of university and government scientists to the Beaufort Sea to begin looking for methane hydrate (a large amount of methane is trapped within the crystal structure…