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Recent Polar Science and Climate Change news are featured here. Our news RSS feed will inform you when news are published on this website.

CO2 Release from Oceans at End of Last Ice Age Occured at Regional, Not Global Scale, New Study Says

26.08.2010

In a recent paper published in the journal Nature, a team of scientists lead by Rutgers Univsersity in New Jersey suggest that a massive carbon dioxide escape from the oceans could have occurred over a 1,000 year period after the end of the last glaciation. The paper shows that the…
Ice-free Arctic Not Very Effective as Carbon Sink

03.08.2010

While researchers in past years suggested a melting Arctic Ocean could be an ally in the struggle against rising levels of carbon dioxide, new research published in the journal Science shows this may not be the case. The results of a survey conducted in the waters of the Canada Basin…
Tree Ring Study Shows Signs of Reversing Arctic Cooling

31.07.2010

While some parts of the Arctic have cooled over the past century, overall temperatures have seen a steady rise since 1990, according to a summer temperature reconstruction for the past 400 years. In their study, which was published in the journal Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research, scientists from the Institute…
Cutting Soot Emissions Best Hope for Arctic Sea Ice, Study Shows

31.07.2010

In a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research–Atmospheres, Mark Jacobson, director of Stanford University’s Atmosphere/ Energy Program, found that the influence of black carbon (soot) has been widely underestimated regarding its contribution to global warming. Controlling soot, Jacobson says, may be the only option for saving the…
Polar View Antarctic Node Recognized for Its Contribution to Marine Safety in Southern Ocean

27.07.2010

While remote, the Southern Ocean is increasingly being used as route for sea traffic by scientists, transport companies and fisheries. However conditions ranging from pack ice to icebergs are a serious threat to marine safety. Because of its remote location, the most adequate means to survey the area is satellite…
Canadian Arctic Crater to Simulate Future Space Exploration Conditions

27.07.2010

A group of international researchers are currently in the Canadian Arctic testing concepts for future planetary exploration within the framework of the Haughton-Mars Project, an international, multidisciplinary field research project focused on the scientific study of the crater and surrounding terrain on Devon Island. Heading to the Haughton Crater on…
Antarctic Ice Sheet Grounding Line Traced from Space

26.07.2010

Establishing the grounding line of the largest freshwater reserve on Earth – the Antarctic Ice Sheet – is important in helping scientists determine exactly how much mass the ice sheet is losing to the ocean and thus how much it’s contributing to global sea level rise. Now, the Antarctic Surface…
First CryoSat-2 Data Released to Select Scientists

22.07.2010

The first data from CryoSat-2, launched three months ago by the European Space Agency (ESA), were released to a select group of 150 scientists from approximately 40 research institutes around the world. These select scientists had agreed to use this data to help fine-tune the satellite before its data is…
Project Ice Cube Looks for Neutrinos in Effort to Better Understand the Universe

12.07.2010

Over the past five years, scientists have been placing thousands of detectors into holes 2.4 km deep in the Antarctic Ice Sheet in an effort to gain better insight into cosmological events that release bursts of energy and dark matter to gain better insight into the physical processes associated with…
Methane Releases from the Arctic to Have Large Impact on Seas Worldwide

08.07.2010

A new study published in the Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that massive releases of methane from the Arctic seabed could cause oxygen-depleted dead zones, sea acidification and disrupt ecosystems in several areas of the northern oceans. These events, the scientists involved in the study say, could happen if global warming…