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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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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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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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…
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Half of Canadian Ice Shelves Lost in Last Six Years
30.09.2011
A study conducted by Derek Mueller from Carleton University and Luke Copland from the University of Ottawa shows that Canada has been losing its ice shelves at un unprecdented rate; 50% have been lost over the past six years.
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New Model Allows Scientists to Make Better Seasonal Arctic Sea Ice Forecasts
27.09.2011
A study published in Geophysical Research Letters suggests that while accurate predictions for the extent of Arctic sea ice can be derived from the conditions of the previous autumn, longer-term predictions require a better understanding of the impact of climate trends on the sea ice. Current conditions may be an…
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Minimal Arctic Sea Ice Extent only Second to 2007 Record, NSIDC Says
20.09.2011
The sea ice cover over the Arctic Ocean might have reached its lowest extent for the year, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado said in a September 15th media release. This year's sea minimal sea ice extent covered only 4.33 million km² on September 9th,…
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Arctic Sea Ice Hits New Historic Low
13.09.2011
Arctic Sea Ice extent has reached another historic low, the University of Bremen's Institute of Physical Analysis reported in a news release.
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New Map of Antarctic Glacier Flow
22.08.2011
University of California Irvine scientists have charted a vast network of previously unmapped glaciers and their velocities from inland to the Antarctic coast, giving a much broader and informed picture of glacier flow across the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet.
