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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Antarctic Bottom Water and Its Role in Climate Change
27.04.2010
A team of oceanographers led by Yasushi Fukamachi of Japan's Hokkaido University has found a new factor in climate change as they measured a system of powerful currents off Antarctica according to a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
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Antarctic Research Finds New Mechanism for Nitrous Oxide Production
27.04.2010
New research appearing in the journal Nature Geoscience reports that biogeochemists from the University of Georgia have been able to find a previously unreported chemical mechanism for the production of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas. The discovery, which they made in the saltiest body of water on earth…
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Detecting Neutrinos at McMurdo Station
23.04.2010
During this past Antarctic season, the first prototype for the proposed Antarctic Ross Ice Shelf Antenna Neutrino Array (ARIANNA) of neutrino detectors was successfully installed in Antarctica. A team from Berkley Lab’s Nuclear Science and Engineering Divisions spent nearly two weeks at McMurdo Station installing what they hope will be…
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Study Shows Whales Essential for Fertilization of Southern Ocean
22.04.2010
A new study highlights the important role whales play in the fertilization of the Southern Ocean. Iron, a key element that helps algae grow in the oceans, appears to be found in large amounts in the whales’ fecal matter. After feeding on the iron, these algae die and sink deeper…
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New ANDRILL Core Suggest More Dynamic Antarctic History than Previously Thought
20.04.2010
While Arctic se ice extent has shrunk to record lows several times since 2005 only to rebound to 95% of its long-term average extent this winter, ice loss in the Antarctic has been much less dramatic. Until recently scientists have thought that the Antarctic Ice Sheet has been resistant to…
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New Techniques Reconstruct Gondwana Break-Up
13.04.2010
Scientists have made new discoveries about the break-up of Gondwana, the supercontinent made up of present-day Antarctica, Australia and India which existed around 500 million years ago in the Southern Hemisphere. While in Antarctica, the team of scientists used three-dimensional imaging to find evidence of how the suprcontinent broke apart.
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Deepest Core from Antarctic Peninsula Could Contain Ice from last Ice Age
13.04.2010
A new ice core recently retrieved from the Antarctic Peninsula has given scientists from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio hope of finding ice samples dating back to the last ice age. If this is the case, the 445.6-metre ice core - the deepest ever drilled on the peninsula -…
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NASA’s ENDURANCE Explores Lake Bonney in Antarctica
09.04.2010
In an effort to develop technology fitted for the search of extraterrestrial life in the oceans beneath the surface of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, NASA-funded scientists and engineers have taken a significant step forward in preparing for such a mission as ENDURANCE (Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-Ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer) finished…
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Antarctic Algae Forests Could Provide New Cancer Medicines
24.03.2010
A team of scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham are in the middle of a three-month diving expedition at Palmer Station on the West coast of Antarctica. The team is focusing on the creatures living in the algae forest in the cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean in…
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Researchers Looking for Abundant Microbial Life in Antarctic Subglacial Lakes
24.03.2010
As the interior of the Antarctic continent may not be home to the plant and animal life found abundantly on other continents, for a long time it was thought to have little or no life. In reality the opposite is true: Antarctica is home to large numbers of microbes, bacteria…
