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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57 New Fish Species Found in Greenland’s Waters
23.04.2010
Fifty-seven new species of fish have been added to a checklist of fish species living off the coast of Greenland, thanks to a new study conducted by Peter Rask Møller and colleagues from the Zoological Museum at the University of Copenhagen along with researchers from the Greenland Institute of Natural…
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Possible Polar-Grizzly Bear Hybrid Found in Canadian High Arctic
16.04.2010
A bear shot near the community of Ulukhaktok in Canada’s Northwest Territories might be the second ever confirmed encounter with a polar-grizzly bear hybrid. The creamy-white animal was shot by an Inuit hunter travelling on sea ice near Victoria Island in the high Arctic.
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Prince William Sound Still Experiencing Impacts of Exxon Valdez Spill
15.04.2010
The 40.9 million litres of crude oil the Exxon Valdez spilled into Prince William Sound on March 24th, 1989 are still having an impact on wildlife in the area, according to new research. More than 20 years after one of the worst disasters of its kind, a study published in…
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50 Years of Research Shows Important Devon Island Ice Loss
13.04.2010
A paper recently published in the journal Arctic reports that between 1961 and 1985, the ice cap on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic had been growing and shrinking in size annually before seeing a steadier decline in ice volume and area since 1985. The suspected reasons behind the…
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New Survey Techniques Puts Narwhal Population at about 60,000
09.04.2010
Newly developed techniques have provided significant improvements in aerial survey methods to estimate narwhal populations in the Arctic, according to a paper published in the journal Arctic. Thanks to the new techniques, a team of researchers has been able to make an improved assessment of narwhal populations in the Arctic,…
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Traditional Inuit Forecasting Sharpens Scientific Arctic Weather Insights
09.04.2010
The Inuit have long relied upon their indigenous forecasting skills to determine when a good time to go on a hunt is, but now they are finding that their centuries-old knowledge is no longer quite as useful. As climate change has begun to alter the weather of the Arctic, the…
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Strange Arctic Bird Deaths Likely to Increase with Climate Change
09.04.2010
A large number of Arctic seabirds have been meeting bizarre deaths, which could increase as climate change continues to warm the Arctic, according to Canadian scientists from the Arctic Institute of North America. As the Arctic warms with climate change, it could bring more storm events, including incidents of heavy…
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Cold Snap in March Leads to Late Sea Ice Maximum in the Arctic
07.04.2010
The Arctic Sea ice reached its maximum extent for this eyar on March 31st, 2010 - the latest date in the year for maximum Arctic sea ice extent since the start of satellite measurements of sea ice in 1979. After reaching an apparent maximum extent in early March, the sea…
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Thawing Permafrost Also Releasing Nitrous Oxide into Atmosphere
07.04.2010
Nitrous oxide (N2O), which gets into the atmosphere from fertilizers used in agriculture or the use of fossil fuels, had been believed that while carbon dioxide and methane were released as permafrost melted, nitrous oxide remained in the permafrost. However according to a new study, the release of the powerful…
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Younger Dryas Triggered by Ice Sheet Melt
06.04.2010
The origins of a rapid global cooling period known as the Big Freeze, or the Younger Dryas - which occurred from some 13,000 years ago - have been identified in a recent study. The study, which was published in Nature, suggests that a mega-flood path across North America might have…
