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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Increasing Levels of Greenhouse Gasses Disrupting Glaciation Patterns
09.01.2012
According to a study conducted by researchers from University College London, the Unviersity of Cambridge and the University of Florida and published in Nature Geoscience, unprecented levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are disrupting the Earth’s normal patterns of glaciation and may delay the onset of the next ice…
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January 2012 NSIDC Sea Ice Update
06.01.2012
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) released its update on sea ice conditions in the Arctic and Antarctic. A summary follows:
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CryoSat-2 Monitoring Oceans Now, Too
26.12.2011
According to the European Space Agency, its CryoSat-2 satellite will soon be used to monitor sea conditions for marine forecasting. The satellite was launched in April 2010 to measure variations in land and sea ice thickness in the Polar Regions, and the satellite has delivered. However while the satellite’s orbit…
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Lessons from the Arctic for Drilling Ice Cores in the Antarctic
17.10.2011
Glaciologists from the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) have recently returned from visiting the North Greeland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project, which is extracting ice cores from the Greenland Ice Sheet, to learn a few things that might help them with drilling they plan to undertake on the Antarctic Ice Sheet…
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Pole-to-pole Flights Provide First Global Picture of Greenhouse Gases
12.09.2011
After three years of research, a far-reaching project known as HIPPO allowed researchers to generate the first detailed 3D mapping of the global distribution of gases and particles that affect Earth’s climate. Using a specially designed aircraft to fly to different parts of the globe, the scientists were able to…
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Using Ethane to Track Atmospheric Methane Levels
19.08.2011
Research conducted in Greenland and Antarctica and published in the journal Nature suggests a common cause between between the decline of atmospheric methane (CH4) and atmospheric ethane (C2H6)at the end of the 20th century. Scientists involved in the study believe the drop in fossil-fuel sources is likely related to changes…
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Past Glacial Melting Can Provide Insight into Concerns about Antarctica
05.08.2011
An analysis of Heinrich Events – which were periodic events that occurred every 7,000 years or so during the last glacial period and included massive discharges of icebergs into the North Atlantic Ocean – suggests that even minimal subsurface warming of the ocean can result in a rapid collapse of…
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Greenland Ice Seems to Have Contributed Less to Sea Level Rise during Last Interglacial
29.07.2011
During the last prolonged warm period seen on Earth (the Eemian - 130,000 - 114,000 years ago, approximately), the oceans were between 4 and 6.5 meters higher than their current levels, and the extra water must have come from ice covering Greenland and Antarctica.
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Quantifying the Effect of Melting Land Ice on Ocean Currents
27.05.2011
Using a computer climate model to study how freshwater entering the oceans at the end of the penultimate Ice Age 140,000 years ago affected the parts of the ocean currents that control climate, a team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and Bangor University have discovered that freshwater from…
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Vatican Science Panel Draws Attention to Threat Posed by Melting Glaciers
10.05.2011
A report recently issued by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences lists various examples of glacial decline around the world and the evidence linking the decline to man-made climate change. According to the report, entitled "Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene", the changes observed in mountain glaciers result from a…
