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.
-
NOAA Heads to Arctic in Effort to Update Navigation Maps
22.07.2010
As the receding sea ice over the Arctic Ocean opens the way for new sea routes, the need to update existing maps of the Arctic is becoming more pronounced. Following requests by institutions such as the US Coast Guard or the commercial shipping industry, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…
-
US Navy Joins Scientists to Study Arctic Sea Ice
22.07.2010
A newly signed agreement between civilian researchers and the US Navy revives a dormant program to use US Navy submarines to collect data on Arctic sea ice and the Arctic Ocean - areas normally difficult for scientists to reach.
-
Columbia Glacier Study Provides Better Insight in Iceberg Calving Processes
15.07.2010
Glaciers that are lifted off the sea floor and begin to float behave very erratically, according to a new study led by a Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego researcher published in Geophysical Research Letters. These floating glaciers experience significantly more calving than their…
-
Identifying Fast Ice in Antarctica
14.07.2010
A new model developed by PhD student Alex Fraser from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) in Australia could help scientists gain better insight into the extent and variability of fast ice (stationary sea ice attached to the…
-
New Study Suggests Hudson Bay Polar Bears Could Die Out in the Coming Decades
14.07.2010
Hudson Bay polar bears may be running out of time, a recent paper in Biological Conservation suggests. Basing themselves upon the extensive available data, researchers from the University of Alberta have tried to figure out how long before western Hudson Bay’s polar bears disappear. Comparing the data to projected sea…
-
Jakobshavn Glacier Suffers Major Ice Loss In Single Day
12.07.2010
Jakobshavn Glacier on the west coast of Greenland recently lost approximately 7 km2 of ice in a single day. The glacier, which broke up on July 6th and 7th, has pushed the contact point between the ocean and the ice sheet even further inland. The loss, researchers say, is part…
-
New Study on Past Deepwater Formation in the North Pacific Provides Insight into Major Climate Swing
09.07.2010
A team of scientists has identified changes in the oceanic circulation following glacial retreat during the Last Glacial Termination, according to a new study published in the journal Science. The study, led by Axel Timmermann of the University of Hawaii, might significantly enhance our understanding of past changes in oceanic…
-
Arctic Sea Ice Declined at Record Rate in June
08.07.2010
Sea ice in the Arctic continued to steadily decline over the month June, reaching the lowest extent for the month of June in the history of satellite monitoring, which began in 1979. The record low stands at 10.87 million km² 190,000 km² below the previous record low for the month…
-
New Study Provides Better Insight in Ice and Ocean Processes in Bellingshausen Sea
07.07.2010
A study recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research reports diminishing sea ice and a rapid warming of the atmosphere and ocean west of the Antarctic Peninsula, which likely have led to the collapse of ice shelves and the thinning of inland ice.
-
Cryosat-2 Surpassing Expectations Halfway through Commissioning Phase
05.07.2010
Halfway through its commissioning phase, the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite is “in very good shape, exceeding in-orbit specifications,” declared Prof. Duncan Wingham, Lead Investigator for the CryoSat mission at ESA's Living Planet Symposium in Bergen, Norway.
