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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Dwindling Sea Ice in Arctic Contributes to Snowy Winters in Northern Hemisphere
29.02.2012
A study conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Columbia University provides further evidence of a link between melting sea ice in the Arctic and outbreaks of cold, snowy weather in the Northern Hemisphere.
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Russians Reach Subglacial Lake Vostok
09.02.2012
On Sunday 5 February 2012, a Russian drilling team was able to penetrate the surface of Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica (250 km long and 30 km wide), which began to be covered by ice between 15 and 34 million years ago. Having not had contact with…
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Moving Teardrop-Shaped Lakes Discovered on George VI Ice Shelf
03.02.2012
Researhcers from the University of Chicago have been keeping an eye on teardrop-shaped lakes on top of the George VI Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, which travel as much as 1.5 metres a day – but in a very unusual manner.
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Arctic Summer Sea Ice Extent Affects Winters in Central Europe
03.02.2012
Scientists from the Research Unit Potsdam at the Alfred Wengener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have been able to connect reduced summer sea ice extent in the Arctic with colder and snowier winters in Central Europe in a study published in the journal Tellus A.
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Russian Drill Team Close to Penetrating Lake Vostok
31.01.2012
A Russian drilling team is close to penetrating subglacial Lake Vostok, located more than three and a half kilometers deep in the Antarctic Ice Sheet, not far from the Russian Vostok Station at the Magnetic South Pole. After two decades of drilling through several kilometres of ice, the team is…
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Glacier Retreat in Greenland Not Completely Irreversible, According to Study
31.01.2012
Climate warming and short-term climate variability have pushed a number of massive glaciers in Greenland towards retreat, which has some scientists concerned that the retreat may be irreversible once it has begun. However research published in Geophysical Research Letters suggests that Greenland glaciers’ rapid ice loss may not be an…
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Engineering Team for Lake Ellsworth Drilling Project Completes Deep-Field Expedition
17.01.2012
Four engineers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have returned to the UK after completing a journey to one of the harshest parts of Antarctica to put in place equipment and supplies for the Lake Ellsworth Subglacial Lake drilling project, which will explore an ancient lake buried 3 km deep…
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Warmer Summers Causing Colder Winters in Northern Hemisphere, Study Suggests
16.01.2012
According to research recently published in Environmental Research Letters, increasingly warmer summers can lead to colder winters in certain locations in the Northern Hemisphere. The strongest winter cooling trends have been observed in southern Canada, the eastern United States, and northern Eurasia. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts and the…
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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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Diminishing Sea Ice Having Impact on Seal Pup Populations
06.01.2012
Thinning sea ice cover in the North Atlantic is diminishing harp seal breeding grounds and having an impact on the survival rate of seal pups, according to a study published in the online journal PLoS ONE.
