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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Black Carbon Cause for Concern in the Himalayas
16.12.2009
New research conducted jointly by scientists from NASA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences shows black carbon (black, sooty particles which result from the combustion of fossil fuels) deposits in the Himalayan glaciers might have contributed to the significant retreat of the non-polar ice masses in this part of the…
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Parts of Alaskan Coastline Eroding According to New Study
16.12.2009
The stretch of coastline between Point Barrow and Prudhoe Bay in Alaska is eroding fast according to a new study from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Conditions in the region are causing part of the coastline to be torn away by the warmer and more numerous large waves pounding…
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Recent Greenland Ice Sheet Observations Summarized in New Report
15.12.2009
A new report compiled by some of the world's leading experts and issued by the Arctic Council's Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) synthesizes the latest findings (peer-reviewed scientific material available before the spring of 2009) on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Entitled "The Greenland Ice Sheet in a Changing Climate",…
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New Fossils Show Antarctica May Have Been Refuge during End-Permian Extinction
03.12.2009
Researchers have identified a new fossil species, Kombuisia antarctica, a species they believe survived the massive End-Permian Extinction 252 million years ago (an extinction event that wiped out most living species on the planet and may have been caused by global warming) by living in cooler climates in Antarctica.
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Accelerating Climate Change Requires Urgent Emission Reductions
30.11.2009
With ice sheets melting at an increasing rate and Arctic sea ice vanishing faster than projected, The Copenhagen Diagnosis, a new report documenting the key findings in climate change science since the publication of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, has been released to give an update on scientific…
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Global Warming Threatens Infrastructure in Canada’s North
30.11.2009
Roads, buildings and other infrastructure in northern Canada will be increasingly affected by global warming with disastrous consequences as temperatures become increasingly milder in the area, according to a recent report by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE).
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International Expedition on Arctic Quest to Find Alternative Fuels
26.11.2009
An international team of scientists from the Marine Biogeochemistry and Geology and Geophysics departments of the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) led a team of university and government scientists to the Beaufort Sea to begin looking for methane hydrate (a large amount of methane is trapped within the crystal structure…
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New Information on the Optical Properties of the Antarctic System
24.11.2009
The Antarctic system, which consists of the continent of Antarctica and the ocean surrounding it, plays an important role in the Earth's climate. Geophysicist Kai Rasmus from the University of Helsinki took measurements during three austral summers to study the optical properties of the Antarctic system in order to gather…
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Interglacial Periods in Antarctica Warmer than Initially Thought
19.11.2009
A new study published in Nature by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the Open University, and the University of Bristol shows that temperatures during the warmer periods in between ice ages (inaterglacials) which occur approximately every 100,000 years may have been higher than previously thought. Based on a…
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NASA’s Icebite Prepares for Mission to Mars in Antarctica
17.11.2009
Scientists involved in NASA's IceBite project are headed for University Valley in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys to test a series ofice-penetrating drills to determine which one would be suited for a future life-finding mission in the Martian polar north. This region of the Red Planet is of particular interest to…
