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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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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Recent Sea Ice Survey Draws Attention to Arctic Warming Once Again
03.12.2009
Right before the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, a team of explorers and scientists wanted to draw attention to an increasingly warmer Arctic. The team departed on a 450-kilometre trek across the Arctic for 73 days in unfriendly terrain with temperatures of -40°C.
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Using Satellites to Track Wolves during the Arctic Winter
02.12.2009
Scientists are tracking the movements of wolves using satellites. In July on Ellesmere Island in Canada, US Geological Survey wolf researcher David Mech and Canadian biologist Dean Cluff equipped Brutus, a 9-year old wolf pack leader they first encountered in 2003, with a satellite collar.
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Onset of Younger Dryas Happened in Matter of Months Not Decades
02.12.2009
While investigating a mud core retrieved from ancient Lake Lough Monreach in Ireland, Dr. William Patterson from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, has succeeded to show that the North Atlantic circulation might have stopped in a matter of months and not decades as was previously thought, triggering rapid climate…
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A Common Seasonal Pattern Found in Bacterial Communities in Six Arctic Rivers
30.11.2009
New research on bacterial communities in six large Arctic riverecosystems (in the Ob, Yenisey, Lena, Kolyma, Yukon and MackenzieRivers) reveals predictable temporal patterns, suggesting scientistscould use them as markers for monitoring climate change in the PolarRegions. The Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences showedbacterial communities in the studied…
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GBASE Project to Investigate Subglacial Environments in Antarctica
30.11.2009
A team of researchers representing nine institutions have embarked on a project to drill through the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica to gain access to a subglacial lake and cavity below the ice shelf. A part of the WISSARD (Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access…
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Satellites Give False Estimates of Multiyear Arctic Sea Ice Extent
30.11.2009
In 2008 and 2009, satellites that surveyed the Arctic sea ice extent provided data showing the multiyear sea ice extent recovering. However while sailing an icebreaker research vessel, the NGCC Amundsen, in the southern Beaufort Sea, University of Manitoba researcher Dr. David Barber found thin, "rotten" ice instead of thick…
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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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Study Shows East Antarctic Ice Loss Faster and Larger than Originally Thought
26.11.2009
Until now, scientists believed East Antarctica to be moremelt-resistant than West Antarctica and that it was in balance; howevera new study published in Nature Geoscience indicates that this in fact may notbe the case.
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Ancient Ice Core to Provide New Insight into Future Climate Change
25.11.2009
An international team of scientists from Australia, Great Britain, the United States and France is hoping to learn more about the role of carbon dioxide in past climate changes to see how increasing levels of CO2 might influence our climate today. The aim of the ICECAP (Investigating the Cryospheric Evolution…
