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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EPICA Project Rewarded by the European Union
13.03.2008
The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) is one of the four laureates to have received the European Union's Descartes Prize on March 12, 2008. Amounting to a total of 1.36 million euros, this award is granted to outstanding European projects having excelled in scientific research.
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Arctic Climate Models Polar Bear as a Threatened Species
12.03.2008
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is currently considering a proposal to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This proposal is largely based on scientific models of the Arctic climate. Scientists from the International Polar Bear Science Team evaluated existing models to…
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Hibernation-Like Behaviour in Antarctic Fish
06.03.2008
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the University of Birmingham have discovered that the Antarctic cod Notothenia coriiceps adopts a survival strategy similar to hibernation, thereby saving energy during the long Antarctic winter.
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Boost in Funding for US Polar Research Programme
06.03.2008
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is looking to boost its 2009 fiscal year (FY) budget by about 13 percent over the current budget year, with a request for .85 billion. The total budget request for the Office of Polar Programs (OPP) is a shade over 0 million, an 11 percent…
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New Modelling Approach to Estimate Sea Ice Thickness
06.03.2008
A new modelling approach was recently developed to estimate sea ice thickness by scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. This is the first model to be entirely based on historical observations.
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Warming Climate Could Result in a More Flammable Arctic Tundra
06.03.2008
By studying sediment cores, scientists from Montana State University determined that the Arctic tundra was covered with vast expanses of tall birch shrubs after the last ice age. They also found out that those shrub expanses burned quite frequently. If this were to happen today, these tundra fires would release…
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Third International Polar Day Focusing on Our Changing Earth
05.03.2008
On March 12th, 2008, the International Polar Year (IPY) will launch its third "International Polar Day", focusing on our Changing Earth; with a specific focus on Earth history as discovered through paleoclimate records that study the long term history of the Earth by analysing ice sheets and sediments below polar…
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Unveiling the Mystery of the Antarctic Ice Sheet
29.02.2008
Scientists from Cardiff University's School of Earth and Ocean Sciences and from Amgueddfa Cymru, the National Museum of Whales, have revealed further records revealing a temperature decrease during the Antarctic ice sheet formation, which occurred during the Eocene-Oligocene (E-O) climate transition.
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Seals Tracked to Reveal Southern Ocean’s Winter Secrets
28.02.2008
Two biologists from the University of Tasmania are currently studying Weddell seals at the French Antarctic base, Dumont d'Urville, hoping to find out how species at the top of the Southern Ocean food chain respond to changes in the ocean.
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Krill Discovered in the Antarctic Ocean’s Depths
27.02.2008
Scientists both from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton (NOCS) have recently reported to the journal Current Biology that they found krill living and feeding 3000 metres in depth around the Antarctic Peninsula. Until now, it was believed that krill only lived in the…
