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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NASA and USGS Produce Best Ever Satellite Images of Antarctica
13.03.2007
Researchers from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have woven together more than a thousand images from the Landsat 7 satellite in order to create the most detailed high-resolution map of Antarctica ever produced.
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Cryosat-2 to Be Launched in 2009
13.03.2007
Scheduled for launch in 2009, the ESA CryoSat-2 satellite will replace CryoSat, which was lost due to a launch failure in October 2005. With its SAR/Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL), CryoSat-2 will measure fluctuations in the thickness of ice, on both land and sea, in order to provide proof as to…
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Tundra Disappearing at Rapid Rate due to Climate Change
13.03.2007
In certain parts of northern Canada, open spruce woodlands are quickly replacing what were once tundra landscapes. As a result, the species living there are being forced out of their ecological niche. According to a new University of Alberta study, this shift can occur much faster than that which scientists…
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First Observations of a New South Pole Telescope
28.02.2007
A new telescope built at the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station delivered its first test observations successfully. Astronomers work at the geographic South Pole to take advantage of excellent viewing conditions. Cold and dry Antarctica allows the South Pole telescope's to detect the cosmic microwave background radiation (the afterglow of…
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A Climate Change Amplifying Mechanism Linking Polar to Tropical Regions through Oceanic Circulation
28.02.2007
In the past alternating glacial and subglacial periods resulted in a modification of global oceanic circulation. Scientists at CEREGE1 have highlighted a feedback mechanism of ocean circulation on the climate reinforcing heating or cooling.
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Climate Change and Decline of Cod Population Combine to Cause Rapid North Atlantic Ecosystem Changes
26.02.2007
While some scientists have pointed to the decline of cod from overfishing as the main reason for the the large and rapid changes taking place in Northwest Atlantic shelf ecosystems, others warn that climate changes are also playing a big role.
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GFDEX: An Insight into Greenland’s Air Currents
20.02.2007
The Greenland Flow Distortion experiment (GFDex) is an International Polar Year project aiming to investigate the role that Greenland plays in distorting atmospheric flow over and around it, thereby influencing both local and downstream weather systems.
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New Hypothesis Explaining Abrupt Climate Change at the End of Iceages
20.02.2007
In a recent article in Climatic Change, D.G. Martinson and W.C. Pitman III discuss a new hypothesis explaining how the climate could change abruptly between ice ages and inter-glacial (warm) periods. They argue that the changes in Earth's orbit around the sun (Milankovitch cycle) are not sufficient on their own…
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Antarctic Temperatures Disagree with Climate Model Predictions
20.02.2007
Scientists from the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University reported that Antarctic temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.
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Antarctic Warming Causes Drastic Changes in Fragile Ecosystems
20.02.2007
The warming most global climate models predict will do more harm than simply raise the sea levels that most observers fear. It will make drastic changes in fragile ecosystems throughout the world, especially in the Antarctic warns the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University.
