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.
-
Learning More about Role Water Beneath Glaciers Plays in Ice Loss
16.12.2009
Researchers led by Dr. Ian Howat, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at Ohio State University have been able to gain new insight into how water flowing beneathglaciers contributes to ice loss.
-
Greenland Ice Sheet Loss Picking up Speed
16.11.2009
Scientists at the University of Bristol have been able to use both observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Mission (GRACE) satellite and the Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (RACMO2/GR) at high resolution to independently confirm an accelerated mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their research, published in Science, shows the mass loss on the ice sheet has been equally distributed between greater iceberg production driven by faster-moving glaciers and increased meltwater production on the surface of the ice sheet.
-
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 cooling in Europe. The new data provides the highest resolution record of the Younger Dryas to date.
-
Operation Ice Bridge Almost Half Completed
03.11.2009
Operation Ice Bridge, A research program by NASA in cooperation withuniversity researchers to image what's happening both on and under theice in West Antarctica, has already completed seven of the 17 plannedflights in the research operation, meaning it is almost halway finished and well on its way tofinishing by mid-November. The 17 flights have been focusing onelements such as the ice sheet, glaciers and sea ice in West Antarctica.
-
NASA’s Operation Ice Bridge to Fly over Antarctica
30.09.2009
A series of flights over the Earth's southern ice-covered regions is planned this autumn as a part of a broader study of changes in sea ice, ice sheets, and glaciers. A team of modern explorers will fly a DC-8, an "airborne laboratory that can carry many instruments," over the southernmost continent on earth. The NASA crew will fly the plane from California to Punta Arenas, Chile, which they will use as a base form which they will carry out up to seventeen eleven-hour flights over West Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, and other areas where sea ice is prevalent.
-
Lasers Reveal Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets Thinning
24.09.2009
Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Bristol have analyzed millions of measurements of the ice sheet thickness in Greenland and Antarctica from NASA‘s high-resolution Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). The results of the analysis, published this week in Nature, show with unprecedented accuracy that the most important ice loss is due to the fact that glaciers are speeding up as they flow towards the sea.
-
Understanding the Rapid Acceleration of Greenland’s Glaciers
16.09.2009
Glaciers across Greenland have been flowing to the ocean at an increasing rate over the last decade. This has meant more icebergs calving off the end of the glaciers, contributing to global sea level rise. With snowfall on top of the ice sheet not enough to replenish it, the Greenland Ice Sheet is estimated to be losing 200 million cubic metres of ice a year - enough to fill 80,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
-
A Closer Look at the Humboldt Glacier
05.05.2009
Alain Hubert and Larry Lunt, a member of NRDC’s Global Leadership Council, have been trekking some 200 miles from the town of Qaanaaq across Greenland’s Humboldt glacier. This provides the perfect opportunity to have a closer look at this unique glacier.
-
The Origins of the Antarctic Ice Sheet
08.06.2009
A new survey conducted by the Polar Research Institute of China suggests that the Gamburtsev Mountains were the original starting point of the East Antarctic ice sheet, which formed 14 million years ago.
-
Disquieting Findings from Analysis of Sediment Core Taken from Northern Antarctic Peninsula
10.11.2009
According to a recent study conducted by researchers from the NationalOceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) and the University ofSouthhampton‘s School of Ocean and Earth Science (SEOS), not once in the past 14,000 years has there been a period of warmingand ice loss similar to the one we are currently experiencing, which highlights the seriousness of current climate change.
-
Greenland’s Glaciers Losing Ice Faster than Last Year’s Record Rate of Loss
18.12.2008
Ohio State researchers monitoring the loss of ice from Greenland's outlet glaciers report that the amount of ice lost during the summer of 2008 is nearly three times the area lost during thesummer of 2007, which already was a record in itself. The boreal summer of 2007 saw the GreenlandIce Sheet lose 62.9 km2, while this past boreal summer saw a loss of 183.8km2. Much of the additional loss came from the Petermann Glacier in Northern Greenland, which lost 29 km2 of its area this past summer.
-
New Study Predicts Greater Sea Level Rise
06.02.2009
“The Sea Level Fingerprint of West Antarctic Collapse”, published in the 6 February edition of Science, is a study conducted by researchers from Oregon State University and the University of Toronto. The study, though not suggesting an imminent collapse of the ice sheet, warns of a sea-level rise that might be higher than previously predicted in the event that the West Antarctica Ice Sheet should continue melting.
-
Taking a Look at At Glacier Retreat on Bylot Island in Greenland
01.09.2009
After spending nearly two decades studying the glaciers on Bylot Island, south of Thule in Greenland, University of Illinois geologist William Shilts has released a study detailing the decline of several glaciers on the island. With photos of the ice cover on the island going back to the 1940s, scientists have been able to get a precise view of the glacier’s retreat over the past seven decades.
-
Petermann Glacier Set to Lose Chunk of Ice the Size of Manhattan
15.07.2009
The Petermann Glacier in Greenland, the largest glacier in the Arctic, appears as if it will shortly lose a 100km2 chunk of ice, an area roughly the same size as Manhattan Island.
-
Antarctic Glacier Thins Faster
17.08.2009
Pine Island Glacier, located in West Antarctica, is losing ice four times faster than a decade ago. This gigantic glacier, twice the size of Scotland, could disappear at sea faster than predicted.
-
Microorganisms Discovered beneath Antarctic Glacier
17.04.2009
Researchers from Dartmouth College reported in Science magazine how a reservoir of brine has been supporting microbes living in isolation beneath an Antarctic glacier for millions of years. These findings provide insight into how life managed to survive Earth’s glacial periods and raises hopes that extraterrestrial life might be discovered in inhospitable places such as Mars or Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.
-
Ice Sheets Retreat in a Geologic Instant
26.06.2009
Recently published in Nature Geoscience, new research conducted by the State University of New York, Buffalo provides one of the few explicit confirmations for the rapid shrinkage or retreat of modern glaciers. This study has serious implications for similar glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland.
-
Studying Ice Rivers to Predict Future Sea Level Rise
22.07.2009
A study published this week in Nature Geoscience sheds new light on the quest to understand how Antarctica’s vast glaciers may eventually contribute to future sea-level rise.
-
Fifty-Year Record Shows Fast Shrinking Glaciers
10.08.2009
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has been keeping track of data on glacier change for fifty years. Using three benchmark glaciers in the United States situated in three different climatic regions, researchers found that the glaciers had dramatically shrunk over time.
