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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Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica Begins to Disintegrate
26.03.2008
Satellite data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center reveals that the Wilkins Ice Shelf, a broad plate of permanent floating ice on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula, has begun to collapse. Satellite images indicate that the Wilkins began its collapse on February 28, when a large iceberg fell away…
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New Species of Giant Marine Life Found during Antarctic Sea Survey
25.03.2008
New Zealand conducted a major biological survey of the Ross Sea in the Antarctic as part of the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML) and the International Polar Year (IPY). From the 31st of January to the 20th of March 2008, the team aboard the RV Tangaroa came across giant-sized…
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Interesting History of Arctic Haze
19.03.2008
A team composed of Tim Garrett, assistant professor of meteorology at the University of Utah, and Lisa Verzella, a former undergraduate student, have found tangible evidence the existence of an Arctic haze as early as 1870.
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Arctic Sea Ice Still at Risk despite Cold Winter
19.03.2008
NASA satellite observations shows that a cold winter in some regions of the Arctic has yielded an increase in new (thin) sea ice, while the surface of older (thicker) sea ice has continued to decline.
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Studying Antarctica during the Harshest Winter on Earth
19.03.2008
John Priscu, a Montana State University scientist with an international reputation for polar research, is spending his 24th season in Antarctica. The only difference is that this time he will be doing field work during the Antarctic winter. Priscu and his team team will be working on several research projects.
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Satellites Detect Winter Rains to Save Arctic Grazers
19.03.2008
Winter rain can turn out to be devastating for grazing animals when it falls just before it freezes. In October 2003, twenty thousand musk oxen starved to death on Canada's Banks Island from such a catastrophe. Thomas Grenfell, a University of Washington professor of atmospheric sciences, and Jaakko Putkonen, research…
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Robotic Research in Antarctica
18.03.2008
Tested during the austral summer of 2007, the first ever autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to be used in polar research were successfully flown over the Antarctic continent. This joint initiative conducted by the British Antarctica Survey (BAS) and the Technical University of Braunschweig (TUBS) in Germany opens up a…
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Planet’s Glaciers Melting Even Faster
17.03.2008
Data collected by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) show that the average rate of melting and thinning of the world's glaciers over 2005-2006 had doubled in comparison to 2004-2005.
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Melting Ice Sheets Could Cause Earthquakes
17.03.2008
A new study which was conducted using a sophisticated computer model shows a link between seismic activity and the presence or absence of large ice sheets: seismicity levels are low in presence of large ice sheets but become higher as the ice melts. This research will be published in the…
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Splitting Iceberg Spotted from Space
17.03.2008
On March 4th, 2008, C-CORE, a Canadian ice-tracking service which is part of the Polar View consortium, captured the break up of a massive iceberg that had calved off of the Larsen B ice shelf in late April 2005 and had drifted its way into the warmer waters of the…
