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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Dissolved Organic Carbon Coming from Rivers Could Impact Arctic Ocean
13.02.2008
A new study challenges the fact that dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in Alaskan rivers is largely refractory, having little or no significance for the biochemistry of the Arctic Ocean. Results prove that DOC in Alaskan arctic rivers is remarkably labile during the spring flood period, when the majority of annual…
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Comprehensive Study of Greenland’s Outlet Glacier Dynamics
12.02.2008
A comprehensive new study documents in detail the dynamics of parts of Greenland's ice sheet. The rapid thinning and velocity increase on major Greenland outlet glaciers during the last two decades may indicate that these glaciers have become unstable. Scientists wanted to assess whether these recent trends deviated from longer-term…
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UNH / NOAA Ocean Mapping Expedition Peers into Arctic Depths
12.02.2008
New Arctic sea floor data released today by the University of New Hampshire and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests that the foot of the continental slope off Alaska extends more than 100 nautical miles further from the U.S. coast than what was previously assumed. Under the still to…
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King Penguins Threatened by Climate Change
12.02.2008
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests that King penguins might be on the path to extinction as a result of global warming.
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New Study on the Larsen B Ice Shelf Collapse in 2002
11.02.2008
Using satellite images, scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the Aberystwyth University provided a detailed structural glaciological analysis of changes in surface structures on the Larsen B ice shelf before its collapse in 2002. According to this study, ponded meltwater is not the only culprit.…
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New Insights into Role of Southern Ocean in Global Climate System
08.02.2008
The recent Polarstern expedition was dedicated to organisms and materials cycles in the ocean. Among other topics, a team of 53 scientists from 9 countries have been studying the biological carbon pump in the Southern Ocean. There, large quantities of surface-drifting plankton algae are able to significantly reduce the carbon…
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New US South Pole Station Facility
08.02.2008
The United States have dedicated a brand new station at the geographic South Pole, the third on the spot since 1957. The new elevated station is larger and much more sophisticated than any previous structure built at the Pole - a reflection of the logistical support needed for the ever-increasing…
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New Ice Core Analysis Confirms Evidence of Antarctic Peninsula’s Changing Weather Patterns
07.02.2008
Scientists from British Antarctic Survey and the Desert Research Institute have used analysis of a new core -dubbed Gomez- and direct observations made since the first permanent Antarctic research stations to provide new evidence of increased snowfall in the Antarctic Peninsula as it gets warmer.
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Important Components of the Earth System Might Be Reaching Tipping Points
07.02.2008
Where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) could lead non specialists to think of climate change as a smooth transition, scientists now warn that many components of the Earth system could display non-linear behaviour and transitions under human (anthropogenic) climate forcing.
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Dome Argus Will House a Telescope
05.02.2008
For the second time in history, an expedition team has reached the summit of Antarctica at "Dome A". The purpose of this ascension was to install a revolutionary and fully automated astronomical observatory up on the Antarctic plateau.
