A new report identifies 13 vulnerable Arctic places as ice melts and industry moves in.
A report released yesterday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature idenitifies several Arctic areas that are especially vulnerable as summer ice melts and industrial activity expands into newly accessible areas.
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Persistent organic pollutants are consistently showing up in the blood and eggs of loggerhead sea turtles, and the turtles accumulate more of the contaminant chemicals the farther they travel up the Atlantic coast. The pollutants may pose a threat to the survival of this endangered species, according to experts.
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Universities and colleges in Northern Norway have never had as many applicants as now. Subjects concerning the High North are popular.
The University of Tromso has 3,3 percent more applicants to this year’s intake compared to last year. Also the newly established University of Nordland in Bodo has many applicants.
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Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and their colleagues have discovered that massive, swirling ocean eddies -- known to be up to 500 kilometers across at the surface -- can reach all the way to the ocean bottom at mid-ocean ridges, some 2,500 meters deep, transporting tiny sea creatures, chemicals, and heat from hydrothermal vents over large distances.
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The Agulhas Current which runs along the east coast of Africa may not be as well known as its counterpart in the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream, but researchers are now taking a much closer look at this current and its "leakage" from the Indian Ocean into the Atlantic Ocean. In a study published in the journal Nature, April 27, a global team of scientists led by University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science Associate Professor Lisa Beal, suggests that Agulhas leakage could be a significant player in global climate variability.
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Scientists have observed a "super-aggregation" of more than 300 humpback whales gorging on the largest swarm of Antarctic krill seen in more than 20 years in bays along the Western Antarctic Peninsula.
The sightings, made in waters still largely ice-free deep into austral autumn, suggest the previously little-studied bays are important late-season foraging grounds for the endangered whales. But they also highlight how rapid climate change is affecting the region.
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Exotic bacteria that do not rely on oxygen may have played an important role in determining the composition of Earth's early atmosphere, according to a theory that UChicago researcher Albert Colman is testing in the scalding hot springs of a volcanic crater in Siberia.
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Russia and Denmark signed on Tuesday a host of economic agreements, including memorandums of understanding of increased cooperation in the transportation and agricultural sectors.
The documents were signed during talks in Copenhagen between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen.
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Russia will create a scientific center in Barentsburg in the Svalbard Archipelago, polar explorer parliament member Artur Chilingarov said on Tuesday.
"A decision is being discussed on building a Russian research center on the base of the existing observatory," Chilingarov said. "This will be in Barentsburg," he continued adding that the construction may begin next year.
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So great is the wealth of data about the Sun now being sent back by space missions such as SOHO, STEREO and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) that scientists back on Earth can struggle to keep pace. To combat this data overload, scientists from the Visual Computer Centre at Bradford University are developing advanced imaging tools to help scientists visualise what's happening at the Sun, make sense of the data and predict the extreme solar activities that could affect our life here on Earth.
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Climate science research often involves a little derring-do mixed in with a lot of tedium. Some scientists scramble up equatorial peaks to measure melting glaciers; others scour dry African lakebeds for sediment that reads like a talking science book.
For paleoclimatologist James White, adventures begin when a C-130 transport plane drops him and his team in the middle of Greenland's ice cap.
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Atmospheric scientists trying to pin down how clouds curb the amount of sunlight available to warm Earth have found that it depends on the wavelength of sunlight being measured. This unexpected result will help researchers improve how they portray clouds in climate models.
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An increasing share of global emissions is from the production of internationally traded goods and services, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Due to current reporting practices, this has allowed some countries to increase their carbon footprints while reporting stabilized emissions.
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It's like a scene out of a sci-fi movie -- thousands, possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.
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Despite the growing scientific consensus that global warming is real, Americans have become increasingly polarized on the environmental issue, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by a Michigan State University researcher.
The gap between Democrats and Republicans who believe global warming is happening increased 30 percent between 2001 and 2010 -- a "depressing" trend that's essentially keeping meaningful national energy policies from being considered, argues sociologist Aaron M. McCright.
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A number of penguin species found in western Antarctica are declining as a result of a fall in the availability of krill, a study has suggested.
Researchers, examining 30 years of data, said chinstrap and Adelie penguin numbers had been falling since 1986.
Warming waters, less sea-ice cover and more whale and seal numbers was cited as reducing the abundance of krill, the main food source for the penguins.
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The International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008, co-sponsored by ICSU and WMO, became the largest coordinated research program in the Earth’s polar regions, following in the footsteps of its predecessor, the first and second International Polar Years in 1881-1883 and 1932-1933 and the International Geophysical Year 1957–1958.
An estimated 50,000 researchers, local observers, educators, students, and support personnel from more than 60 nations were involved in the 228 international IPY projects (170 in science, 1 in data management, and 57 in education and outreach) and related national efforts. IPY generated intensive research and observations in the Arctic and Antarctica over a two-year period, 1 March 2007–1 March 2009, with many activities continuing beyond that date.
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High up in the sky near the poles some 50 miles above the ground, silvery blue clouds sometimes appear, shining brightly in the night. First noticed in 1885, these clouds are known as noctilucent, or "night shining," clouds. Their discovery spawned over a century of research into what conditions causes them to form and vary -- questions that still tantalize scientists to this day. Since 2007, a NASA mission called Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) has shown that the cloud formation is changing year to year, a process they believe is intimately tied to the weather and climate of the whole globe.
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Earth may be able to recover from rising carbon dioxide emissions faster than previously thought, according to evidence from a prehistoric event analyzed by a Purdue University-led team.
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In a study to be published in the April 21st issue of Science, researchers at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science report their findings that the ozone hole, which is located over the South Pole, has affected the entire circulation of the Southern Hemisphere all the way to the equator. While previous work has shown that the ozone hole is changing the atmospheric flow in the high latitudes, the new Columbia Engineering paper demonstrates that the ozone hole is able to influence the tropical circulation and increase rainfall at low latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere.
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Melting glaciers and ice caps on Canadian Arctic islands play a much greater role in sea level rise than scientists previously thought, according to a new study led by a University of Michigan researcher.
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In support of ESA's CryoSat ice mission, which was launched a year ago to monitor changes in ice thickness, a gruelling validation campaign is being carried out in one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth.
The one-month Arctic expedition is a major undertaking, with scientific teams from numerous organisations braving temperatures of -30C in central Greenland, Svalbard and the Fram Strait, Devon Island and offshore from Alert, Ellesmere Island, in northern Canada.
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The NASA IceBridge Ku-Band Radar L1B Geolocated Radar Echo Strength Profiles data set contains surface elevation measurements of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and Greenland, Antarctic Peninsula, and West Antarctic region land ice surface acquired using the Ku-Band Radar Altimeter. The data files are in binary format with associated JPEG image files. The data were collected as part of Operation IceBridge funded campaigns, and are available for periodic, ongoing campaigns from 26 March 2010 to the present via FTP.
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Sea stars as big as hubcaps, colourful sponges and feathery sea pens have been revealed after nearly 80 years in dark Antarctic waters.
In January last year a 78 kilometre piece of the Mertz Glacier tongue in East Antarctica broke off, exposing a section of the Southern Ocean previously covered in hundreds of metres of ice and providing scientists with a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to test theories of how the ecosystem might respond to such large-scale changes.
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A better monitoring network for greenhouses gases is needed to warn of significant changes and to keep countries that have agreed to cut their emissions honest, scientists said in papers published Monday.
"What we're hoping to do is see if the warming is feeding the warming, particularly in the Arctic," said Euan Nisbet, a specialist in methane emissions at the University of London.
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Most Americans now agree that climate change is occurring, but still disagree on why, with opinions about the cause of climate change defined by political party, not scientific understanding, according to new research from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.
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New international report on the state of the circumpolar Arctic coast: State of the Arctic Coast 2010 – Scientific Review and Outlook.
The coast is a key interface in the Arctic environment. It is a locus of human activity, a rich band of biodiversity, critical habitat, and high productivity, and among the most dynamic components of the circumpolar landscape. The Arctic coastal interface is a sensitive and important zone of interaction between land and sea, a region that provides essential ecosystem services and supports indigenous human lifestyles; a zone of expanding infrastructure investment and growing security concerns; and an area in which climate warming is expected to trigger landscape instability, rapid responses to change, and increased hazard exposure.
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The coastline in Arctic regions reacts to climate change with increased erosion and retreats by half a metre per year on average. This means substantial changes for Arctic ecosystems near the coast and the population living there.
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Today, Director Jan-Gunnar Winther was appointed by the King in Council to his second term of 6 years as director of the Norwegian Polar Institute.
Winther is a civil engineer from NTNU in 1987 and received his Ph.D. (doctoral) from the same place in 1993.
Jan-Gunnar Winther (48 years) has in the past six years been the director of the Norwegian Polar Institute.
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Animals and plants may need extra habitats to survive the challenge of climate change, according to research by scientists at the University of York.
Human activities have reduced natural habitats to isolated "islands," making it more difficult for some species to re-locate to cooler regions in response to their existing locations growing warmer.
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Norway awarded 24 oil and gas production licenses in its 21st offshore round on Friday, with an unprecedented focus on exploration in northern areas including the Barents Sea region near a big new oil discovery.
Half of the licenses are in the Norwegian Sea and half in the Barents, where this month Norwegian energy champion Statoil announced the biggest oil find off Norway in a decade.
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Rapid development of various observational platforms in meteorology, increased number of ship-based observations and ice-camps in Svalbard in the recent years led to a special issue on Svalbard meteorology. This is Call for Papers to be submitted.
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Kings Bay AS has appointed a new director to replace Roger Jakobsen. Ole Oiseth is currently employed at the Norwegian military forces. He has background in administration and human resources.
Lieutenant Colonel Staff Officer Land Ole Oiseth has a background from the Norwegian Army with focus on administration and human resources. Several years of international experience working with multinational staff, at NATO and UN missions.
He was working with East African Brigade as administrative advisor in 2007-2009. Aftterwards he was appointed the station commander at Jan Mayen.
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The Arctic Fox Mission reached the North Pole today. The group is now at the top of the world, where all time zones converge and all lines of longitude meet.
According to the Arctic Fox Mission website, the weather was good when they arrived at the North Pole or as the state on their blog "It was another beautiful day with a bright blue sky that made the snow sparkle like diamonds in the sun". When the explores reached the North Pole, the team celebrated with hugs, handshakes, laughter, tears, and plenty of photos to document the occasion.
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Svalbard Environmental Fond has supported a botanical project that tries to find if there is any Svalbard Saltmarsh Grass left after extensive goose grazing.
Svalbard Saltmarsh Grass is an endemic to Svalbard plant specie and therefore quite special. The trouble is the grass is tasty to geeze and it is getting difficult to find any remains of the grass after goose grazing season. UNIS botanists hope there are other locations where Puccinellia svalbardensis can be found.
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The first miniature sensors designed to measure saltiness and temperature across the world's oceans are being put in use on an ambitious expedition.
A four-man team of officers from Swanton Morley, UK were to set off to row 3,100 miles from Australia to Mauritius on April 17, 2011.
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Svalbard's Environmental Protection Fund has distributed over 3,7 mln NOK to 19 projects out of 52 applying for support. The largest amount goes to Store Norske for establishing the Gruve 3 Museum.
This time the leadership of the Fund has chosen to focus on fewer but more specific projects with high relevance to the environmental protection and preservation of cultural heritage.
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You might not expect bacteria living in Antarctic ice to be well suited to life in a boiling kettle, but that is what Chilean scientists discovered during an expedition last year. The researchers have turned up more than 200 new species of microorganisms adapted to living in extreme environments.
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The Chinese government plan to send an icebreaker over the Arctic to ship in Iceland this summer. The ship will sail the North -East Passage to Iceland and the North-West Passage back. This would be the first time a ship would go through the Arctic from the Pacific Ocean to Iceland and back again in one summer.
The first idea of the expedition was discussed at visit from Chinese officials to the Icelandic president last autumn.
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More than 10 million people all over the world has seen this stunning video of the Aurora Borealis over Pasvik in Finnmark, Norway.
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Wind blowing on the ocean is a crucial factor mixing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the ocean depths and keeping it from going back into the atmosphere.
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Scientists have known for decades that black carbon aerosols add to global warming. These airborne particles made of sooty carbon are believed to be among the largest human-made contributors to global warming because they absorb solar radiation and heat the atmosphere. New research from Carnegie's Long Cao and Ken Caldeira, along with colleagues George Ban-Weiss and Govindasamy Bala, quantifies how black carbon's impact on climate depends on its altitude in the atmosphere.
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A coverage about the Virtual Learning Tools (VLT) is in the latest issue of the Circle, which is a magazine produced by the WWF Global Arctic Programme. An interview is in the issue with Philip Burgess from the International Centre of Reindeer Husbandry (ICR). Philip is one of the instructor and organizer of the Masters program that is taught at the VLT, "Adaptation to Globalization in the Arctic: The Case of Reindeer Husbandry".
In the article, he mentions the pros of participating in an online course such as the one taught at the VLT environment "The flexibility of the online environment allows students to follow the course according to their own schedules (and time zones!) through a weekly live lecture which is also archived for later viewing".
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The opening of the Arctic to ship-passage will transform the region’s political as well as environmental landscape, says Oyvind Paasche.
Soon ships will be able to sail across an open Arctic Ocean during the summer months. The low humming of freight vessels will be a regular sound. The reduced presence of massive multi-year sea-ice is rapidly becoming a reality as the thicker and older ice is being exported from the region.
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Tiny crustaceans called copepods rule the world, at least when it comes to oceans and estuaries. The most numerous multi-cellular organisms in the seas, copepods are an important link between phytoplankton and fish in marine food webs.
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UNIS offers courses at the undergraduate and graduate level in four fields: Arctic Biology (AB), Arctic Geology (AG), Arctic Geophysics (AGF) and Arctic Technology (AT).
Full semester studies are available at the undergraduate level (200-level). At the graduate level (300-level) UNIS offers shorter and more intensive courses spanning from a few weeks up to a semester. Read more about the course levels further down the page.
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Natural gas extracted from shale formations has a greater greenhouse gas footprint -- in the form of methane emissions -- than conventional gas, oil and coal over a 20 year period. This calls into question the logic of its use as a climate-friendly alternative to fossil fuels, according to Robert Howarth and colleagues, from Cornell University in New York.
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Fluctuations in penguin populations in the Antarctic are linked more strongly to the availability of their primary food source than to changes in their habitats, according to a new study published online on April 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Funded in part by the Lenfest Ocean Program, this research indicates that species often considered likely "winners" of changing conditions, such as large-scale ice melting, may actually end up as the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
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Never before has the Institute of Marine Research seen more spawning cod than this spring. Trawlers in the Barents Sea also reports amazing amount of cod.
The annual research mission in the Lofoten area in Northern Norway with the vessel “Johan Hjort” has surprised the marine researchers.
- We have never before seen such amount of cod, says expedition leader with the Marine Research Institute Erik Berg.
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By the end of the year, Gazprom will choose which field assets to acquire in the North Sea, the company confirms.
The assets, all part of a swap agreement with German energy major Wintershall, will be Gazprom’s first in the North Sea. As previously reported, Gazprom will get stakes in several fields in the North Sea in return for Wintershall’s inclusion in the huge Urengoi field in Western Siberia.
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The main objective of the report is to give a comprehensive description of the Barents Sea ecosystem, including human activities and impact in the area, using relevant scientific and monitoring knowledge from Norwegian, Russian and other sources. The report will contribute to the knowledge basis for development of an ecosystem based management plan for the Russian part of the Barents Sea and contribute to further development of the ecosystem based management plan for the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea.
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By studying fossilized mollusks from some 3.5 million years ago, UCLA geoscientists and colleagues have been able to construct an ancient climate record that holds clues about the long-term effects of Earth's current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a key contributor to global climate change.
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The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed rapidly for the last half-century or more, and recent studies have shown that an adjacent area, continental West Antarctica, has steadily warmed for at least 30 years, but scientists haven't been sure why.
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Cities worldwide are failing to take necessary steps to protect residents from the likely impacts of climate change, even though billions of urban dwellers are vulnerable to heat waves, sea level rise and other changes associated with warming temperatures.
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The IPY 2012 From Knowledge to Action Conference is the final event of International Polar Year 2007 - 2008, the largest international program of interdisciplinary polar research ever undertaken. This conference will provide an opportunity to apply and disseminate the knowledge and scientific results from IPY from around the world and focus on next steps. Participants will consider ways to translate those new understandings into policy that will guide activities in and enhance stewardship of the polar regions.
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Rapid warming in the Arctic is creating a new and fast-growing pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. Measuring at least 7500 cubic kilometres, it could flush into the Atlantic Ocean and slow the Gulf Stream, bringing colder winters to Europe.
The water is mostly coming from melting permafrost and rising rainfall, which is increasing flows in Siberian rivers that drain into the Arctic, such as the Ob and Yenisei. More comes from melting sea ice, says Laura de Steur of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research in 't Horntje, who is tracking the build-up.
Salinity anomalies like this are a regular feature of the Arctic. The last major event occurred in the 1960s. They happen when strong winds circling the Arctic restrict southward water movement. Eventually, the winds falter and the water flushes into the Atlantic through the Fram strait, between Greenland and Europe.
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China’s interest towards Russia’s high north is increasing. A general agreement between Chinese authorities and the regional government in Murmansk might be signed soon.
China’s Consul General to St. Petersburg Xie Xiaoyong recently visited Murmansk Oblast, where he met with First Deputy Governor Natalya Portnaya. The main themes that were discussed were the planned economic zone in Murmansk port and the development of the Northern Sea Route.
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The annual report addresses the the Institute activities, financial statements and publications of 2010. It includes articles about climate change in the Norwegian Arctic, the update of the management plan for the Barents Sea and areas off the Lofoten Islands, logistics in Antarctica, and sea birds and the new Norwegian Red List.
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Social scientists are struggling with a perplexing earth-science question: as the power of evidence showing humanmade global warming is rising, why do opinion polls suggest public belief in the findings is wavering? Part of the answer may be that some people are too easily swayed by the easiest, most irrational piece of evidence at hand: their own estimation of the day's temperature.
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Queen's researchers have discovered that nanoparticles, which are now present in everything from socks to salad dressing and suntan lotion, may have irreparably damaging effects on soil systems and the environment.
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Precise geographical data that pinpoints your whereabouts at any given time should be legally defined as sensitive data on a par with one's genetic information, according to legal experts in Denmark. The EU is investigating what kind of data should be covered by legislation and the team argues that so-called "geo data" must be included in this assessment.
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Over the past few days ozone-depleted air masses extended from the north pole to southern Scandinavia leading to higher than normal levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation during sunny days in southern Finland. These air masses will move east over the next few days, covering parts of Russia and perhaps extend as far south as the Chinese/Russian border. Such excursions of ozone-depleted air may also occur over Central Europe and could reach as far south as the Mediterranean.
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Tens of thousands of albatrosses and other far-ranging seabirds are killed each year after they become caught in longline fishing gear. Innovative new models developed by a Duke University-led research team may help reduce these casualties by more precisely projecting where and when birds and boats are likely to cross paths.
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Two isotopic ice core records from western Svalbard were used to reconstruct approximately 1000 years of past winter surface air temperature variations in Longyearbyen, Svalbard and Vardo, northern Norway.
Relative shortness and scarcity of instrumental records in the high Arctic call for use of climate proxies like ice cores to reconstruct climate changes in the past.
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Mary Cleave left the NASA astronaut corps in the early 1990s to make a rare jump from human spaceflight to Earth science. She was going to work on an upcoming mission to measure gradations in ocean color -- something she had actually seen from low-Earth orbit with her own eyes. From space, differing densities of phytoplankton and algae and floating bits of plant life reveal themselves as so many blues and greens. For Cleave, a former environmental engineer, the attraction was simple.
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An 18-year study of 27,000 individual trees by National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientists finds that tree growth and fecundity--the ability to produce viable seeds--are more sensitive to climate change than previously thought.
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An international spacecraft that will take NASA's first space-based measurements of ocean surface salinity has arrived at its launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Aquarius/SAC-D mission will provide scientists with a key missing variable in satellite observations of Earth that links ocean circulation, the global balance of freshwater and climate.
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Statoil says the discovery is a breakthrough in the Barents Sea and one of the most important events on the Norwegian continental shelf in the last ten years.
After several dry wells over the last three decades, a significant oil discovery 200 kilometres north of the coast of Finnmark was announced by Statoil on Friday. And this is no April 1st joke.
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After more than a year of negotiations, an Arctic Council task force, co-chaired by Russia and the United States, delivered an agreement in January on cooperation on air and sea search and rescue in the Arctic.
That agreement assigns legal areas of responsibility to each of the council’s eight-member nations and lays out how they will work together in the event of an Arctic emergency.
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One plant species that grows in Antarctica appears to be thriving according to a team of UK scientists. Antarctic Hairgrass (Deschampsia antarctica) is more effective at absorbing organic nitrogen from the soil than the mosses that it lives alongside. This finding has implications for understanding how the nitrogen cycle works and is published this week in the first issue of the journal Nature Climate Change – part of the Nature series.
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Ph.D. students can apply for scholarships to attend some of the UNIS postgraduate courses in biology and geology this summer through the BioCold network. The application deadline for the UNIS courses is 15. April, and the application deadline for BioCold scholarship is 15. May.
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As Moscow prepares to open the icy waters of the Arctic to offshore drilling, dangers abound. But it's also a moment of opportunity to get things right.When it comes to Russian oil and gas, major deals with foreign companies are a good deal like London buses: Just when you're about to give up waiting for one to come along, three or four turn up at once.
Already, 2011 has been a bumper year.
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Research on invertebrates (insects, worms, and other species without backbones) is a relatively young science in Svalbard. In the archipelago there are over 1,100 invertebrate species – but our knowledge of them is limited. UNIS is now arranging a Norwegian-Russian workshop in order to strengthen collaboration and expand our knowledge of these creepy-crawlies.
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Stanford researchers have developed a battery that takes advantage of the difference in salinity between freshwater and seawater to produce electricity.
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