December, 21 2007 WMO Bulletin highlights IPY
The October 2007 issue of the WMO Bulletin focussed on the International Polar Year 2007-2008. The issue contained an IPY overview and six articles covering polar weather, stratospheric ozone, polar atmospheric chemistry, polar oceans, cryosphere connections to hydrological cycles in the Arctic, and future space observations of polar regions. As part of its sponsorship of IPY, WMO makes the IPY articles (in English) available for free download on its website, see:
http://www.wmo.ch/pages/publications/bulletin/october_2007.html
These articles provide fresh reviews of many aspects of polar science. The IPY IPO thanks WMO for these useful summaries of polar science and for providing access to the articles in support of the IPY policy of free, open and timely access to information.
High resolution versions can also be downloaded from the WMO ftp server, accessible at:
Address: ftp.wmo.int
Username: wmoftpreader
Password: wmoftp
Folder: Bulletin_56_4_articles
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December, 20 2007 Climate gases over Spitsbergen on record-high level
The amounts of carbon dioxide over the Spitsbergen archipelago is higher that ever before, new research studies show.
Measurements made at the Zeppelin station in the local town of Ny-Alesund show that the increase in CO2 over the far northern islands are dramatic. -This December we have measured 390 ppm, which is higher than ever before at the station, research director Kim Holmen says to NRK.
In the 1980s the CO2 levels on the site was about 360 ppm, while it in pre-revolutionary times was about 290 ppm
-This is very dramatic, because it shows that we might be underestimating the big changes mankind will trigger the next decades, Mr. Holmen says.
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December, 19 2007 Arctic sets records on all fronts
Scientists have detailed what was an extraordinary melting season in the Arctic during the summer of 2007.
The record withdrawal of sea ice has been well documented, but the region also hit a number of other firsts.
Some ocean temperature measurements were unprecedented, and 2007 also set a new record for melting snow over the Greenland ice sheet.
The researchers told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that some of the observations had been astonishing.
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Decmeber, 19 2007 Research icebreaker takes in winter in Beaufort Sea
The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen is spending this winter in the ice of the Beaufort Sea, giving scientists a unique chance to study the Arctic Ocean at this time of year.
The opportunity comes as a part of International Polar Year research efforts, which runs through this year and next. The icebreaker is currently located about 55 kilometres south of Sachs Harbour, N.W.T.
The Amundsen, a specially adapted coast guard vessel, serves as a "floating laboratory" for researchers conducting field work in Arctic waters.
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December, 18 2007 Spectacular find could rewrite polar bear history
In 2004 a group of UNIS geology students found an ancient polar bear jawbone at Svalbard. Now it turns out that this find could confirm that polar bear as a species has already survived one interglacial period, bringing hope that the first and foremost Arctic symbol can - in fact - also survive the current warming climate.
During their stay the students stumbled across a jawbone. Later it was confirmed that the jawbone had belonged to a female polar bear - and current dating suggests that the jawbone is between 110 000 and 130 000 years old.
This makes the students' discovery spectacular, as it previously has been suggested that the polar bear is a rather "new" species, evolving after the last interglacial period.
Until the find of the Poolepynten jawbone, the oldest remains found after polar bears have been found nearby London, and dated to be around 70 000 years old.
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December, 18 2007 Northern sea ice takes a big hit in 2007
For the past few years, vanishing northern sea ice has been a theme of many talks and posters here at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which draws about 15,000 scientists to the Moscone Center during the weeklong conference.
At a press conference here on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007, scientists revealed that the ice on top of the northernmost ocean took a punch in the summer of 2007 that might be a knockout blow.
In 1980, the dense ice that floats on the Arctic Ocean like a large, moving jigsaw puzzle took up about the same area as the entire Lower 48 states; in September 2007, it was about as big as the U.S. east of the Mississippi River, said Don Perovich of the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in New Hampshire.
The ice loss in 2007, 23 percent greater than the previous record in 2005, has some scientists here predicting that the northern sea ice will vanish in summer as soon as five years from now. Perovich agreed that one of the greatest environmental changes people have ever seen might be close at hand.
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December, 17 2007 Viking temperatures in Svalbard
Scientists from the Norwegian Polar Institute, in cooperation with scientists from several European countries, extracted an ice core from Lomonosovfonna ten years ago. Lomonosovfonna is one of the glaciers with the highest elevation in Svalbard. The ice core contains climate information from the past 800 years, and the scientists have recently revealed new data from the ten-year-old core, increasing our knowledge about past climate changes in Svalbard.
"Through a comparison of analyses of the ice core and the snow on top of the glacier in 2000 and 2001, we have found that warm summers such as those in 2000-2001 have not occurred in Svalbard since the 13th century, that is, the end of the Viking age", says glaciologist Elisabeth Isaksson at the Norwegian Polar Institute.
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December, 13 2007 Arctic melting even faster, new satellite data show
An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, an event that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point.
Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.
"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.
Just last year, two top scientists - including Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington - surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.
This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
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December, 12 2007 A hawkeyed addition to Canada's Arctic arsenal
Radarsat-2 works by beaming radar waves down to the Earth and then catching
the signals that bounce back. The resulting image is essentially a mixture
of light and dark areas, representing the strength of the returning signals.
When analyzed by computer programs, the radar images can be use to check the
health of agricultural crops, pinpoint oil spills on the open ocean and
calculate the thickness of sea ice.
read more
December, 12 2007
Tara's incredible polar drift
The Tara Expedition is one of several Arctic climate change investigations
sponsored by the European scientific program Damocles as part of the
International Polar Year. The research schooner and its crew of a dozen
well-insulated scientists have been drifting for the past 15 months and now
are veering mile by mile with Arctic ice toward the frigid waters of the
North Atlantic Ocean.
read more
December, 11 2007
New Arctic Sea Ice Animation Online
National Snow and Ice Data Center
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has released a new
animation for Google Earth showing two months of daily sea ice
concentrations in the Arctic, leading up to the record shattering sea
ice minimum on 16 September 2007. Images are derived from the Near
Real-Time SSM/I EASE-Grid Daily Global Ice Concentration and Snow Extent
(NISE) product, which has been produced at NSIDC on a daily basis for
the past decade.
The sea ice animation is available at:
http://nsidc.org/data/virtual_globes/
December, 10 2007
IPY Day Focusing on Ice Sheets!
December 13th, 2007 marks the second quarterly International Polar Days.... this time focusing on Ice Sheets.
Information about Ice Sheets research, resources and classroom activities is now available from www.ipy.org. Also, a Canadian specific Ice Sheet flyer is available on the Canadian IPY Secretariat website (www.ipycanada.ca).
The national and international information provided includes:
information about over projects studying Ice Sheets,
contact for Ice Sheet experts around the world
information about current expeditions and traverses,
activities for teachers, students, and science centres
links to good sources of images and further resources
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