Content:
1. Data reports
2. Project reports and National Committee Reports
3. Polar Weeks
4. Changes to IPY Website
5. Upcoming IPY meetings and AGU sessions
6. Update from Oslo 2010 Planning Process
7. ICSU Visioning process for Earth System Research
8. Call for new stories and blogs for ipy.org
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Canada's defense minister said Friday the Canadian government is closely watching Russian plans to drop paratroopers in the Arctic next April.
Defense Minister Peter MacKay said any country approaching Canadian airspace will be met by Canadians. MacKay didn't give any specifics on what Canada will do in April, but he said Canada is prepared to protect its borders.
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Knowledge about the wintertime marine ecology in Svalbards fjords is limited, due to the difficulty of obtaining data during the long polar night. For the first time a team of scientists and students from The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) has now been able to sample ice, water and plankton throughout a full year.
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New research involving scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) highlights the potential utility of iron isotopes for addressing important questions in ocean science. The findings are published in the August edition of the journal Geology.
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A group of three Norwegians will this summer try to sail around the North Pole in one summer. If they complete the trip, they will be the first ever to do so.
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The world's peak ocean science body has adopted a new definition of seawater developed by Australian, German and US scientists to make climate projections more accurate.
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It wasn’t that many years ago that the bowhead whale was written off as extinct in the waters around Greenland and especially in Disko Bay in northwest Greenland where University of Copenhagen has its Arctic Field Station.
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With all eyes on the prospect of overlapping territorial claims among polar nations in the Arctic Ocean, Canada has quietly completed a five-year mission to map a huge — and potentially contentious — swath of the Atlantic Ocean sea floor.
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A group of Russian paratroopers will next April land at the North Pole. Head of the Russian Airborne Forces insists that the mission will not stir military tensions in the area.
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Fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements have been used to place better constraints on future sea level rise, and to test sea level projections.
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NASA and National Snow and Ice Data Center analysis recently reported that Arctic sea ice continues to thin, leaving about 70% of Arctic ice -- up from 40% 30 years ago -- as one-year-old ice susceptible to summer melting; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that Arctic summers could be ice-free within 30 years, as opposed to 100 as previously estimated.
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Regions of Arctic tundra around the world are heating up very rapidly, releasing more greenhouse gases than predicted and boosting the process of global warming, a leading expert said on Wednesday.
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A recent study published in Nature Geoscience shows similar conclusions to those presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 regarding the impact of climate warming on sea level rise. Depending on how much the temperature actually rises, this new study, lead by Mark Siddall from the University of Bristol, suggests the global sea level will increase between 7 and 82 cm by 2100.
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A small NASA aircraft recently completed its first successful science flight as part of an expedition to study the receding Arctic sea ice and improve understanding of its life cycle and the long-term stability of the Arctic ice cover. The mission is part of NASA's Characterization of Arctic Sea Ice Experiment (CASIE), which began as a series of unmanned aircraft system flights undertaken in coordination with taking satellite images.
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The Arctic Council SWIPA project completes first draft in August.
In 2008, the Arctic Council established a project entitled "Climate Change and the Arctic Cryosphere: Snow Water Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA)" as a follow-up to the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. A complete first draft will be completed in August 2009 for submission to the first phase of national and external scientific peer reviews.
The complete report will be presented to the Arctic Council in 2011 and will serve as an Arctic contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC).
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A small NASA aircraft currently conducts flights from Ny-Alesund to study the receding Arctic sea ice and improve understanding of its life cycle and the long-term stability of the Arctic ice cover.
NASA's Characterization of Arctic Sea Ice Experiment (CASIE) currently conducts a series of unmanned aircraft system flights in coordination with satellites. In collaboration with the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) and its research partners, NASA is using the remotely piloted aircraft to image thick, old slabs of ice as they drift from the Arctic Ocean south through the Fram Strait and into the North Atlantic Ocean.
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The EU Council on Monday officially approved restrictions on the marketing of seal products, arguing that hunting practices are inhuman. That irritates Arctic neighbors Canada and Norway.
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Significant sea ice formation occurred in the Arctic earlier than previously thought is the conclusion of a study published this week in Nature. "The results are also especially exciting because they suggest that sea ice formed in the Arctic before it did in Antarctica, which goes against scientific expectation," says scientific team member Dr Richard Pearce of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS).
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Researchers from the IPY-project COPOL (Contaminants in Polar Regions) currently conduct their last cruise in Kongsfjorden and Liefdefjorden. Their aim is to collect samples from several animal groups in order to better understand the effect of contaminants on the marine ecosystem.
The group of 24 researchers, photographers and artists will collect about 1000 samples and hope to gain a better understanding of the transport and distribution of contaminants, how contaminants are taken up by marine organisms and what effect a changing climate has on these mechanisms.
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A small NASA aircraft completed its first successful science flight Thursday in partnership with the University of Colorado at Boulder as part of an expedition to study the receding Arctic sea ice and improve understanding of its life cycle and the long-term stability of the Arctic ice cover. The mission continues through July 24.
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The world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for June, breaking the previous high mark set in 2005, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Additionally, the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for June was second-warmest on record. The global records began in 1880.
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As Danish politicians plan to significantly increase their country's military presence in the North, and as Russia, Norway and even the European Union lay out plans to flex their muscles in the resource-rich waters, Ottawa launched a website and released a long list that compiles all the commitments the federal government has made to bolster the Arctic region.
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The Glacier Photograph Collection is an online, searchable collection of photographs of glaciers, mostly taken in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Greenland. Photographs were taken from both the air and the ground. The dates of the photographs range from the mid 1800s to the present day. As of June 2009, more than 11,000 glacier photographs are online. These photographs constitute an important historical record, as well as a data collection of interest to those studying the response of glaciers to climate change.
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The role of clouds in climate change has been a major question for decades. As the earth warms under increasing greenhouse gases, it is not known whether clouds will dissipate, letting in more of the sun's heat energy and making the earth warm even faster, or whether cloud cover will increase, blocking the Sun's rays and actually slowing down global warming.
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The ice is melting, the sea level is rising and species are conquering new habitats. The warming of the world climate has many consequences. Researchers now report that climate change influences the size of aquatic organisms.
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The Canadian Film Institute, working in partnership with the International Polar Year, is seeking entries for the International Polar Year Film Festival. The International Polar Year is an event with over 60 countries involved in an intense program of scientific research focused on the Arctic and Antarctic. This special film festival will bring together an international selection of works exploring the issues and activities of the International Polar Year. Ranging from educational works (documentaries, industrial films) to fiction films, the Festival will celebrate the rich diversity of the polar region, as well as examine the many challenges it faces in the 21st Century.
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CliC (Climate and Cryosphere) Arctic Sea-Ice Working Group and IARC (International Arctic Research Centre) have prepared an overview of scientific cruises in the Arctic. The overview can be found on the internet.
Both scientists, media and the general public interested in what is happening in the Arctic can use newly established website to find an overview of the scientific cruises planned from 2009 to 2012. The website is hosted and maintained by IARC at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. This initiative is part of the Arctic sea-ice measurement campaign coordination.
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Plaques, statues, and monuments recognizing the feats of early explorers of the polar regions can be found in many cities around the world. Now there is a bronze sculpture of another member of those expeditions. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) unveiled a life-size statue of a sledge dog at its Cambridge, England, headquarters this month.
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Norway and China collaborate in Arctic research, write the two young scientists Marcel Nicolaus and Christina A. Pedersen in the new edition of Ice and Climate News. In a joint project they are going to focus on the effects of black carbon in the snow and understand the processes of modelling and observing the solar radiation on Arctic sea ice.
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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.
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Durham University created a new 3-D map created using radar measurements,revealing features in the landscape beneath the the Rutford Ice Stream,a vast river of ice ten times wider than the Rhine in the WestAntarctic Ice Sheet, which flows at a rate of one metre per day.
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According to a new study published in the 16 July edition of Nature, ice cores from Antarctica indicate that some glacial periods in the past 800,000 years have been cooler and more severe than others, despite very similar greenhouse gas concentrations and orbital parameters. In trying to solve this puzzle, scientists Edouard Bard from CEREGE (Centre Européen de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Géosciences de l'Environnement) at Paul Cézanne University and Rosalind Rickaby from the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University analyized a parallel 800,000-year record of sea surface temperature and ocean productivity from an ocean sediment core retrieved off the southeastern coast of South Africa.
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The United States and Canada will begin in August a 42-day joint expedition to the Arctic to survey the continental shelf in the Arctic, the U.S. State Department has announced.
Hydrocarbon deposits and other natural resources under the Arctic Ocean, made increasingly accessible by new technology and climate change, have made the extent of the continental shelf a matter of national interest as countries vie for sovereignty over the seabed.
"The mission, scheduled from August 6 to September 16, will continue the collaboration in extended continental shelf data collection in the Arctic started during last summer's joint survey, with plans for further cooperation in 2010," the State Department said on Wednesday.
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The United States released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice to help scientists study the impact of climate change, within hours of a recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences.
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Understanding the ecological impacts of climate change is a crucial challenge of the twenty-first century. There is a clear lack of general rules regarding the impacts of global warming on biota. Here, we present a metaanalysis of the effect of climate change on body size of ectothermic aquatic organisms (bacteria, phyto- and zooplankton, and fish) from the community to the individual level. Using long-term surveys, experimental data and published results, we show a significant increase in the proportion of small-sized species and young age classes and a decrease in size-at-age.
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Arctic springtails (Megaphorura arctica) survive freezing temperatures by dehydrating themselves before the coldest weather sets in. Researchers have now identified a suite of genes involved in controlling this extreme survival mechanism.
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Geoengineering - deliberately manipulating physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system to confront climate change – could contribute to a comprehensive risk management strategy to slow climate change but could also create considerable new risks, according to a policy statement released by the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
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Could cosmic rays be influencing climate by charging up more frequent lightning storms? European researchers hope to answer that question in the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Global Warming.
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A new study published this week takes scientists a step further in their quest to understand how Antarctica's vast glaciers will contribute to future sea-level rise. Reporting in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and University of Durham describe how a new 3-d map created from radar measurements reveals features in the landscape beneath a vast river of ice, ten times wider than the Rhine*, in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
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With the aim to map potential petroleum resources, Russian submarines participated in a research operation in the waters between the Norwegian Island of Jan Mayen and Iceland in June. According to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, two of the submarines were nuclear powered.
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One species of elephant seals proved its ability to adapt rapidly when ice sheets retreated in the Antarctic some 8,000 years ago. An international research team has found and studied the remains of southern elephant seals from a large colony that once inhabited the beaches along a bay in the Ross Sea.
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Russia is against any arms race in the Arctic, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.
Last week, Denmark announced its plans to establish an Arctic military command and a task force amid conflicting territorial claims by the five Arctic states.
Commenting on the development, Andrei Nesterenko told journalists that, "Russia is opposed to the unleashing of an arms race in the Arctic Region and suggests as an alternative the boosting of bilateral cooperation in issues of navigation safety, search and rescue and the prevention of ecological disasters."
He added that it was in Russia's national interests to maintain peace and cooperation in the region.
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The eerie beauty of the northern and southern lights has evoked visions of the supernatural for centuries: foxes of fire whisking their tales, the fighting souls of dead warriors or ancestors dancing around a ceremonial fire.
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Researchers Børge Moen (Norwegian Institute for Nature Research), Claus Bech and Elin Noreen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) spotted the nest of a female Common Scoter (Melanitta nigra) during their field work in Kongsfjorden. The nest contained five eggs.
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The possibility of a trans-arctic shipping route has intrigued seafarers since the days of the first Arctic explorers, as it would shorten the distance between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean significantly. Challenging weather conditions and the lack of adequate shipping technology trans arctic shipping has not become a viable possibility as of yet. Shipping in the Arctic is on the rise and it is estimated that approximately 6000 vessels are operating annually in the Arctic region, many of them making multiple voyages. Off these 6000 ships operating in the Arctic almost all of them are declinational, conducted for community re-supply, moving natural resources out of the Arctic or marine tourism.
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Researchers from the University of Southampton have drawn together 200 years' worth of oceanographic knowledge to investigate the distribution of a notorious deep-sea giant - the king crab. The results, published this week in the Journal of Biogeography, reveal temperature as a driving force behind the divergence of a major seafloor predator; globally, and over tens of millions of years of Earth's history.
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Establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Niña and El Niño events in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
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International Polar Year (IPY) has launched a new website in association with the Arctic Portal.The IPY is a huge exciting scientific campaign focusing on the Polar Regions. It is also an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate, follow, and get involved with, cutting edge science in real-time.
The IPY is a collaborative, international effort researching the Polar Regions. The polar areas have many unique phenomena. Circulatory systems for air and water reach the surface, as do the majority of the Earth's magnetic field lines. Thick glaciers have trapped air and water from ancient times. It is easiest to observe these phenomena near the poles.
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A team of researchers has discovered an unexpected concentration of a certain isotopic molecule in parts of the stratosphere that could have implications for understanding the carbon cycle and its response to climate change.
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A research cruise of the project Arctic Tipping Points (ATP) confirms the spread of warm Atlantic waters further north into the Arctic. Now the researchers conduct experiments on the collected samples in order to establish the threshold of warming, causing abrupt changes in Arctic ecosystems.
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The findings of a major new study are consistent with gradual changes of current systems in the North Atlantic Ocean, rather than a more sudden shutdown that could lead to rapid climate changes in Europe and elsewhere.
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has rejected a controversial land trade that would have allowed oil and gas drilling in part of a national wildlife refuge in Alaska.
The service said it had made a preliminary decision to reject a Bush administration proposal in the works since 2004 to trade out land in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge so that it could be explored for oil.
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Hundreds of images derived from classified data that could be used to better understand rapid loss and transformation of Arctic sea ice should be immediately released and disseminated to the scientific research community, says a new report from the National Research Council.
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Scientists are checking advanced climate simulation models against existing data to find that they're running right on track to better predict drastic climate change.
Climate models of the past, present and future seem to be in no short supply these days. But a new and dynamic picture of climate change appears in this week's Science, one that could affect the way future conditions are predicted.
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New evidence for ice-free summers with intermittent winter sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during the Late Cretaceous – a period of greenhouse conditions - gives a glimpse of how the Arctic is likely to respond to future global warming.
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The new edition of the the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Newsletter is available for download here. This June issue consists of contributions on the Carbon and Permafrost (CAPER) Initiative, integration across cryospheric disciplines, workshop reports and project updates.
CliC was initiated by the World Climate Research Programme ( WCRP ) in 2000. Its goal is to stimulate, support, and coordinate research that focuses on processes by which the cryosphere interacts with the rest of the climate system.
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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.
Normally glaciers lose ice all the time at their termini, where the ice flowing out of them usually forms an ice shelf over open water, off of which icebergs calve into the sea. The ice they lose is usually replenished by snowfall over the interior of the ice sheet.
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The United States released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice to help scientists study the impact of climate change, within hours of a recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences.
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Significant sea ice formation occurred in the Arctic earlier than previously thought is the conclusion of a study published this week in Nature. "The results are also especially exciting because they suggest that sea ice formed in the Arctic before it did in Antarctica, which goes against scientific expectation," says scientific team member Dr Richard Pearce of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS).
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Denmark is prepared to establish an Arctic military command structure and task force ready to operate all over the Arctic.
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The Russian Arctic research vessel “Mikhail Somov” today sails off from Arkhangelsk heading towards 40 remote Russian Arctic research stations.
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On Aug. 2, 2007, the world watched as Russia brashly planted a titanium flag under the North Pole, laying proverbial claim to the top of the world. In the months since, Russia has moved to assert control over many of the Arctic's rich resources, eyeing oil and gas fields, building floating nuclear power plants and shoring up its fleet of ice breakers - at least 14, compared with the United States' three.
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No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study suggests scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect.
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The United States was unable to detect the presence of Russian strategic submarines in the Arctic before they test-launched two ballistic missiles, a Russian intelligence source said on Wednesday.
Russia carried out test launches of two Sineva intercontinental ballistic missiles from two Delta IV class nuclear-powered submarines, located near the North Pole, on July 13-14.
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Surges are still quite mysterious phenomena of majority of Svalbard glaciers. UNIS PhD student, Monica Sund is tracking surges down and tries to spot first signs of a new surge as early as possible. She makes new discoveries along the way.
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Drifting across the world’s oceans are a group of unicellular marine microorganisms that are not only a crucial source of food for other marine life — but their fossils, which are found in abundance, provide scientists with an extraordinary record of climatic change and other major events in the history of the earth.
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Health researchers who study the Arctic are gathering in Yellowknife this week for the 14th annual International Congress on Circumpolar Health.
Hundreds of delegates from Canada, the United States, Russia, Scandinavia and other northern nations are in the N.W.T. capital to discuss the effects of everything from climate change to economic development on the health of northern peoples.
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The oceanographer of the Navy and commander of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (NMOC) recently discussed the Navy's future in the Arctic at the third Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Naval and Maritime Operations at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Rear Adm. David Titley spoke about the Arctic and is scheduled to deliver a "roadmap" for Navy action regarding the Arctic late this summer.
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The Russian freight ship ”Petrozavodsk”, which wrecked on the coast of the far northern Bear Island in May, is now to be emptied for oil and oil products.
The difficult working conditions on the site is the main reason why it has taken much time to organize the cleanup operation, Head of Preparedness in the Norwegian Coastal Administration John Marius Ly says in a press release.
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UNIS scientists carry out a snow avalanche monitoring project in the proximity of Longyearbyen (CRYOSLOPE). They document avalanche frequency, size and locations, provide statistics and gather information on potential hazard for scooter traffic.
Location of Longyearbyen, Barentsburg and scooter rutes in between them are frequenty exposed to high avalanche risk. The snow cover is usually unstable and the terrain increses the potential danger from avalanches as there are narrow valleys and huge hanging cornices from the ridges around. UNIS scientists are monitoring the snow avalanches throughout entire snow season. They map the avalanches, their size and frewuency, provide photographic material, and statistics. This project is part of a large programme (NORKLIMA) financed by the Research Council of Norway.
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Attempting to tackle climate change by trapping carbon dioxide or switching to nuclear power will not solve the problem of global warming, according to energy calculations published in the July issue of the International Journal of Global Warming.
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Southern Elephant seals responded rapidly to climate and habitat change and established a new breeding site thousands of kilometres from existing breeding grounds, according to new research.
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New evidence for ice-free summers with intermittent winter sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during the Late Cretaceous – a period of greenhouse conditions - gives a glimpse of how the Arctic is likely to respond to future global warming.
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Arctic sea ice reflects sunlight, keeping the polar regions cool and moderating global climate. According to scientific measurements, Arctic sea ice has declined dramatically over at least the past thirty years, with the most extreme decline seen in the summer melt season.
Read timely scientific analysis year-round below. We provide an update during the first week of each month, or more frequently as conditions warrant.
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Content:
1. IPO Update
2. The Canadian IPY Secretariat
3. Polar Weeks
4. Upcoming IPY meetings
5. Update from APECS
6. Update from Oslo 2010 Planning Process
7. Call for new stories and blogs for ipy.org
8. Submit your metadata, win a trip
9. Archiving IPY materials
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The balloon climbed up to the floating altitude of 38 km until reaching eastern Greenland were the balloon was then “valved down” to 37 km using remotely controlled valves in the balloon’s apex fitting. This was the requested altitude by the Italian experimenters. After crossing the Greenland Ice Sheet the balloon continued on to Baffin Island where the flight was terminated after four days at float and the payload then impacted under parachute at 72º 42’ 784 N 82º23’ 400 W landing in an upright position only 40 km from an airfield. Recovery operations began immediately.
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A new approach to tracking polar bears, developed by Queen's University researchers, will shed more light on the potentially endangered Arctic animal and help boost the economy of Canada's north.
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The climate change creates a need for international cooperation and governance. The Arctic Council is a perfect forum for this.
Climate change and a potential for rapid development are the biggest challenges in the Arctic Area states the Danish Foreign Minister, Dr. Per Stig Møller, who recently on behalf of the Kingdom of Denmark became Chair of the Arctic Council. Last week Dr. Møller published an article in the Danish news paper Jyllandsposten about the Danish chairmanship programme and the challenges and opportunities of the Arctic.
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An undated handout photo from the Center for Northern Studies shows the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf disintegrating. Arctic sea ice has thinned dramatically since 2004, with the older, thicker ice giving way to a younger, thinner kind that melts in the northern summer, NASA scientists reported on Tuesday.
Researchers have known for years that ice covering in the Arctic Sea has been shrinking in area, but new satellite data that measure the thickness of ice show that the volume of sea ice is declining as well.
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For the next two months, Australian polar explorer Eric Philips will be guiding the crew aboard the Greenpeace ship, the "Arctic Sunrise." They're navigating the waters around Greenland to chart the impact of climate change. Philips filed this blog as part of CNN's special "Going Green."
The ship is here on a scientific research mission, and to document the effects of climate warming on the world's largest island and second largest icecap. I'm on board as the expedition safety guide, which means making sure that everyone venturing off the ship is well-equipped and well-informed for dealing with conditions in the harsh and remote Arctic wilderness.
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The Russian Accounts Chamber criticizes the Arktikugol coal company in Spitsbergen for having spent 2,17 billion RUB of federal transfers inefficiently.
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Sailing from Murmansk on Friday, the nuclear powered icebreaker 50 Years of Victory will head to the North Pole with tourists in its cabins.
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Sea ice has residents of a town on the eastern coast are left waiting for provisions.
Narsaq on Greenland’s east coast will have to wait a little longer to get much needed provisions after the ‘Nuka Arctica’ was forced to turn back from southern Greenland due to large amounts sea ice.
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The next frontier for the United States-Canadian air defense command should be the top of the world.
Canadian Lt. Gen. Charlie Bouchard, deputy commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command based at Peterson Air Force Base, said in an interview that the Arctic's rich reservoir of resources is spurring interest in development that should trigger greater oversight by NORAD.
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Until now leading models had not been able to explain what kept advancing glaciers from covering the whole planet during the last ice age, since over the past 24 million years geological conditions should have caused CO2 levels in the atmosphere to plummet, leading to a possible runaway icehouse effect. However new research published in the July 2 issue of Nature shows that plants have played an important role in keeping concentrations of atmospheric CO2 within such a relatively narrow range.
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A new paper published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles has shown that there is twice as much carbon stored in permafrost at high latitudes than previously thought. If the vast quantities of methane and carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere, it could lead to positive feedback loop, significantly increasing global temperatures before the end of this century.
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A new study by scientists has shown a dramatic increase in the amount of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean.
Fresh water flowing into or out of the Arctic Ocean plays an important role in ocean circulation and may be a factor in the response of the world ocean to climate change.
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New research, conducted by the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen and published in the scientific journal Climate Dynamics, maintains that the sea ice in the Arctic sea between Greenland and Svalbard has reached the smallest size it has been in 800 years.
The research combined information about the climate found in ice cores from an ice cap on Svalbard and from the annual growth rings of trees in Finland. The data about the ice cover was gathered from the logbooks of whaling- and fishingships datign back to the 16th century as well as from records from harbours in Iceland, where the sea ice coverage has been recorded since the end of the 18th century. By combining these two sets of information the reserachers were able to track the sea ice all the way back to the 13th century.
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Wind energy is being harnessed everywhere, even Antarctica. The Belgian research station on the continent, named Princess Elisabeth and opened in February by the International Polar Foundation, is powered primarily by eight small wind turbines that can withstand the extreme arctic conditions.
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Thousands of young birds risk dying when they leave their nests from the cliffs above “Petrozavodsk”, the Russian vessel that ran aground by the coast of the Bear Island nearly two months ago. The ship is leaking diesel oil into the ocean under the nesting cliff.
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A new measurement system for the detection of whales is used for the first time on board of the research vessel Polarstern. Whales are usually difficult to spot. On the one hand, they spend the greater part of their life under water. On the other hand, only a small part of their body can be seen when they surface, and this can even hardly be distinguished from the surrounding water. Visual sightings by marine mammal observers are therefore usually based on observations of the spout, the condensing and quite warm breathing cloud. It rises, depending on the whale species and wind conditions, between one metre and ten metres over the water surface and remains visible for only a few seconds. A thermal imaging camera specifically optimized for this purpose now uses the heat of this spout. It is employed for the first time during the current expedition of RV Polarstern.
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El Niño years typically result in fewer hurricanes forming in the Atlantic Ocean. But a new study suggests that the form of El Niño may be changing potentially causing not only a greater number of hurricanes than in average years, but also a greater chance of hurricanes making landfall, according to climatologists at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The study appears in the July 3, 2009, edition of the journal Science.
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How to manage the Arctic in the Future is the headline in a new academic project. The Arctic Governance Project will follow up the Arctic Councils scientific assessments.
What are the opportunities for strengthening the Arctic Council? That is one of the questions asked in a new project called "Governance in a Rapidly Changing Arctic".
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The Russian government described Canada as a potential partner - not a rival - in the international fight for the Arctic.
While urging closer co-operation with Canada, a senior diplomat said it's other countries making unwelcome forays over sovereignty in the region. Sergey Petrov singled out the European Union, which has opposed Canada's exclusive claim to the Northwest Passage, for excessive involvement.
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