The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association for the first time sent its Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) on an under-ice mission at about 79° North. The four-metre-long, torpedo shaped underwater vehicle was deployed from the research icebreaker Polarstern under heavy pack ice. The vehicle was subsequently recovered by helicopter.
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Canadian Air Force fighters intercepted two Russian strategic bombers over the Atlantic Ocean, CBC television reported, citing Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay.
Canadian F-18 pilots took to the air from the Bagotville Air Force Base in Quebec after identifying two Russsian Tu-95 Bears in the country's buffer zone on Wednesday. The Russian aircraft were 450 kilometers off the coast of Labrador.
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Just six months ago residents of the eastern U.S. were shoveling themselves out of the snowiest winter ever—weather that prompted mockery of global warming among some people. Now, scientists have a new explanation for why such anomalous snowstorms can coexist with global warming: The storms were kicked up by the convergence of two natural, large-scale weather patterns.
In order to better understand possible triggers of last year's media-dubbed "snowmaggedon," a team of scientists from Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory analyzed more than 50 years of snow data as well as measurements of atmospheric pressure and sea-surface temperatures.
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On July 27th, scientists from the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project made it to the bottom of the Greenland Ice Sheet at a depth of 2,537.36 metres. After five years of work, the most international ice coring effort to date (300 researchers from 14 nations) managed to retrieve ice from the warm interglacial Eemian period, 130,000 to 115,000 years ago and beyond. It was a fantastic find, as the last 2 meters of ice before hitting the bedrock contain material that has not seen sunlight for hundreds of thousands of years.
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Summer storms are a regular feature in the North Atlantic, and while most pose little threat to our shores, a choice few become devastating hurricanes.
To decipher which storms could bring danger, and which will not, atmospheric scientists are heading to the tropics to observe these systems as they form and dissipate--or develop into hurricanes.
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Though still under construction, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole is already delivering scientific results -- including an early finding about a phenomenon the telescope was not even designed to study.
IceCube captures signals of notoriously elusive but scientifically fascinating subatomic particles called neutrinos. The telescope focuses on high-energy neutrinos that travel through the Earth, providing information about faraway cosmic events such as supernovas and black holes in the part of space visible from the Northern Hemisphere.
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The EU’s foreign ministers on Monday gave their green light for the start of membership negotiations with Iceland. An inclusion of the North Atlantic island in the Union could significantly strengthen the position of Brussels in the Arctic.
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The United States and Canada will conduct a joint Arctic mission this summer to prove their right for the extended continental shelf and Arctic seafloor, the U.S. Department of State has said.
The mission will continue the U.S.-Canada collaboration begun in 2008, which saves "millions of dollars" for both countries and increases scientific and diplomatic cooperation on the Arctic issue, the department said in a statement.
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Russia's icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn will carry more than a hundred tourists to the Franz Josef Land, an archipelago in the far north of Russia, a Rosmorport company official has said.
The ship will leave the northern Russian port of Murmansk on Tuesday for a 10-day cruise, Vladimir Ivanov said.
"This is not an ordinary voyage. The Kapitan Dranitsyn usually does not carry tourists on board," he said.
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Despite setbacks on Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he still supports the need for broad climate legislation and pledged to keep pushing for it. The White House expressed fresh hope the Senate and House might strike a deal on a sweeping energy plan this year.
Lacking the votes they need in this election year, Senate Democrats have abandoned Obama's goal of a bill that would cap the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
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The Russian research vessel Akademik Fedorov left Arkhangelsk on Wednesday for a three-month expedition to the Arctic to ascertain the borders of Russia's continental shelf.
"The vessel's crew is reliable and comprises Russia's best specialists," said Artur Chilingarov, a Russian lawmaker and presidential envoy on Arctic and Antarctic international cooperation.
"Its research is necessary to submit a claim to the UN in several years' time to prove the shelf belongs to Russia," he added.
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The Executive Summary Report of the key findings from the International Polar Year 2007-2008 at Fisheries and Oceans Canada is available at: http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/publications/ipy-api/index-eng.html.
The summary report details findings from International Polar Year (IPY) research projects undertaken by and in conjunction with the Government of Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The findings reveal profound changes that are impacting the Arctic Ocean, which are in turn driving major impacts on ecosystems.
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CLIMATE-change sceptics who clamoured for raw data are to get all their Christmases at once.
The Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK, recently at the centre of the hacked emails controversy, is launching a pilot study into how best to make public three major temperature data sets and detailed records of how they are processed. They will include data repeatedly requested by climate sceptics under freedom of information legislation.
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It has been more than 150 years since Capt Sir John Franklin and his 128 men perished in the Canadian Arctic, their ships lost in one of the greatest disasters of British polar exploration.
Now, a Canadian archaeological team is en route to the Arctic in a fresh hunt for Franklin's ships.
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The terrestrial biosphere regulates atmospheric composition, and hence climate. Projections of future climate changes already account for "carbon-climate feedbacks," which means that more CO2 is released from soils in a warming climate than is taken up by plants due to photosynthesis. Climate changes will also lead to increases in the emission of CO2 and methane from wetlands, nitrous oxides from soils, volatile organic compounds from forests, and trace gases and soot from fires. All these emissions affect atmospheric chemistry, including the amount of ozone in the lower atmosphere, where it acts as a powerful greenhouse gas as well as a pollutant toxic to people and plants.
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A comprehensive national response to climate change should be informed by reliable data coordinated through climate services and a greenhouse gas monitoring and management system to provide timely information tailored to decision makers at all levels, says a report by the National Research Council.
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The latest SCAR Report (number 38) is now published on the SCAR website. Entitled 'Ice Sheet Mass Balance and Sea Level: A Science Plan', it was originally presented as an ISMASS contribution at the International Glaciological Society Conference in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, July 27-31, 2009.
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A lot of large particles of dust and pollen in the atmosphere may make your nose twitch, but they can lead directly to greater precipitation in clouds, Colorado State University atmospheric scientists have discovered for the first time.
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The Russian nuclear icebreaker “50 years of Victory” this weekend headed for the North Pole for this season’s second Arctic cruise. Aboard the vessel are 130 tourists, many of them from countries in Asia.
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Establishing the grounding line of the largest freshwater reserve on Earth – the Antarctic Ice Sheet – is important in helping scientists determine exactly how much mass the ice sheet is losing to the ocean and thus how much it’s contributing to global sea level rise. Now, the Antarctic Surface Accumulation and Ice Discharge (ASAID) has provided the most accurate tracing yet of the Antarctic grounding line (where the ice sheet leaves land and moves out over the water).
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High-resolution satellite images and newly developed computer software have enabled NASA researchers to create the most accurate map to date of the snaking line that marks the edge of the ice sheet covering much of Antarctica.
This is crucial for determining the rate at which the continent is losing ice. Antarctica's ice sheet is the world's largest, and holds more than 60 percent of the Earth's freshwater supply.
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China will start a national system for trading carbon and other greenhouse gases for the next the five years starting from 2011, China Daily reported on Tuesday quoting an unnamed source.
The decision was made at a closed-door meeting attended by officials from related ministries, enterprises and expert groups, according to the newspaper. It was chaired by Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission.
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The last of five instruments slated to fly on the upcoming NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) climate and weather satellite have been successfully integrated, according to NASA officials. The polar-orbiting satellite is scheduled to launch in late 2011.
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The flagship of the Canadian Coast Guard was preparing to leave St. John's Monday for a scientific mission connected to the country's Arctic sovereignty.
The icebreaker Louis St. Laurent will be undertaking a mission over the next four months that will include a team of scientists, including biologists, oceanographers and hydrographers.
Apart from projects that include ice, water and plankton testing, the mission is also connected to ensuring that the Arctic will be part of Canada in years to come.
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Participants of a Russian polar expedition reached the Arctic Circle on Tuesday in a move that was preceded by their three off road vehicles covering at least 2,000 kilometers along the dangerous Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia in the past twenty days.
The unique expedition may well make it to the Guinness Book of Records in terms of its complexity and distance covered , specialists said.
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The U.S. Navy and civilian scientists have established a program that enables scientists to use Navy submarines to collect data from Arctic regions that are normally beyond scientists' reach.
American scientists who study the Arctic's icy cap now have a new weapon at their disposal – nuclear-powered Navy submarines, The New York Times reports. Civilian researchers have signed an agreement with the Navy to revive a dormant program that uses submarines to collect information on parts of the Arctic's ice and ocean that normally lie beyond scientists' reach.
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Construction has started on a large-scale upgrade to Arctic research facilities in Resolute, an isolated community that's in the running for a new High Arctic research station promised by the Conservative government.
Two Quebec companies issued a news release Friday saying they will deliver 31 prefabricated modules to Resolute next week.
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Trust Arcticugol in Barentsburg has acquired a cutter, similar to the workboat 'Teisten' in Ny-Alesund. From this summer on it can be hired for scientific and explorative purposes.
The vessel is named 'Barentsburg' and is stationed in the harbour of Barentsburg in Grenfjorden. It has a aluminium hull and a platform at the stern. It is equipped with a steel anchor, 50m mooring rope, a diving ladder, a crane, a winch and a rubber boat with outboard engine. All necessary life-saving equipment is provided and for navigation 'Raymarine' equipment is used.
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The second edition of the book “Glaciers and Glaciation” has just been published. The updated version features a lot of information about the glaciers of Svalbard. Authors are Doug Benn from the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) and David Evans from Durham University (UK).
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Arctic seismic testing in Hudson Strait and Foxe Basin has been given clearance by the Nunavut Impact Review Board.
The Geological Survey of Canada project will look for unique geological features and has the potential to find petroleum resources in the Nunavut waterways.
The oceanographic survey, which is scheduled for later this summer, has been greeted with far less opposition than a similar survey of Lancaster Sound, which was scaled back because of concerns raised in Arctic communities.

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Loaded with iron ore concentrate, the first ever bulk carrier might sail the Northeast Passage in late August. Climate changes with melting Arctic sea ice will change the shipping routes from Europe to Asia, says the Norwegian ship owner Felix Tschudi in this interview with BarentsObserver.
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Average global temperatures from January-June 2010 have been the warmest since records began in 1880, a report issued on the U.S. Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website said on Friday.
The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for June 2010 was the warmest on record at 16.2 degrees Celsius (61.2 degrees Farenheit), which is 0.68 Celsius degrees above the 20th century average of 15.5 degrees Celsius (59.9 degrees Farenheit).
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The episode where two tankers carrying diesel-fuel collided with each other in Arctic waters on the North East Passage was no emergency situation, just an ‘operational situation’, says Murmansk Shipping Company.
As BarentsObserver reported, the two tankers Indiga and Varzuga collided with each other somewhere along the North East Passage on their way from Murmansk to Chukotka in Russia’s Far East. Both tankers are loaded with 13,300 tons of diesel-fuel.
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The Arctic will have no ice during the summer by the mid-21st century, the head of the Russian Meteorological Centre said on Tuesday.
"In 30-40 years, the Arctic may have no ice in the summertime, including the North Pole," Alexander Frolov said, quoting data from an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
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As Arctic ice recedes, countries are looking forward to faster, safer and more efficient sea routes across the top of the world. Responding to a request from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, Alaska Maritime Pilots and the commercial shipping industry, NOAA sent one of its premier surveying vessels, NOAA Ship Fairweather, to detect navigational dangers in critical Arctic waters that have not been charted for more than 50 years.
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During the last couple of decades, scientists poring over satellite images have noticed several large icebergs breaking up as they wafted along a particular stretch of the Antarctic coast. Now, thanks to data gathered in part by an instrument-laden iceberg, the researchers know why: The ice masses were crashing into a previously unreported submarine ridge.
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The "Climate Change" exhibition features a collage portraying technological advances since the Industrial Revolution. An illuminated LED line runs through this timeline, portraying the corresponding rise in CO2 in the earth's atmosphere.
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If there's one thing more potentially contentious than the international politics of global warming (which the world has spent at least the past 20-plus years dithering about), it's the politics of the most radical suggestion to solve it: geoengineering. After all, he who controls Earth's thermostat may well control Earth. And what's good for one nation (Bangladesh and its shoreline prefer today's climate, fearing sea level rise under a warmer one) may not be good for another (Russia might enjoy a balmier Arctic Circle).
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Framing climate change as a public health problem seems to make the issue more relevant, significant and understandable to members of the public -- even some who don't generally believe climate change is happening, according to preliminary research by George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication (4C).
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A new study concludes that an old, fundamental and widely accepted theory of how and why phytoplankton bloom in the oceans is incorrect.
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An international team of oceanographers investigating the role of iron on ocean productivity in the northerly latitudes of the Atlantic Ocean will assess the impact of ash from the recent Icelandic volcano eruption on ocean biology. The five-week expedition started out on July 4, 2010.
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Ancient hunters who stalked the world's last woolly mammoths likely helped warm the Earth's far northern latitudes thousands of years before humans began burning fossil fuels, according to a study of prehistoric climate change.
The demise of the leaf-chomping woolly mammoths contributed to a proliferation of dwarf birch trees in and around the Arctic, darkening a largely barren, reflective landscape and accelerating a rise in temperatures across the polar north, researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science concluded.
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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 two Murmansk registered oil tankers Varzuga and Indiga are right now on their way through the partly ice-covered Northern Sea Route on their way to Chukotka in Russia’s Far East.
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How does a female penguin choose a mate? Courtship calls help females decide which males are likely to be devoted dads, says a study in the journal Behaviour.
Antarctic penguins come on land for just a few short months each summer to breed and raise their chicks. Raising a family in the coldest place on earth is no small feat. Adelie penguins pull it off by tag-team parenting, the researchers explained. Males and females take turns incubating the eggs and guarding the chicks while their mate forages for food.
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A new model developed by PhD student Alex Fraser from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) in Australia could help scientists gain better insight into the extent and variability of fast ice (stationary sea ice attached to the continent or grounded icebergs). The new model, which has the ability to detect changes in Antarctic fast ice as well as the physical impacts of fast ice on glaciological processes, will also help in the study of the biological impacts of fast ice.
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The Akademik Fedorov research vessel again departs to explore the Arctic seabed.
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Canada's western Hudson Bay could lose its population of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in as little as a decade, according to new research by biologist Andrew Derocher and others from the University of Alberta (U.A.).
Derocher tells Yale Environment 360 that the polar bears in western Hudson Bay have lost 25 percent of their population in the past three decades. During that time, the animals' average body weight has dropped by 27 kilograms and females have lost 10 percent of their body length.
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From the first voyages across the North Atlantic, icebergs have been a major threat to shipping interests. The most famous disaster was the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15th, 1912. On her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, the vessel struck an iceberg approximately 400 nautical miles south of Newfoundland, Canada. Less than 3 hours later the Titanic sank beneath the surface, taking with her over 1500 passengers.
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Jakobshavn Glacier on the west coast of Greenland recently lost approximately 7 km2 of ice in a single day. The glacier, which broke up on July 6th and 7th, has pushed the contact point between the ocean and the ice sheet even further inland. The loss, researchers say, is part of a recent trend that began around the beginning of the decade.
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Clear skies in late June 2010 provided plenty of unfiltered sunlight to melt snow and ice in the Arctic. Arriving at roughly the same time as the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice, the conditions meant that unfiltered sunlight would reach the Arctic’s land and sea surfaces at a time of near round-the-clock daylight.
This Arctic mosaic is composed from several passes of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on June 28, 2010. The brightest spot in the image is Greenland, covered in snowy white. West and north of Greenland, sea ice appears pale gray-blue. Clouds, some translucent and some opaque, occur throughout the scene, distinguished from sea ice by their lighter color, rougher texture, and less distinct margins. Clouds appear most prevalent north and west of Scandinavia, and between Alaska and the Russian Federation, but wide expanses of land and sea surface show through cloud-free areas. Most of the Arctic Circle (marked by a faint circle) is cloud-free.
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For almost three decades, oceanographers have been puzzled by the ability of microscopic algae to grow in mid-ocean areas where there is very little nitrate, an essential algal nutrient. In a study appearing in Nature, MBARI chemical oceanographer Ken Johnson, along with coauthors Stephen Riser at the University of Washington and David Karl at the University of Hawaii, show that mid-ocean algae obtain nitrate from deep water, as much as 250 meters below the surface. This finding will help scientists predict how open-ocean ecosystems could respond to global warming.
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One Russian and one Norwegian sailing yacht will this summer try to be the first to sail both the North East and North West Passage in one season.
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The Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad on Thursday is to lay down a head oceanographic vessel of the principally new project 22010 on the order of the Russian Defence Ministry, the enterprise’s spokesman Sergei Mikhailov told Itar-Tass.
“The first oceanographic research vessel of the new project 22010 is designed by the Almaz Central Marine Design Bureau and comprises the latest innovations of Russian designers,” Mikhailov said.
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With carbon dioxide levels close to our own, the Arctic of the Pliocene epoch may have warmed much more than previously thought – and the modern Arctic could go the same way.
At that time, CO2 levels are thought to have been close to current levels – around 390 parts per million – but global temperatures were around 2 to 3 °C warmer than today. It was the last warm period before the onset of the Pleistocene glaciation, and is used by climate researchers as a model for our future climate.
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Adding nutrients to the sea could decrease viral infection rates among phytoplankton and enhance the efficiency of the biological pump, a means by which carbon is transferred from the atmosphere to the deep ocean, according to a new mathematical modelling study. The findings, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, have implications for ocean geo-engineering schemes proposed for tackling global warming.
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A new collection of some of North America's hottest foods -- an eclectic range of New World chili peppers -- were delivered to the cool Arctic Circle environs of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault this week, where their exotic tongue-scorching qualities can be kept safe for centuries.
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Toward the end of the last ice age, a major reorganization took place in the current system of the North Pacific with far-reaching implications for climate, according to a new study published in the July 9, 2010, issue of Science by an international team of scientists from Japan, Hawaii, and Belgium.
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Doing science in the Arctic is hard. Polar field researchers can spend most of their time surviving, with little time left over for science. But that's not the case at Toolik Field Station, I discovered during my two-week stay, which ended last Thursday. There, I was never hungry, rarely cold, and always in good company. No wonder some scientists affectionately call Toolik "the Hilton of the North."
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Russia will open nine new sanctuaries and 13 national parks with a total area of 3.8 million hectares by 2020, the Russian Natural Resources and Ecology Ministry said.
The ministry adopted territorial planning schedules in the development of specially protected natural territories of federal significance for the period until 2020.
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An expedition by environmental group Greenpeace has revealed a stunning array of sea life on the Arctic Ocean seabed.
The crew on board the Greenpeace ship, Esperanza, sailed to waters north of Norway's Svalbard Islands to record the footage.
Using state-of-the-art equipment, veteran underwater photographer Gavin Newman was able to capture rare images of sea anemones, tunicates and soft corals which appear to thrive in the harsh subzero temperatures.
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The warnings have mounted for half a decade. The United States, despite having substantial scientific operations in Antarctica and seeing ever more activity in its Arctic waters, has been relying on a pair of aging, decades-old heavy icebreakers to maintain mobility in ice-cloaked seas.
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Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Yury Trutnev has approved a strategy for polar bear preservation in Russia, according to a statement published on Tuesday.
The ministry's statement said the strategy aims to determine the mechanisms of preserving animal populations in the Russian Arctic and reduce the negative impact of human activity in their habitats.
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The international community has forged a legitimate system of relations in the Arctic, so there is little chance that the oil-rich region may become a source of conflict and rivalry in the future, a Russian diplomat said.
The vast hydrocarbon deposits that will become more accessible as rising global temperatures lead to a reduction in sea ice have brought the Arctic to the center of geopolitical wrangling between the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark.
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When ICESCAPE Co-chief Scientist Don Perovich of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory conducts an ice watch, he scans for formation types like frazil, shuga, grease and pancake. He identifies sizes like brash and ice cake, and speaks in lingo like finger rafting, lead and polyna. And then from a high vantage point he and his team select the perfect floe for their experiments. "It's always a total comedy skit," Don says, to distinguish one from another...
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Today, participants at the Living Planet Symposium have been hearing about ESA's most recently launched mission, CryoSat-2. In orbit for almost three months, the satellite is in excellent health with scientists very encouraged by the first ice-thickness data presented at the symposium.
Prof. Duncan Wingham, Lead Investigator for the CryoSat mission, stated, "The satellite is in very good shape – exceeding in-orbit specifications, the ground segment software is fine, the system of data distribution looks good and we are excited by the quality of data being received.
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Massive releases of methane from arctic seafloors could create oxygen-poor dead zones, acidify the seas and disrupt ecosystems in broad parts of the northern oceans, new preliminary analyses suggest.
Such a cascade of geochemical and ecological ills could result if global warming triggers a widespread release of methane from deep below the Arctic seas, scientists propose in the June 28 Geophysical Research Letters.
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While the hole in the Earth's protective ozone layer is slowly healing, its recovery might have a downside, scientists say: Climate change could change wind patterns and send ozone from high in the atmosphere down to the surface, where it is a major component of smog.
The discovery of a hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica was announced by a team of British scientists in 1985. The cause of the hole was attributed to ozone-depleting chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were primarily used in cooling units and propellants. When CFCs reach the ozone layer, they release chlorine atoms that rip ozone apart and peel away layers of Earth’s natural sunscreen.
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Lisa Clough is the program manager for the Antarctic Integrated System Science program in the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs. She shares her thoughts and experiences from the Oslo Science Conference celebrating the International Polar Year, which was held in June 2010.
The piece appeared in the Antarctic Sun, a newspaper published by the U.S. Antarctic Program, which NSF manages.
More than 2,300 polar scientists in one place meant this was going to be a conference unlike any other before it, and the International Polar Year (IPY) Oslo Science Conference delivered.
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Russia and Canada will start negotiations on the integration of their national space systems to monitor the Arctic, a Russian space official said on Tuesday.
Anatoly Shilov, deputy head of the Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, said the first Russian-Canadian meeting was scheduled for August.
"We are currently discussing which services will be provided by Russian satellites and which by Canadian satellites," he said.
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When Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Chinese President Hu Jintao meet here in Ottawa Thursday, one of them will be able to talk about the new Arctic icebreaker his country will launch in a couple of years.
It won’t be Harper.
Though Harper’s Conservative government has made Arctic sovereignty one of its centerpiece priorities over four years in government, Canada still finds itself unable to do much to actually enforce that sovereignty on its own. It won’t have its own new polar class icebreaker until 2017 and, until then, Canada simply doesn’t have the equipment to operate in the Arctic in the middle of winter at the top of the world.
Meanwhile, Russia has a fleet of year-round icebreakers that it actually wants to use to establish a Murmansk to Churchill, Man. shipping route. The U.S. is refitting one of its ships so it can handle the Arctic ice year-round. And now China — without so much as a mile of Arctic coastline of its own — is also building an icebreaker it will launch in 2013.
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The territories, continental shelves and exclusive economic zones of eight countries exist within the Arctic: Russia (largest Arctic border), Canada, the United States (Alaska), Norway, Denmark (Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Sweden and Iceland.
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U.S. scientists are interested in using Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for joint Arctic research projects, a Russian official said on Friday.
Vladimir Sokolov, chief of an Arctic expedition run by a research center affiliated with the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, said drones were successfully used to study atmospheric fluctuations that denote if the surface is water or ice.
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An expedition to ascertain the borders of Russia's Arctic continental shelf will begin in St. Petersburg on July 15, the expedition's chief said on Friday.
In 2001, Russia was the first of the five Arctic states to file a request to extend its continental shelf border beyond the standard 200-mile limit. The UN turned down the request, citing a lack of evidence to support the claim. Russia has said it will spend some 1.5 billion rubles ($50 million) to define the extent of its continental shelf in the Arctic in 2010.
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With carbon dioxide in the atmosphere approaching alarming levels, even halting emissions altogether may not be enough to avert catastrophic climate change. Could scrubbing carbon dioxide from the air be a viable solution?
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A new study shows the Arctic climate system may be more sensitive to greenhouse warming than previously thought, and that current levels of Earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide may be high enough to bring about significant, irreversible shifts in Arctic ecosystems.
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