Unusually warm and cold periods in Earth's pre-industrial climate history are linked to how the oceans responded to temperature changes, say scientists.
The researchers focused particularly on intervals known as the "little ice age" and "medieval warm period".
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Studies suggesting the Arctic sea ice has made a modest recovery following its record-setting retreat in 2007 are misleading and underestimate the severity of the polar meltdown, says one of Canada’s top ice scientists.
David Barber, Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, says satellite images used to track the overall extent of Arctic ice don’t adequately perceive how weak and “rotten” the region’s older, thicker, multi-year ice cover has become.
As the ice melts on the top of the world, the U.S. Navy will have to learn how to operate surface vessels in these uncharted waters. So far, only submarines have regularly been sailing under the icecap.
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Global carbon markets may well have been hailed as the saviour of the planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but in many ways they are doing more harm than good, according to new evidence.
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Whatever the outcome of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Nature may have some extremely nasty surprises up its sleeve, say scientists.
They say Earth's biosphere has numerous "tipping points" -- triggers that cause global warming and its impacts to lurch up a gear or two, rather than occur in a smooth, incremental way.
In other words, the planet itself would become the main driver of warming, making the crisis far more difficult to manage.
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The U.S. Navy initiate a four years programme to figure out what it will take for Arctic fleet operations when the climate changes make the ice disappear.
As the ice melts on the top of the world, the U.S. Navy will have to learn how to operate surface vessels in these uncharted waters. So far, only submarines have regularly been sailing under the icecap.
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Using gravity measurement data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, a team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin has found that the East Antarctic ice sheet-home to about 90 percent of Earth's solid fresh water and previously considered stable-may have begun to lose ice.
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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will attend international climate talks next month, his office said Thursday, as 3,000 scientists pressed Ottawa to seek a deal on deeper CO2 emissions cuts.
A spokesman for Harper told AFP he will travel to Copenhagen for the December 7-18 climate talks, but a travel date has not yet been set.
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The Arctic is thawing fast because of global warming but a big "Cold Rush" for offshore oil and gas looks unlikely because of icebergs and high costs, a new book says.
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A unique opportunity to learn more about the Arctic climate
The upcoming COP 15 in Copenhagen in December is a unique opportunity to present the dramatic changes in the Arctic climate to the rest of the world.
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Intervals of regional warmth and cold in the past are linked to the El Niño phenomenon and the so-called "North Atlantic Oscillation" in the Northern hemisphere's jet stream, according to a team of climate scientists. These linkages may be important in assessing the regional effects of future climate change.
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Global warming is happening faster than expected and at worst could raise sea levels by up to 2 meters (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, a group of scientists said on Tuesday in a warning to next month's U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen.
In what they called a "Copenhagen Diagnosis," updating findings in a broader 2007 U.N. climate report, 26 experts urged action to cap rising world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
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New research on bacterial communities throughout six large Arctic river ecosystems reveals predictable temporal patterns, suggesting that scientists could use these communities as markers for monitoring climate change in the polar regions.
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The Tory government says it believes in co-operation among the Arctic's coastal nations – as long as everyone is clear on Canada's superior role as an “energy superpower” when it comes to the north.
“Our Northern Strategy is sending a clear message around the world,” Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said during a speech yesterday to the Economic Club of Canada. “Canada is in control of its Arctic lands and waters and takes its responsibilities very seriously.”
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In a provocative new study, a University of Utah scientist argues that rising carbon dioxide emissions -- the major cause of global warming -- cannot be stabilized unless the world's economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day.
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Quebec is taking the final step in its break from Ottawa on climate change, unveiling an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gases and blasting the federal government for inaction only a few weeks before a major international environmental conference.
Premier Jean Charest announced Monday that, by 2020, the province will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels, a goal similar to the target the European Union has adopted.
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Scientists from the Marine Biogeochemistry and Geology and Geophysics sections of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) organized and led a team of university and government scientists on an Arctic expedition to initiate methane hydrate exploration in the Beaufort Sea and determine the spatial variation of sediment contribution to Arctic climate change.
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A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day.
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A new study from Norwegian and New Zealand scientists provides updated numbers for CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. While the global financial crisis may have slowed down the emission growth, it has not been sufficient to stop it: From 2007 to 2008 global emissions from fossil fuels increased by 2.2 percent. From 2003 to 2007, the average fossil emissions increased by 3.7 percent a year.
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Scientists funded by Shell and six other oil companies say that cleaning up oil spills in Arctic ice is in many respects easier than cleaning it from open water. This research conflicts with conventional wisdom.
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The Antarctic system includes the continent itself, Antarctica, and the ocean surrounding it, the Southern Ocean. In a study for a doctoral degree by geophysicist Kai Rasmus, University of Helsinki, Finland, measurements were made during three Austral summers to study the optical properties of the Antarctic system and to produce radiation information for additional modeling studies.
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SUMO (Small Unmanned Meteorological Observer) has been used to monitor Arctic Atmospheric Boundary Layer (AABL) in Svalbard. SUMO can perform both vertical and horizontal surveys of the mean meteorological parameters: temperature, relative humidity, pressure and wind.
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The oceans play a key role in regulating climate, absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans put into the air. Now, the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial era suggests the oceans are struggling to keep up with rising emissions -- a finding with potentially wide implications for future climate. The study appears in the November 19 issue of the journal Nature.
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NILU scientists have built and tested new ultra-violet imaging camera that can detact emissions of SO2 and provide quantitative estimate of SO2 flux. The test was carried out in Ny-Ålesund where many large cruise ships emit unknown amounts of SO2 into the "pristine" air. The work was funded by Arctic Field Grant.
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President Obama and other world leaders have decided to put off the difficult task of reaching a climate change agreement at a global climate conference scheduled for next month, agreeing instead to make it the mission of the Copenhagen conference to reach a less specific “politically binding” agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future.
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The Danish parliament has earmarked 40 million kroner in additional funding for the Greenland Climate Research Centre. The funds will be disbursed in 2011 and 2012.
The primary focus is on climate adaptation in the Arctic, and the effects of climate changes on the region.
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As the world climate summit closes in, scientists monitoring the impact of global warming in the far north have grown frustrated by public apathy and disbelief about the extent of the problem.
“Measuring ice thickness is extremely difficult,” says Edmond Hansen, an arctic change researcher at the Norwegian Polar Institute meticulously charting the effects of climate change, ahead of the December 7-18 Copenhagen summit.
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Seed banks need a further $250 million to preserve all varieties of food crops including those which may best survive future climate changes, the Global Crop Diversity Trust said Wednesday.
The crop trust is the main supporter of a seed vault in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, intended as a global back-up for food crops, and says it needs more money to complete that project and support other, more accessible seed banks worldwide.
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It is generally assumed that the tropics with the rain forests are the best place to plant trees in order to increase carbon absorption and save the planet from climate changes. But, a new small-scale study indicates something else. To maximize climate benefits, trees should be planted at higher latitudes, a study by scientists from University of Nova Scotia in Canada shows.
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A new British study show that the global temperature could rise with 4 degrees Celsius by 2060, and the Arctic could experience up to 10 degrees rise. This could threaten the water supply of half the world’s population.
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Recording hundreds of thousands of individual uplinks from satellite transmitters fitted on penguins, albatrosses, sea lions, and other marine animals, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and BirdLife International have released the first-ever atlas of the Patagonian Sea -- a globally important but poorly understood South American marine ecosystem.
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The US Navy’s submarine USS Texas broke through the ice in the vicinity of the North Pole in mid-October.
The brand new USS Texas is the first of the Virginia-class attack-submarines in the US Navy to conduct operations in the Arctic, reports navy.mil, the official website of the United States navy.
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Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell says he has the best interest of polar bears at heart, but he doesn't intend to let the federal government's expanded protection for bears get in the way of the state's continued prosperity.
Like his predecessor, Sarah Palin, the governor is suing the federal government to overturn the listing of the iconic symbol of the Arctic as a threatened species, a move made last year that he believes could threaten Alaska's lifeblood: petroleum development.
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Penguins that died 44,000 years ago in Antarctica have provided extraordinary frozen DNA samples that challenge the accuracy of traditional genetic aging measurements, and suggest those approaches have been routinely underestimating the age of many specimens by 200 to 600 percent.
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California experienced centuries-long droughts in the past 20,000 years that coincided with the thawing of ice caps in the Arctic, according to a new study by UC Davis doctoral student Jessica Oster and geology professor Isabel Montañez.
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A scientist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno has been awarded more than $3.2 million in grant funding to study ice cores and climate change in the Arctic and Antarctic.
Joseph McConnell is a research professor in DRI's Division of Hydrologic Sciences and director of its Ultra-Trace Chemistry Laboratory.
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With the most important meeting on man-made climate change starting in about three weeks, the last thing the Government needs is a survey showing that more the half the population is reluctant to believe that there is a problem.
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Families bade farewell Tuesday as crew members embarked from Tokyo aboard the new icebreaker Shirase on an Antarctic expedition.
The 12,500-ton Shirase, the country's fourth icebreaker, departed from Harumi Pier in Chuo Ward. The ship is expected to reach the Showa Base in Antarctica in mid-December.
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Monitoring trekking pattern of Svalbard rock ptarmigan can be a difficult task. Researchers have equipped 8 birds with small satellite senders and are able to track the moving patterns also during the polar night.
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NASA’s Airborne Science program “Operation Ice Bridge” a six year campaign of annual targeted flights over the Arctic / Antarctic in a DC-8 (157 foot) airborne laboratory. Its mission is to record changes in sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers. The aircraft is limited to just a few hours over the Antarctic on each flight but made a last minute change due to weather conditions and clouds that interfered with high altitude measurements. Palmer station was given notification of the NASA ‘fly by’ and within 8 minutes, Palmer station personnel scrambled to communicate “hi” using red station float coats in the snow. The flash of the red navigation light on the belly of the plane signaled their hello back as they headed back to Punta Arenas, Chile.
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Content:
1. Oslo Science Conference, 8-12 June 2010
2. IPO at AGU Fall Meeting
3. Seventh Meeting of the Heads of Arctic and Antarctic IPY Secretariats (HAIS-7)
4. APECS Update
5. IPY Education and Outreach update
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Satellite observations and a state-of-the art regional atmospheric model have independently confirmed that the Greenland ice sheet is loosing mass at an accelerating rate, reports a new study in Science.
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Development of the Arctic is under the influence of financial crisis. The number of regional programs on deer farming, trade development etc was reduced in 2 times, financial support of these programs was reduced in 3 times as minimum. However biodiversity of the Arctic regions was preserved due to depression of economic activity.
It is possible to preserve the environment Arctic potential only by rational nature management, highlighted during the press-conference Mr Arkady Tishkov, the deputy director of Institute of Geography RAS.
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Press-conference “Russian Arctic: problems and development perspectives” devoted to international scientific and practical conference was held in Moscow on November 9-11. Russian and foreign experts in the field of environment protecting, representatives of indigenous small nations and government bodies are the press-conference participants. The main issue is to define balance between nature and necessity of the northern areas development.
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Glaciers' inner hydrological systems remain largely unknown. Therefore speleological work delivers precious information and helps creating 3-dimensional maps of glacier englacial and subglacial drainage system. Jason Gulley reports on his work in caves of Rieperbreen, Hansbreen and other glaciers in Svalbard.
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The scientists attending the symposium have worked out a declaration summarizing the key findings from the project, as well as future projections and scenarios.
More than 150 scientists attended the international symposium “The Arctic climate system, its present status, future evolution and potential impacts”.
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The calculation of variations in the sea level is relatively simple. It is by far more complicated to then determine the change in the water mass. A team of geodesists and oceanographers from the University of Bonn, as well as from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and the Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Sciences, two centres of the Helmholtz Association, have now, for the first time succeeded in doing this. The researchers were able to observe short-term fluctuations in the spatial distribution of the ocean water masses. Their results are, amongst others, important for improved climate models.
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Al Gore and his crusade against global warming landed in the Bay Area this week with a call to arms and a message for those who still think the former vice president is tilting at windmills.
The solution to climate change includes windmills, along with solar and geothermal energy, Gore told The Chronicle in an interview. He also defended himself against attacks by critics who accuse him of pushing the green agenda so that he can personally benefit from investments he has made in green technology.
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Norway’s current border crossing point to Russia is not dimensioned to meet the expected growth in traffic. The plan for a brand new border station was released this week. If approved, it could be ready by 2013/2014.
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International scientists, researchers and decision makers met at the ‘Space and the Arctic workshop’ to identify the needs and challenges of working and living in the rapidly changing Arctic and to explore how space-based services can help to meet those needs.
The workshop, held from 20 to 21 October in Stockholm, Sweden, was organized by the Swedish National Space Board and the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute together with ESA, EUMETSAT and the EC.
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Large blooms of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton are flourishing in areas of open water left exposed by the recent and rapid melting of ice shelves and glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula. This remarkable colonisation is having a beneficial impact on climate change. As the blooms die back phytoplankton sinks to the sea-bed where it can store carbon for thousands or millions of years.
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Bodo University College in Nordland, Norway, and the Pomor State University in Arkhangelsk, Russia, are expanding their cooperation through combined teaching on Bachelor’s level.
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Climate models that predict heavy rainfall don't give the whole picture, according to the results of a study by NWO scientist Martin Ziegler. He examined climate changes that have taken place over the past 800,000 years, and discovered that the melting icebergs in the North Atlantic and changes in the El Niño Southern Oscillation have a great influence on the intensity of monsoon rains.
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Greenland can help international climate negotiations by identifying what it will do, not repeating what it won't, said Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's climate minister.
"The Faroe Islands will reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent in 2020, but we have yet to see what Greenland's goals are," Hedegaard told parliament during debate last week over the role of Denmark's two self-governing territories in climate negotiations.
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The local community in Nordkapp municipality, home to one of Norway’s most visited tourist attractions, North Cape, gets only fractions of the income from tourists who visit the plateau. Most of the money goes to Rica Hotels, owner of the tourist center Nordkapphallen.
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Aerosols, very small particles suspended in the air, play an important role in the global climate balance and in regulating climate change. They are one of the greatest sources of uncertainty in climate change models. ESA's GlobAerosol project has been making the most of European satellite capabilities to monitor them.
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A geodesic dome that sheltered scientists and support workers at the South Pole for three decades is due to be demolished in the next few months, having outlived its usefulness at the bottom of the world.
But a small group of polar veterans is trying to preserve the dome, arguing it is a signature feature of the United States Antarctic program. They want the 55-foot-high aluminum structure taken apart the same way that Navy Seabees assembled it — bolt by bolt and panel by panel — for reassembly stateside.
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This job just gets better and better, because on Monday I got to meet royalty! Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, visited us at Antarctica New Zealand in Christchurch as part of his tour of the Commonwealth.
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The Canadian Forces are still going ahead with plans to open a High Arctic training centre and deep-sea military port in Nunavut within the next five years. Prime Minister Stephen Harper first promised both facilities — a training centre in Resolute Bay and a docking and refuelling port at the former Nanisivik mine site near Arctic Bay — in August 2007, but they still have not been built more than two years later.
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The prediction of climate conditions most likely expected by 2010-2015 in the Russian Federation and its region is presnted on the basis of the long-term instrumental observations of climate on the territory of Russia as well as the results from national and international studies of climate change in the near future.
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A large group of a rarely sighted, mysterious species of whale has been seen off the coast of Antarctica.
Approximately 60 Arnoux's beaked whales were seen and photographed frolicking on the surface in the Gerlache Strait.
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Predictions made over the last decade about the impacts of climate change on biodiversity may be exaggerated, according to a paper published in the journal Science.
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Tourism industry can be happy with the support their 3 projects have received from the Svalbard Environmental Fund. Altogheter 4,4 mln kroner will be delivered to 23 projects, 14 of which are led by local recipients.
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Despite the fact that summer 2009 had more sea ice than in 2007 or 2008, scientists are seeing drastic changes in the region from just five years ago and at rates faster than anticipated. The findings were presented October 22 in the annual update of the Arctic Report Card, a collaborative effort of 71 national and international scientists.
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Inger Greve Alsos from UNIS and her colleagues have been collecting samples from plants growing in Svalbard. The samples are being DNA-analysed and barcoded in order to establish what specie each of them belongs to. DNA makes the taxonomy easy.
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The seriousness of current global warming is underlined by a reconstruction of climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula over approximately the last 14,000 years, which appears to show that the current warming and widespread loss of glacial ice are unprecedented.
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Geoscientists have succeeded in reconstructing sea ice cover extend in the past by use of two different fossil algae species found in the sediment cores from Fram Strait. The results show also how rapidly the changes were occurring.
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The invertebrate fauna of Edgeøya has remained until now. PhD student from UNIS, María Luisa Ávila Jiménez decided to tackle this issue in the summer 2009. Samples were taken to carry out community comparison studies and phylogeographical analyses.
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A destructive 130-kilometre long gillnet has been found deep in the ocean off Antarctica, bulging with 29 tonnes of Antarctic toothfish and a significant bycatch of skates.
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The vast expanses of multiyear ice that once covered the Arctic Oceanand were a major hindrance in navigating through the Arctic forcenturies has practically vanished according to Canada's Research Chairin Arctic System Science at the University of Manaitoba, David Barber.Barber recently returned from an expedition to find multiyear sea icein the Arctic only to find very little.
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The new Norwegian Coast Guard vessel KV Barentshav can now refuel natural gas close to the areas it is protecting in the Barents Sea. The Norwegian company Barents NaturGass is the first to deliver natural gas to vessels in Northern Norway.
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An article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences written by a team of ecologists, including Robert Booth, assistant professor of earth and environmental science at Lehigh University, examines some of the potential problems with current prediction methods and calls for the use of a range of approaches when predicting the impact of climate change on organisms.
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The second phase of the HIPPO (HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations of Greenhouse Gases) mission is on its way as scientists from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) embarked with five NOAA ESRL (Earth System Research Laboratory) instruments on a modified Gulfstream aircraft to monitor the distribution of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
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The vast muddy expanses of the abyssal plains occupy about 60 percent of the Earth's surface and are important in global carbon cycling. Based on long-term studies of two such areas, a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that animal communities on the abyssal seafloor are affected in a variety of ways by climate change.
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The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday.
Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world.
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Like motherhood and apple pie, Arctic sovereignty is difficult to oppose.
So when Conservative MP Daryl Kramp introduced a motion on Oct. 5 to rename the Northwest Passage the “Canadian Northwest Passage,” the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois quickly jumped on board.
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Open water at the North Pole and other haunting images of a looming end to the Arctic are epic in their scale. They dramatically illustrate the sense of urgency felt by many climate change pessimists who believe that mankind — and perhaps all life itself — will become the biggest loser of the warming earth.
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Researchers of the Australian Antarctic Division will fit satellite trackers onto emperor penguin chicks at the Amanda Bay Colony near Davis Station to study the foraging habits of the fledglings. While the feeding habits of adults are known from earlier studies, those of the chicks are not.
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This year, Australian researchers will return to the Amery Ice Shelf, the largest ice sheld in East Antarctica, to finish a decade-long project studying the effects of climate change. Known as AMISOR (Amery Ice Shelf Ocean Research), the program for this season will have scientists measuring and sampling through the Amery Ice Shelf at several test sites through an average ice thickness of 650 metres.
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What do you get if you cross a polar bear with a grizzly brown bear?
Scientists can now answer the question, following the first study of a polar bear/grizzly bear hybrid.
Only one hybrid bear has ever been seen in the wild, so the study evaluated two hybrid bears kept in captivity, which are among 17 such bears known to exist.
While each hybrid has inherited characteristics from either parent, some traits, such as partially hollow hair, appear to be a blend of the two.
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About half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially valuable species, have been shifting northward over the last four decades, with some stocks nearly disappearing from U.S. waters as they move farther offshore, according to a new study by NOAA researchers.
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When the new Northern (Arctic) Federal University opens in Arkhangelsk, it will be Russia’s center for education and research on the Arctic. The main motives for the establishment are protection of Russia’s geopolitical and economic interests in Northern Europe and the Arctic.
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The Academik Fedorov scientific research vessel will set out on its 30th voyage to the Antarctic continent from the St. Petersburg Maritime Port on Sunday.
“The voyage is taking place according to a program of the 55th Russian Antarctic Expedition,” Valery Lukin, the deputy director of the Institute of Arctic and Antarctic Studies of the Russian Hydro-Meteorological Centre.
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Arctic sea ice coverage is approaching the record minimum of two years ago, according to the latest National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) data. This is based on 1979-2009 ice coverage plots, so while this is not a lengthy record, ice trends are closely watched as barometers of climate change (be it man-made or natural, I’ll leave that for others to decide).
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