Canadian Arctic ice shelves have lost almost half their volume in the past six years, as part of an astonishing deterioration that an Ottawa researcher says is likely irreversible.
Derek Mueller, an assistant professor in Carleton University's Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, says the ice shelves are going through an unprecedented period of change.
"Really on a human timescale, six years is actually a long time," Mueller.
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Key Points
* IPCC climate models underestimate Arctic sea ice thinning
* IPCC climate models fail to capture the recent sea ice kinematics acceleration
* Ice export may play a stronger role in the sea ice mass balance in the Arctic
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Researchers claim to have settled a long-standing debate over the exact temperature at which water transforms into an exotic glass-like substance believed to be present in comets and other icy objects in the outer solar system, as well as in the coldest regions of Earth's atmosphere.
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New research shows that humans can unwittingly bring alien plant species to Svalbard. Increased travel activity and expected temperature increases over the next decades, may make the establishment of new plant species in the archipelago’s vulnerable ecosystem possible. This calls for a closer look at the management policy for travelling to Svalbard.
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Arab companies are interested in participation in the Yamal liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the Russian Arctic, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of energy Igor Sechin said on Thursday.
The project, implemented by Russia's largest independent gas producer Novatek and France's Total, to produce LNG on Yamal Peninsula in the Russian Arctic is estimated at $15-20 billion and envisages the development of the giant Yuzhno-Tambeiskoye gas condensate field and the construction of a LNG plant.
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The fourth international conference “The Arctic Shelf Exploration: Step-by-Step” is opening in Murmansk in the Russian north on Thursday.
The delegates to the forum include representatives of Gazprom, Statoil Russia, Total Prospecting Development Russia, Shtokman Development AG, The Oil and Gas Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences as well as other companies and research institutes.
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China plans to hold five Antarctic research expeditions and another three to the Arctic region from 2011 to 2015, Xinhua said citing an official with the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration (CAA).
"Chinese researchers will focus on monitoring the weather and environment changes in the polar regions," the agency said, citing CAA head Qu Tanzhou.
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Tankers shipping along the Northern Sea Route now choose a new and more northern pathway.
Retreating ice makes it possible for tankers to traffic increasingly further north. According to First Deputy Director of Novatek, Mikhail Popov, the tankers shipping gas condensate along the route are now choosing to sail north of the Novosiberian Island. Until this year, vessels have all sailed south of the island through the Sannikov Strait.
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Scientists at the Universities of Oxford and Reading have catalogued and analysed depictions of weather in classical music from the 17th Century to the present day to help understand how climate affects how people think.
The researchers were so convinced that classical music is influenced by climate that they pursued this pilot study in their own spare time, outside of their normal scientific work.
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Scientists are warning that death rates linked to climate change will increase in several European countries over the next 60 yrs.
The research is part of the Climate-TRAP project and its health impact assessment lead by Prof Bertil Forsberg from the Umea University in Sweden. The aim is to prepare the health sector for changing public health needs due to climate change.
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From working on submarines, I have had a somewhat unusual perspective on drifting sea ice. Looking up is different from looking out. My first encounters with the Arctic were on submarines, unhindered by sea ice, that could sail the long, straight tracks favored by geophysicists, making 16 knots all day long. Use of United States Navy fast-attack submarines during the SCICEX program (1993-99) of unclassified cruises enabled the first systematic seafloor surveys in the ocean and substantially expanded our knowledge of the seafloor.
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While water-related conflicts and shortages abound throughout the rapidly changing societies of Africa, Asia and Latin America, there is clearly sufficient water to sustain food, energy, industrial and environmental needs during the 21st century, according to two special issues of the peer-reviewed journal, Water International, released September 26 at the XIV World Water Congress.
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Scientists are taking the first steps to improve estimates of long-term wind speed changes for the fast-growing wind energy sector. The research is intended to identify the risks for generators in a changing climate.
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The news release promoting the latest edition of Britain’s influential Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World hailed it as “the Greatest Book on Earth.”
Not the way climate scientists see it.
“Fiasco” was the word chosen by one scientist in an e-mail to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., alerting his colleagues to erroneous claims made by the publishers of the atlas (whose name derives from The Times of London) about the speed at which Greenland’s glaciers are melting.
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China plans to launch five Antarctic research expeditions and another three to the Arctic from 2011 to 2015, said an official with the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration (CAA) on Sunday.
China will launch the 28th Antarctic research expedition in early November and the fifth to the Arctic in early July 2012, said Qu Tanzhou, director of the CAA, at the annual seminar on China's polar region expedition and research in Shanghai.
In the 2011-2015 period, Chinese researchers will focus on monitoring the weather and environment changes in the polar regions, Qu said.
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Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin outlines a bright future for the High North as a provider of new transport routes and as an arena for international cooperation.
In his speech at the second International Arctic Forum Putin pointed out that the forum itself is moving to the North. The first event was held in Moscow, and now it is hosted by Arkhangelsk, which is called "the gateway to the Arctic" and closely connected to the Northern Sea Route.
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For University of Illinois river researchers, new insight into river cutoffs was a case of being in the right place at the right time.
Geography professor Bruce Rhoads and geology professor Jim Best were conducting research where the Wabash River meets the Ohio River in the summer of 2008 when they heard about a new channel that had just formed, cutting off a bend in the winding Wabash just upstream from the confluence.
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Relatively accurate predictions for the extent of Arctic sea ice in a given summer can be made by assessing conditions the previous autumn, but forecasting conditions more than five years into the future depend on understanding the impact of climate trends on the ice pack, new research shows.
Current conditions form an important starting point that governs how the ice responds to weather in the course of a few years, University of Washington-led research shows.
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NASA's new Aquarius instrument has produced its first global map of the salinity of the ocean surface, providing an early glimpse of the mission's anticipated discoveries.
Aquarius, which is aboard the Aquarius/SAC-D observatory, is making NASA's first space observations of ocean surface salinity variations -- a key component of Earth's climate. Salinity changes are linked to the cycling of freshwater around the planet and influence ocean circulation.
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Russian gas giant Gazprom wants to establish a new international unit on technical standardization of Arctic shelf operations.
The harsh climate of the Arctic requires completely new approaches and technical solutions and consequently also new standards, Gazprom maintains. The company now proposes to establish a new structure on standardization of Arctic operations, information posted on Gazprom's website reads.
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The University of the Arctic’s research Office will be the place to find the next generation’s polar researchers, said Artur Chilingarov at the opening of the office today.
The famous polar researcher and the Russian President’s special aide on Arctic and Antarctic affairs is appointed scientific leader of the University of the Arctic’s (UArctic) first research office, which opened at the Northern Arctic Federal University (NArFU) in Arkhangelsk today.
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Russia will begin geological exploration of the promising Barents Sea shelf located on the border with Norway in 2012, Russia's Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev said on Thursday.
After reaching a key deal with Norway over Arctic maritime borders last year, Russia is now embarking on developing large fields located in border zones, Trutnev said in Arkhangelsk at the second international forum The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue.
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Russia’s global positioning and navigation system GLONASS covers the entire Arctic region, Anatoly Shilov, a deputy director of the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos said Thursday as he took the floor at an international Arctic forum underway here.
“One of the problems has been resolved in full and that’s the problem of satellite navigation, as our GLONASS system has a hundred percent coverage of the entire area,” Shilov said.
The system has a precision of 5.5 meters and what is more, reserves capabilities of the positioning instruments are being created.
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On September 21-24 Arkhangelsk will play host to the Second International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk “The Arctic – Territory of Dialogue” organized by the Russian Geographical Society (RGS). We are inviting scientists, experts, prominent public and political figures, and representatives of Arctic Council member and observer countries to join us in a dialogue on Arctic issues for the second time.
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The research vessel Professor Molchanov of Sevgidromet (the Northern hydrometeorological service) returned on Wednesday to Arkhangelsk after the 45-day run to study the Arctic.
The research vessel had reached Vrangel Island on the boundary of the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea, a source in the hydrometeorological service told Itar-Tass. An international team of paleonthologists led by Frederik Paulsen used to work there. They found more than 500 fragments of remains of mammoths, extinct for several millennia.
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Russia stands against the use of force and the presence of military blocs in the Arctic, a senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday.
"We do not see problems [in the Arctic] that could lead to the use of force, and we do not see the need to place military-political blocs there," said Anton Vasilyev, ambassador-at-large on Arctic issues at the Russian Foreign Ministry.
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In an article in the current issue of the journal Climate Change Letters, a Boston University researcher has estimated the impact near-term increases in global-mean temperatures will have on summertime temperatures in the U.S. and around the globe.
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Construction of a startling new base on the Ross Sea coast will bring millions of dollars to Christchurch but raises questions over possible rival bids over New Zealand's potentially oil-rich Antarctic claim.
South Korea, using a Lyttelton-based icebreaker, will next year begin building a $120 million base at Terra Nova Bay, 300km north of New Zealand's Scott Base.
Jang Bogo, named after an eighth-century maritime king who controlled Asia's Yellow Sea, will be one of the largest permanent bases after Scott Base and the United States' McMurdo Station.
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As the race to lay claim to the Arctic region and its huge oil reserves heats up, Russia tells the Western military bloc that its presence is not required.
With Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expected to take part in an international forum devoted to the subject of Arctic transport routes, Russian special envoy Anton Vasilyev says that there are no problems in the Arctic to which a military presence would be a solution.
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During an unprecedented era of federal belt-tightening, the Coast Guard faces a number of challenging missions.
On top of that, the Coast Guard needs to keep its end strength and spending levels steady.
Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Bob Papp sat down with Navy Times reporters and editors Sept. 14 to discuss tour lengths, physical fitness, commanding officer problems and more.
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A shipboard expedition off Norway, to determine how methane escapes from beneath the Arctic seabed, has discovered widespread pockets of the gas and numerous channels that allow it to reach the seafloor.
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Today UNIS signed a new cooperation agreement with seven of the Norwegian mainland universities. Tora Aasland, the Minister of Research and Higher Education, was also present. – UNIS plays an important role for the mainland universities and Norway as a whole, said minister Aasland.
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A new paper published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, explains weaknesses in our understanding of climate change and how we can fix them. These issues mean predictions vary wildly about how quickly temperatures will rise, resulting in serious implications for long term political and economic planning, experts say.
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New research, to be published in the journal Climatic Change in November, suggests humankind may have to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere on a vast scale if emissions keep rising after 2020.
The series of articles provide scenarios which will form the basis of the next report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 and 2014.
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In the past month several seals have been fitted with satellite transmitters that will give new insight into their environment and daily life.
Researchers from the Norwegian Polar institute (NPI) have in the past weeks caught and attached transmitters to 11 ringed and five bearded seals in the Kongsfjorden area. The transmitters will hopefully stay attached to the seals until the next moulting period. The data recorded include GPS positions, depth and length of dives made by the seals, temperature and salt content of the water and primary production in the area.
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The planet's deep oceans at times may absorb enough heat to flatten the rate of global warming for periods of as long as a decade even in the midst of longer-term warming, according to a new analysis led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
The study, based on computer simulations of global climate, points to ocean layers deeper than 1,000 feet (300 meters) as the main location of the "missing heat" during periods such as the past decade when global air temperatures showed little trend. The findings also suggest that several more intervals like this can be expected over the next century, even as the trend toward overall warming continues.
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It is not long working hours in constant cold and darkness that stresses workers in extreme places, it is conflicts and demands in the private life - concludes a new doctoral thesis, investigating working conditions in, amongst other places, the coal mine Svea Nord in Svalbard.
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This year Norwegian whalers have caught 529 Minke Whales of a 1286 quota (compared to 467 last year). 202 of these were taken near Svalbard. This is the highest number since 2008.
When the whaling season closed at the end of august, 19 whaling ships had caught 41% of the quota for 2011. About a third of the whales were harvested near Svalbard the rest along the coast of Norway.
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Japanese Weathernews will launch a satellite in September 2012 that will provide navigational services to ships travelling along the Russian and North American coasts in the Arctic Ocean, the newspaper Nikkei reported.
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Russian news and information agency RIA Novosti hosted a Moscow-Washington video linkup The Arctic: Directions and Mechanisms of International Cooperation. The event coincided with the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Arctic Council and the run-up to the second international forum The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue to be held September 22-24.
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UNIS offers three back-to-back master/PhD courses in Arctic environmental pollutants and toxicology in spring 2012. Each course is a 10 ECTS course and you can apply for one or more of these courses. Application deadline is 15 October 2011.
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When Arctic ground squirrels are getting ready to hibernate they don't just get fat -- they pack on muscle at a rate that would make a bodybuilder jealous. And they do it without suffering the harmful effects that high levels of testosterone and other anabolic steroids usually cause. University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) researchers have started to untangle how the squirrels manage it, and their results could someday have implications for human health.
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A Russian nuclear powered icebreaker sets out from Murmansk later this week to pick up scientists and equipment from a floating research station in the Arctic.
The floating research station “North Pole 38” has been drifting eastwards from the Wrangel Island area since October 2010, and is now about to be replaced. The icebreaker “Rossiya” sets out from Murmansk on Friday to pick up the 16 scientists and all their equipment and gear, RIA Novosti reports.
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Is it possible to make valid climate predictions that go beyond weeks, months, even a year? UCLA atmospheric scientists report they have now made long-term climate forecasts that are among the best ever -- predicting climate up to 16 months in advance, nearly twice the length of time previously achieved by climate scientists.
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Norway has just finished the first season of seismic survey in the newly established border area in the Barents Sea. Russia plans to start in 2012.
The vessel “R.V Harrier Explorer” and the company PGS Exploration has just finished this year’s surveying of the Barents Sea floor. A total of 11,400 linear kilometres of two-dimensional seismic data has been collected, Upstream reports.
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In the last few days, the decline in Arctic sea ice extent has slowed. U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center data show Arctic sea ice extent currently at the second-lowest levels in the satellite record.
On September 10, Arctic sea ice extent was 4.34 million square kilometers (1.68 million square miles). This was 110,000 square kilometers (42,500 square miles) above the 2007 value on the same date. The record minimum Arctic sea ice extent, recorded in 2007, was 4.17* million square kilometers (1.61 million square miles).
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When countries try to work together to limit the effects of climate change, the fear of being the only nation reducing greenhouse gas emissions -- while the others enjoy the benefits with no sacrifice -- can bring cooperation to a grinding halt.
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Europeans face greater risk of illness, property damage and job losses because of the impacts of climate change on the seas around them, a new report suggests.
Worried citizens, whose biggest related top-of-mind concerns are sea level rise and coastal erosion, are taking personal actions to reduce carbon emissions. However, they largely blame climate change on other groups of people or nations and assign governments and industry responsibility for mitigating the problem (though they perceive government and industry as ineffective on the issue).
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Personal interviews with Alaska Natives in the Yukon River Basin provide unique insights on climate change and its impacts, helping develop adaptation strategies for these local communities.
The USGS coordinated interviews with Yup'ik hunters and elders in the villages of St. Mary's and Pitka's Point, Alaska, to document their observations of climate change. They expressed concerns ranging from safety, such as unpredictable weather patterns and dangerous ice conditions, to changes in plants and animals as well as decreased availability of firewood.
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Arctic fjords represent one of the most challenging environments in the world for weather prediction and climate models. PhD candidate Tiina Kilpeläinen has identified the main challenges for the weather prediction models. Kilpeläinen will defend her thesis on September 15 at UNIS.
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Field trials for experiments to engineer the climate have begun. Next month a team of UK researchers will hoist one end of a 1-kilometre-long hose aloft using a balloon, then attempt to pump water up it and spray it into the atmosphere.
The water will not affect the climate. Rather, the experiment is a proof of principle to show that we can pump large quantities of material to great heights. If it succeeds, a larger-scale version could one day pump sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, creating a sunshade that will offset the greenhouse effect.
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Travelling through the Arctic is notoriously difficult and climate change is making it even harder. But there is a way to rise above the problem: the latest generation of lighter-than-air vehicles. Canadian company Discovery Air has signed a contract with the UK's Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) to buy around 45 new hybrid air vehicles. These aircraft will be used across Canada's Northwest Territories.
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New evidence of sea-level oscillations during a warm period that started about 125,000 years ago raises the possibility of a similar scenario if the planet continues its more recent warming trend, says a research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
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King crabs and other crushing predators are thought to have been absent from cold Antarctic shelf waters for millions of years. Scientists speculate that the long absence of crushing predators has allowed the evolution of a unique Antarctic seafloor fauna with little resistance to predatory crabs. A recent study by researchers from the University of Hawaii, Duke University, Ghent University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and Hamilton College, indicates that one species of king crab has moved 120 km across the continental shelf in West Antarctica and established a large, reproductive population in the Palmer Deep along the west Antarctic Peninsula.
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In an article in the current issue of the journal Climate Change Letters, a Boston University researcher has estimated the impact near-term increases in global-mean temperatures will have on summertime temperatures in the U.S. and around the globe.
The "2°C global warming target" is in reference to the current international efforts to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases and limit human-induced global-mean near-surface temperature increases to 2°C (3.5°F) relative to the pre-industrial era, three-fifths of which has already occurred.
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A team of leading marine scientists from around the world is recommending an end to most commercial fishing in the deep sea, Earth's largest ecosystem. Instead, they recommend fishing in more productive waters nearer to consumers.
In a comprehensive analysis published online in the journal Marine Policy, marine ecologists, fisheries biologists, economists, mathematicians and international policy experts show that, with rare exceptions, deep-sea fisheries are unsustainable.
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Although the icy landscape of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean may seem distant, scientific research in this region can yield insights on changes that are important to the entire planet. The Antarctic region also holds the promise of novel discovery: ice and sediment records hold clues to Earth’s history, the region’s living organisms may hold genetic secrets to surviving in extreme environments, and the Antarctic plateau offers an unparalleled platform for observing the solar system and the Universe beyond. Looking out over the next couple of decades, this report identifies key questions that will drive scientific research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, and presents opportunities to be leveraged to sustain and improve the science program.
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Although the burning of natural gas emits far less carbon dioxide than coal, a new study concludes that a greater reliance on natural gas would fail to significantly slow down climate change.
The study by Tom Wigley, who is a senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), underscores the complex and sometimes conflicting ways in which fossil fuel burning affects Earth's climate.
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Icebergs are a huge problem in the Arctic. In short, they can be in the way! Vessels are scared of these sometimes huge and unpredictable blocks of ice.
Add that only 1/10th of the icebergs are visible above water, they can be a huge hazard in Arctic Sailing.
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A three-year series of research flights from the Arctic to the Antarctic has successfully produced an unprecedented portrait of greenhouse gases and particles in the atmosphere, scientists announced. The far-reaching field project, known as HIPPO, is enabling researchers to generate the first detailed mapping of the global distribution of gases and particles that affect Earth's climate.
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An international team of scientists, led by Dr Stephen Barker of Cardiff University, has produced a prediction of what climate records from Greenland might look like over the last 800,000 years.
Drill cores taken from Greenland's vast ice sheets provided the first clue that Earth's climate is capable of very rapid transitions and have led to vigorous scientific investigation into the possible causes of abrupt climate change.
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The abstract submission deadline for the 10th Ny-Alesund seminar taking place in Kjeller, near Oslo 25-26th of October 2011 has been extended to September 18th. If you do or have done research in Ny-Alesund in the past years this seminar should not be missed!
In order to encourage the participation of young scientists a travel grand covering flights and accommodation has been funded by the Research Council of Norway.
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Russian authorities have started to remove abandoned oil barrels from the Arctic island of Wrangel. Next in the line is the archipelago of Franz Josef Land, says the Ministry of Natural Resources.
Cleanup personnel has started to remove waste materials from the 7670 km2 Arctic island of Wrangel. If successful, the equipment applied in the operation will be applied also in the upcoming cleanup at Franz Josef Land, the Ministry informs in a press release.
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The Heilo field 40 kilometers north of Honningsvåg in Finnmark County is believed to hold 100-300 million barrels of oil.
The biggest shareholder in Heilo is Gas de France Suez (GdF Suez). Repsol and Rocksource are also partners in the project.
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China wants to play a critical role in Arctic research, environmental protection, resource exploration and navigation. Warns against monopolizing Arctic affairs.
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A new bill from the Russian Ministry of Environment will deprive Gazprom and Rosneft of their monopoly position on the shelf and open the door for foreigners.
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Finland lost its coastline to the Barents Sea in 1944, but could now again gain access to the Arctic via a railway to Norway.
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The North Pole 39 drifting station will start its mission in the Arctic Ocean in October to replace North Pole 38, head of the Arctic expedition Vladimir Sokolov from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the Federal Hydro-Meteorological Service told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
North Pole 39 personnel and property are being prepared for the mission, he said. Alexander Mikheyev will be the station commander. The average age of the explorers is 40 years. Many of them have been on Arctic missions before. The station will have a vast research program, Sokolov said.
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A new study from Århus University investigates dehydrations as measure against internal ice formation in several invertebrates from Svalbard.
Cryoprotective dehydration (CPD) is a survival strategy employed by, among others, invertebrates in the Arctic. The cold tolerance strategy involves readily loosing water by evaporation to prevent ice crystal formation. Another strategy is super cooling where the animal lowers its body fluid melting point thereby avoiding freezing.
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Clouds only amplify climate change, says a Texas A&M University professor in a study that rebuts recent claims that clouds are actually the root cause of climate change.
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A recently published paper investigating the speed and endurance of Svalbard Ptarmigan found that, on average, males can run both longer and faster than females.
A team at the University of Manchester studied 11 ptarmigans housed at the University of Tromsø in order to determine their metabolic rates and running abilities. In the month leading up to the experiment the birds were trained to run in airflow controlled glass boxes on treadmills.
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Last week a new method of remote sensing of polar waters and ice was tested in the cold laboratory at UNIS and during field work by using Raman and Rayleigh scattering LIDAR onboard the “Viking Explorer” in Isfjorden and Van Mijenfjorden.
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Danish Queen Margrethe II will visit Moscow on September 6-9, a Kremlin source said on Monday.
She will be accompanied by her spouse, Prince Consort Henri, their son Crown Prince Frederik, and the delegation of over 100 Danish businessmen.
This is Queen Margrethe's second visit to Russia. She visited Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1975.
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Splash, splash, splash. Driving car in the northernmost part of the Barents Region is a difficult task these days.
Finnmark and Lapland is currently witnessing the largest lemming migration seen since the 70ties. Gardens and roads in urban areas are filled with lemmings, live and dead.
Run-over lemmings are a common sight along most roads. In some areas, drivers report that there are some many run-over lemmings that the road gets slippery.
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Full semester studies are available at the undergraduate level (200-level). At the graduate level (300-level) UNIS offers shorter and more intensive courses spanning from a few weeks up to a semester. Read more about the course levels further down the page.
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State-owned Rosneft is preparing for the exploration of the company’s blocks in the Kara Sea and the Barents Sea.
Rosneft’s Board of Directors has approved a deal with company subsidiary SakhalinNIPImorneft, according to which three blocks in the Kara Sea and one block in the Barents Sea will be mapped.
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The minimum summertime volume of Arctic sea ice fell to a record low last year, researchers said in a study to be published shortly, suggesting that thinning of the ice had outweighed a recovery in area.
The study estimated that last year broke the previous, 2007 record for the minimum volume of ice, which is calculated from a combination of sea ice area and thickness.
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A group of scientists led by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich) has quantified dust and iron fluxes deposited in the Antarctic Ocean during the past 4 million years. The research study published in Nature evidences the close relation between the maximum contributions of dust to this ocean and climate changes occurring in the most intense glaciation periods of the Pleistocene period, some 1.25 million years ago. Data confirms the role of iron in the increase in phytoplankton levels during glacial periods, intensifying the function of this ocean as a CO2 sink.
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Exxon Mobil Corp.'s blockbuster $2.2 billion deal to drill for oil in the frigid waters north of Russia with OAO Rosneft is the latest sign of the energy industry's white-hot interest in exploring above the Arctic Circle.
The region encompasses about 12 million square miles—just 6% of the earth's land mass. But it is estimated to contain the oil and natural-gas equivalent of 412 billion barrels of oil, about 22% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.
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A new study of dust-like particles of soot in the air -- now emerging as the second most important, but previously overlooked, factor in global warming -- provides fresh evidence that reducing soot emissions from diesel engines and other sources could slow melting of sea ice in the Arctic faster and more economically than any other quick fix.
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A Chinese tycoon plans to buy a vast tract of Icelandic land for a $100m tourism project which critics fear could give Beijing a strategic foothold in the North Atlantic.
Huang Nubo, a real estate investor and former Chinese government official, has struck a provisional deal to acquire 300 square kilometres of wilderness in north-east Iceland where he plans to build an eco-tourism resort and golf course.
Opponents have questioned why such a large amount of land -- equal to about 0.3 per cent of Iceland's total area -- is needed to build a hotel. They warned that the project could provide cover for China's geopolitical interests in the Atlantic island nation and Nato member.
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It’s getting almost crowded at the North Pole – and a lot easier to get there.
Barely 10 days after the German icebreaker Polarstern reached the North Pole, the elderly Canadian icebreaker Louis St. Laurent and its newer, more powerful American consort, Healy, were only a few kilometres away and expected to reach the top of the world Friday.
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A group of Russian and U.S. scientists will leave the port of Vladivostok on Friday on board a Russian research ship to study methane emissions in the eastern part of the Arctic.
"This expedition was organized on a short notice by the Russian Fund of Fundamental Research and the U.S. National Science Foundation following the discovery of a dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas from the seabed in the eastern part of the Arctic, said Professor Igor Semiletov, the head of the expedition.
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Computer simulations of the weather workings of the entire planet will be able to make forecasts to within a few kilometers accuracy, helping predict the effects of deadly weather systems.
But the world may have to wait 20 to 40 years' for such accurate information on weather events like El Nino as computer capacity grows, a senior British scientist said Thursday.
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Explorers looking for two ships from the tragic 1845 Franklin expedition to Canada's Arctic have found more personal effects from the doomed voyage, officials said on Thursday.
Sir John Franklin and his 128 crew in the British ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were seeking the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans when they became stuck in ice.
The men all died and the ships vanished, a calamity that still grips the public imagination. Tales handed down through the aboriginal Inuit people describe cannibalism among the desperate crew.
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At the rim of the Arctic Circle in Canada, gold mining firm Agnico-Eagle is learning how tough it is to operate in a remote region with temptingly large, but frustratingly inaccessible, reserves of oil, gas and minerals.
Commentators rarely mention nightmarish logistics, polar bears and steel-snapping cold when they confidently predict that as the Arctic warms up, melting sea ice and shorter winters will open up the expanse to exploration.
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Viruses fill the ocean and have a significant effect on ocean biology, specifically marine microbiology, according to a professor of biology at UC Santa Barbara and his collaborators.
Craig A. Carlson, professor with UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, is the senior author of a study of marine viruses published this week by the International Society for Microbial Ecology Journal, of the Nature Publishing Group.
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Satellite views of the Midwestern United States show that ozone levels above 50 parts per billion (ppb) along the ground could reduce soybean yields by at least 10 percent, costing more than $1 billion in lost crop production, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists.
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Much of the United States sweated through an unusually humid heat wave during July, a month that brought record-breaking temperatures to many areas across the Great Plains. As temperatures soared, NASA satellites observed the unusual weather from above.
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