(University of California – Davis) 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. The finding, which comes from analyzing stalagmites from Moaning Cavern in the central […]
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer WASHINGTON — Global warming is messing with the planet’s thermostat. That warning came Thursday from Richard Spinrad, head of research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in releasing the annual update of science’s Arctic report card [pdf]. Warming temperatures continue in the polar north, changing wind patterns, […]
Satellite measurements of winter multi-year ice cover in the Arctic Ocean between 2004 and 2008, along with the corresponding downward trend in overall winter sea-ice volume, and switch in dominant ice type from multi-year ice to first-year ice. During the last few decades of the 20th century, the positive phase of the Northern Annular Mode […]
By Peter Griffiths LONDON (Reuters) – Global warming will leave the Arctic Ocean ice-free during the summer within 20 years, raising sea levels and harming wildlife such as seals and polar bears, a leading British polar scientist said on Thursday. Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge, said much of […]
You must go back 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels as high as they are today, Earth scientists report. “The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today and sustained at those levels, global temperatures were five to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today,” said Aradhna […]
By Yereth Rosen ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Oil companies scouring the coastline of Alaska’s North Slope for new production sites are converging on the same territory as hungry polar bears trying to escape shrinking and thinning sea ice. Polar bears have not attacked any workers recently, but oil companies are reporting four times as many […]
Media Relations Contact: Katherine Leitzell, NSIDC: leitzell@nsidc.org or +1 303.492.1497. This is a press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. At the end of the Arctic summer, more ice cover remained […]
By Yereth Rosen ON BOARD COAST GUARD FLIGHT ABOVE BEAUFORT SEA, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Out in the Arctic Ocean, about 200 miles (322 km ) north of the nearest human settlement, the future of the world’s climate is written in the patterns of ice patches on the water’s surface. Old, “multiyear” ice — the […]
By Dan Joling, Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Trampling likely killed 131 mostly young walruses on the northwest shore of Alaska, according to an examination by an investigative team that included federal scientists. Young animals can be crushed in stampedes when a herd is startled by a polar bear, human hunters or even a […]
Reductions in terrestrial snow cover (blue) and sea ice (red) extent during June to August over the Northern Hemisphere since the late 1960s and 1970s, respectively. Data are from the Global Snow Lab, Rutgers University, New Jersey, and the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder. Eric Post, et al., Ecological […]
