Melting ice threatens polar life

By Cameron Dueck on the Bering Sea The Canadian Arctic is facing another year of open water with the summer break-up of sea ice ahead of schedule in many key parts of the northern archipelago. The early break-up of ice underlines the growing impact of climate change in the Poles where temperatures have risen much […]

Graph of the Day: Arctic Sea Ice Extent, 1979-2009

June 2009 compared to past Junes Compared to previous Junes, ice extent in June 2009 was extremely close to the last two years, falling within 30,000 square kilometers (12,000 square miles) of the June extent in 2007 and 2008. The long-term trend indicates a decline of 3.3% per decade, an average of 40,100 square kilometers […]

Arctic ice thinned dramatically since 2004: NASA

  By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Arctic sea ice has thinned dramatically since 2004, with the older, thicker ice giving way to a younger, thinner kind that melts in the northern summer, NASA scientists reported on Tuesday. Researchers have known for years that ice covering in the Arctic Sea has been shrinking […]

Arctic sea ice death spiral

  I interviewed by email Dr. Mark Serreze, recently named director of The National Snow and Ice Data Center.  Partly I wanted him to explain his “death spiral” metaphor for Arctic ice (see NSIDC: Arctic melt passes the point of no return, “We hate to say we told you so, but we did”). … CP:  […]

Arctic summer sea ice could vanish by 2013

  By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Arctic is warming up so quickly that the region’s sea ice cover in summer could vanish as early as 2013, decades earlier than some had predicted, a leading polar expert said on Thursday. Warwick Vincent, director of the Center for Northern Studies at Laval University in Quebec, […]

Starving polar bear population has tripled in 20 years

WARMER temperatures and earlier melting of sea ice are causing polar bears to go hungry. The number of undernourished bears has tripled in a 20-year period. Seth Cherry of the University of Alberta, Canada, and colleagues monitored the health of polar bears in the ice-covered Beaufort Sea region of the Arctic during April and May […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial