location: Greenland-Arctic

location: Greenland-Arctic

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The new Arctic: Amid record heat, ecosystems morph and wildlife struggle
- Every species of animal and plant that lives or breeds in the Arctic is experiencing dramatic change. As the polar region warms, species endure extreme weather, shrinking and altered habitat, decreased food availability, and competition from invading southern species.
- A wide array of Arctic organisms that rely on sea ice to feed or breed during some or all of their life cycles are threatened by melt: Over the past 40 years, the Arctic Ocean has lost about 75% of its sea ice volume, as measured at the end of the summer melt season. This translates into a loss of sea ice extent and thickness by half on average.
- Researchers note that the rate of change is accelerating at sea and on land. While species can adapt over time, Arctic ecosystem alterations are too rapid for many animals to adapt, making it difficult to guess which species will prevail, which will perish, and where.
- The only thing that could limit future extinctions, researchers say, is to quickly stop burning fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change.

North Atlantic orcas reveal the troubling persistence of toxic ocean pollutants
- As the top predators in the ocean, killer whales suffer from the magnifying level of pollutants that build up in the marine food web.
- Scientists found that North Atlantic orcas feeding on marine mammals carry significantly higher levels of pollutants than orcas that eat fish.
- Levels of polychlorinated biphenyls in the orcas’ blubber are ten times higher than the toxic threshold for these dangerous household chemicals.

‘Not a good sign’: Study shows Greenland temperatures at 1,000-year high
- New research shows that north-central Greenland experienced the highest temperatures between 2001 and 2011 over a 1,000-year period.
- Scientists came to this conclusion after reconstructing climate conditions over the last millennium by analyzing ice cores from the Greenland ice sheet.
- This study can provide a foundation for future studies on ice melt and sea level rise, the authors say.

Greenland shark, world’s longest-living vertebrate, gets long-awaited protection
- In September, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), an intergovernmental organization that manages fisheries, prohibited the retention of Greenland sharks in international waters.
- This ban would apply to the intentional catching of Greenland sharks as well as the retention of the species as bycatch.
- However, bycatch exceptions could be made if countries prohibit the discarding of fish.
- Greenland sharks are known to be the longest-living vertebrate in the world, reaching ages of between 270 and 500 years.

Greenland’s Indigenous population favors extracting sand from melting ice sheet
- In 2022, the Greenland ice sheet experienced net ice loss for the 26th year in a row. But that loss is producing a potentially valuable resource: sand, which the melting ice sheet is depositing on the coast.
- Together, sand and gravel are one of the most traded commodities in the world, and a study by researchers at McGill University found that the majority of Greenlanders, including Indigenous people, supported extracting sand for export.
- But Greenlanders—who have staunchly opposed some mining projects in the past—say this activity needs to be done with adequate environmental protection and consultation of Greenland’s predominantly Indigenous population.
- The environmental consequences are uncertain but could include impacts from sucking sand off the substrate and increasing shipping traffic.

With sea ice melting, glacial ice could be a lifeline for polar bears
- Scientists recently discovered a new subpopulation of polar bears living in southeast Greenland that is genetically and behaviorally distinct.
- While most polar bears depend upon sea ice for survival, the polar bears in Southeast Greenland use pieces of glacial ice as habitat and hunting platforms.
- Large numbers of polar bears are expected to decline as climate change accelerates, but small populations may persist in places like this, where the pace of melting is expected to be slower, experts say.

As Arctic warms, scientists wrestle with its climate ‘tipping point’
- A leaked version of the newest science report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of looming, potentially catastrophic tipping points for Arctic sea ice melt, tundra thaw, savannification of the Amazon rainforest, and other planetary environmental thresholds beyond which recovery may be impossible.
- But what are tipping points, and how does one pinpoint what causes them, or when they will occur? When studying a vast region, like the Arctic, answering these questions becomes dauntingly difficult, as complex positive feedback loops (amplifying climate warming impacts) and negative feedback loops (retarding them) collide with each other.
- In the Arctic, one working definition of a climatic tipping point is when nearly all sea ice disappears in summer, causing a Blue Ocean Event. But attempts to model when a Blue Ocean Event will occur have run up against chaotic and complex feedback loop interactions.
- Among these are behaviors of ocean currents, winds, waves, clouds, snow cover, sea ice shape, permafrost melt, subarctic wildfires, aerosols and more, with many interactions still poorly understood. Some scientists say too much focus is going to tipping points, and research should be going to the “radical uncertainty” of escalating extreme local events.

‘Red-carded’ Australian miner signals intention to play on in Greenland
- The advancement of a huge rare earths and uranium mining project in Greenland sparked a snap election in April that saw a green party elected and a new government formed that is opposed to the mine.
- The Kvanefjeld project, developed by small Australian mining company Greenland Minerals Limited, with Chinese partner Shenghe Resources, would exploit one of the world’s largest deposits of rare earth metals and uranium near the small township of Narsaq and increase Greenland’s greenhouse gas emissions by 45%.
- While new coalition partners Inuit Ataqatigiit (Party for the People) and Naleraq campaigned against the mine and have a written agreement opposing any uranium mining in Greenland, the consultation process for Kvanefjeld is continuing, and NGOs are concerned that Greenland Minerals will try to pressure the new government to agree to the project in some form.
- In early July, Greenland’s Ministry of Mineral Resources released a draft bill banning uranium mining and exploration and limiting the amount of uranium present as a by-product in any mining operations to 100 parts per million — which would prevent the Kvanefjeld operation going ahead.

Arctic biodiversity at risk as world overshoots climate planetary boundary
- The Arctic Ocean biome is changing rapidly, warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. In turn, multiyear sea ice is thinning and shrinking, upsetting the system’s natural equilibrium.
- Thinner sea ice has led to massive under-ice phytoplankton blooms, drawing southern species poleward; fish species from lower latitudes are moving into the peripheral seas of the Arctic Ocean, displacing and outcompeting native Arctic species.
- Predators at the top of the food chain, such as polar bears, are suffering the consequences of disappearing ice, forced onto land for longer periods of time where they cannot productively hunt.
- The Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement has been signed by 10 parties to prevent unregulated commercial fishing in the basin until the region and climate change impacts are better understood by scientists. International cooperation will be critical to protect what biodiversity remains.

We’re approaching critical climate tipping points: Q&A with Tim Lenton
- Over the past twenty years the concept of “tipping points” has become more familiar to the public. Tipping points are critical thresholds at which small changes can lead to dramatic shifts in the state of the entire system.
- Awareness of climate tipping points has grown in policy circles in recent years in no small part thanks to the work of climate scientist Tim Lenton, who serves as the director of the Global Systems Institute at Britain’s University of Exeter.
- Lenton says the the rate at which we appear to be approaching several tipping points is now ringing alarm bells, but “most of our current generation of politicians are just not up to this leadership task”.
- The pandemic however may have caused a shock to the system that could trigger what he calls “positive social tipping points” that “can accelerate the transformative change we need” provided we’re able to empower the right leaders.

The glaciers of the Greenland Ice Sheet are running away
- Greenland’s massive ice sheet will continue shrinking even if snowfall rates return to the higher levels of decades ago, when the ice sheet was stable, a new study shows.
- Rates of ice loss climbed dramatically in the early 2000s before settling at a higher, sustained state of decline.
- For each kilometer that Greenland’s glaciers retreat, their rate of ice loss speeds up by 4 to 5 percent—a bleak trend that will accelerate sea-level rise.

Ice breakers in the Arctic: Let’s talk Inuit safety (commentary)
- A little-considered impact of warming temperatures in the Arctic is the increased activity of ice breakers.
- Martin Robards, Regional Director for the Arctic Beringia Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Beverly Maksagak, Manager of the Ekaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization, write that ice breakers potentially pose a threat to traditional Inuit ways of life.
- Robards and Maksagak write about the Proactive Vessel Management (PVM) initiative, which last year brought together communities, industry, and vessel operators find solutions to issues of concern on Arctic waterways.
- This post is a commentary: the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Brave New Arctic: Sea ice has yet to form off of Siberia, worrying scientists
- After a summer that saw record Siberian fires and polar temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit, along with near record low sea ice extent in September, the Arctic Ocean’s refreeze has slowed to a crawl.
- The Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea are, at this point, failing to re-freeze as rapidly as in the past. Scientists see all of these worrying events, along with many other indicators including fast melting permafrost, as harbingers of a northern polar region that may be entering a new climate regime.
- Models predict the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2040 or 2050, with unforeseen negative impacts not only in the Far North, but on people, economies and ecosystems around the globe. One major concern: scientists worry how changes in the Arctic might alter temperate weather systems, impacting global food security.
- “We’re conducting this blind experiment, and we don’t yet know the real implications,” one sea ice researcher tells Mongabay. “How do you sell climate change to be as much of an emergency as COVID-19? Except that it will kill a lot more people.”

Arctic Sea ice melts to second-place finish at annual minimum
- At the annual September Arctic sea ice minimum this year, the ice extent was reduced to just 3.74 million square kilometers, a low that surpassed every year since 1979 except 2012, which saw a minimum of 3.41 million square kilometers.
- While 2012 was an anomaly (a year in which an immense August cyclone shattered the weakened ice), 2020 came very close to that record, but without any such storm, though the region did see intense July and August heat.
- A new study finds, once again, that what starts in the Arctic doesn’t stay there. Researchers say that Asia is seeing lengthier bouts of extreme storms, droughts, heat and cold as weather systems stall there, possibly due to a weakening Northern Hemisphere jet stream — an effect thought to be due to Arctic warming.
- In other new research, scientists say a layer of warm Atlantic water entering the Arctic, which had always stayed down deep in the past, is starting to rise toward, and mix with, colder surface waters. That mixing could be fatal to the Arctic sea ice in the future — with unknown, but potentially dire impacts on global climate stability.

Climate conundrum: Could COVID-19 be linked to early Arctic ice melt?
- The COVID-19 pandemic has yielded unexpected environmental benefits, as wildlife explore urban streets and 2020 carbon emissions drop by the largest amount since World War II. But now researchers are wondering if a record hot and sunny start to the Arctic sea ice melt season could be linked to the Coronavirus lockdown.
- The possible cause: a reduction in atmospheric sulphate aerosol pollutants emitted by factories, ships and other sources. Sulphate aerosols increase the amount of clouds and brighten the atmosphere, reflecting more solar heat, thus masking global warming intensity — and making the Arctic cloudier and colder.
- Scientists are working to determine if, and by how much, sulphate aerosols have declined due to the industrial slowdown brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- These figures could help them more precisely determine how aerosols have been inhibiting atmospheric heating around the world, especially in the Arctic. One study found that sulphate aerosol-seeded clouds could be masking about a third of all warming from greenhouse gases. However, the question is far from settled.

2019 in line for second lowest Arctic sea ice extent record
- 2019 has seen constant heat and melt conditioning of the Arctic sea ice, resulting in record, and near record, daily and monthly extent and volume stats over much of the melt season. The average volume for July, for example, fell to 8,800 cubic kilometers (2,111 cubic miles), a new record low.
- Whether 2019 will set a new all-time extent or volume record at the September sea ice minimum remains to be seen, with ice extent shrinking less quickly since mid-August, possibly putting this year in second place, though certainly among the top five record lowest minimums.
- The big news this year was the relentless heat in the Arctic, with record heat waves over Alaska, Scandinavia and Greenland, resulting in massive glacial runoff into the sea. Wildfires were rampant, with reindeer and fish including salmon possibly adversely impacted by very hot air and water temperatures.
- Whether or not 2019 sets a new sea ice extent or volume low record this September is incidental. What this year dramatically showed is that the climate crisis has anchored itself firmly in the Arctic, and shows no signs of easing over the long-haul.

More than 50 lakes lie hidden beneath Greenland ice sheet, study finds
- Scientists say they’ve identified 56 lakes beneath the Greenland ice sheet, bringing the total to 60 known subglacial lakes underneath the thick ice mass.
- While some of these lakes are just 200 meters (650 feet) long, some are nearly 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) in length.
- There are probably many more such subglacial lakes under the Greenland ice sheet waiting to be uncovered, the researchers say.

Agreement bans commercial fishing across much of the Arctic, for now
- Nine jurisdictions — Canada, Norway, Russia, the U.S., China, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands) and the European Union — have signed a legally binding agreement that bans commercial fishing in the high seas portion of the Central Arctic Ocean, covering 2.8 million square kilometers, or an area about the size of the Mediterranean Sea, for at least 16 years.
- As part of the agreement, the signatory parties have committed to a joint scientific research and monitoring program to gain a better understanding of the changing Arctic ecosystem and determine the region’s potential for commercial, sustainable fisheries in the future.
- The moratorium will initially cover 16 years, but this can be extended in five-year increments, if the parties agree to do so.

The Arctic’s oldest, thickest ice is breaking up
- Strong southerly winds pushed sea ice away from Greenland’s north coast twice this year — a possible first.
- We’re unlikely to see a new record sea ice extent minimum in the Arctic Ocean come September 2018. Sea ice extent in the Arctic is currently clocking in at 5.396 million square kilometers (about 2.1 million square miles). That’s the good news.
- But the melt-out above Greenland has alarming implications for the future. If even the thickest, oldest ice is now susceptible to increased warming and changes in weather, what hope is there for the rest of the Arctic?

Audio: Bowhead whales in the Arctic sing hundreds of complex songs
- Scientists have recorded 184 elaborate, very different bowhead whale songs in a bowhead subpopulation living east of Greenland. This makes it the largest set of bowhead whale song recordings ever.
- The bowhead’s vocal repertoire is rivaled only by a few species of songbirds, researchers say.
- But why these whales have so many different song types and why they change their songs each year is still a mystery.

Abnormal Arctic ice season may signal abrupt climate change
- A so-called “Blue-Ocean Event” — a period during the melt season with less than 1 million square kilometers (a little over 386,100 square miles) of Arctic sea ice — was not expected to occur until 2070 to 2100 by most science modeling projections of the early 21st Century.
- Recent polar ice observations, however, indicate extreme loss of volume. Daily sea ice loss rates since late April 2016 have averaged about 75,000 square kilometers (about 29,000 square miles) per 24 hours, resulting in continuously record low levels.
- Many climate scientists now project the first “Blue-Ocean Event” within a decade or less. Some experts speculate it may even occur during the melt season of 2016.

New dams may expose Canadian seafood consumers to higher levels of neurotoxin
- Methylmercury, a dangerous neurotoxin, can build up in the bodies of marine mammals and fish, threatening the humans who eat them.
- New research suggests dams and reservoirs in sub-Arctic regions may release methylmercury downstream.
- Native residents who depend on hunting and fishing are especially at risk.

The great Arctic decline: another sea ice record broken

Polar bear and cub. Declining sea ice has made it more difficult for some polar bear populations to find enough food and rear cubs. Photo by: Scott Schliebe/USFWS. Every winter, sea ice in the Arctic expands, providing vital habitat for birthing seals, hunting polar bears, and foraging walruses. But as the Arctic has warmed faster […]
The only solution for polar bears: ‘stop the rise in CO2 and other greenhouse gases’

Steven Amstrup will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 11th, 2014. In 1773, an expedition headed by Constantine John Phipps, the Second Baron Mulgrave, embarked on a dangerous journey North—to see how far they could go before having to turn back. In his report at the end of […]
Scientists can now accurately count polar bears…from space

Polar bears are big animals. As the world’s largest land predators, a single male can weigh over a staggering 700 kilograms (about 1,500 pounds). But as impressive as they are, it’s difficult to imagine counting polar bears from space. Still, this is exactly what scientists have done according to a new paper in the open-access […]
Climate change’s ominous secret

Climate change is happening and humans are causing it, primarily from the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by burning fossil fuels. This much we know. The “secret” comes from changes happening in the fast-warming Arctic: we may be surprisingly close to an Earth that supports far fewer humans than it does today. Permafrost and […]
31 activists arrested attempting to stop Arctic oil from docking in Europe

Dutch police arrested 31 Greenpeace activists today, who were attempting to block the Russian oil tanker, Mikhail Ulyanov, from delivering the first shipment of offshore Arctic oil to the European market. Greenpeace opposes drilling in the Arctic due to the difficulty of cleaning up any oil spill in remote, ice-filled waters, and the exacerbation of […]
Apocalypse now? Climate change already damaging agriculture, acidifying seas, and worsening extreme weather

It’s not just melting glaciers and bizarrely-early Springs anymore; climate change is impacting every facet of human civilization from our ability to grow enough crops to our ability to get along with each other, according to a new 2,300-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The massive report, from the Nobel Prize-winning […]
Revealed for the first time: the surprising biodiversity of algae ‘reefs’

Most people are familiar with coral reefs, but very few have ever heard of their algal equivalent – rhodolith beds. Yet, these structures provide crucial habitat for many marine species. In the first study of its kind, published in mongabay.com’s Tropical Conservation Science, researchers unveil just how important these beds are for bottom-dwelling organisms, and […]
Europe votes for an Arctic Sanctuary

Yesterday, the European Parliament passed a resolution supporting the creation of an Arctic Sanctuary covering the vast high Arctic around the North Pole, giving official status to an idea that has been pushed by activists for years. Still, the sanctuary has a long road to go before becoming a reality: as Arctic sea ice rapidly […]
Shell drops plans to drill in the Arctic for now

Facing plunging profits, Royal Dutch Shell has announced it will cut exploration and development funding by nearly $10 billion this year, including halting their long-suffering plans to drill in the Arctic ocean. Shell’s new CEO, Ben van Beurden, made the announcement yesterday that controversial plans to drill off the Alaskan coast will be put on […]
Predator appreciation: how saving lions, tigers, and polar bears could rescue ourselves

Lioness feeding. Photo by: Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. In the new book, In Predatory Light: Lions and Tigers and Polar Bears, authors Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Sy Montgomery, and John Houston, and photographers Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson share with us an impassioned and detailed appeal to appreciate three of the world’s biggest predators: lions, […]
Underestimating global warming: gaps in Arctic temperature data lead scientists and public astray

Thickly packed sea ice in the Arctic from a photo taken in 1949. One day thick, stable sea ice in the Arctic will likely be a thing of the past as the Arctic is warming around eight times faster than the rest of world according to a new analysis. Photo by: Rear Admiral Harley D. […]
World first: Russia begins pumping oil from Arctic seabed

Oil has begun to be pumped from the Arctic seabed, according to Russian oil giant, Gazprom. The company announced on Friday that it has begun exploiting oil reserves at the offshore field of Prirazlomnoye. The project, which is several years behind schedule, is hugely controversial and made international headlines in September after Russian military arrested […]
Tiny algae signal big changes for warming Arctic lakes

A polar bear plods through summer mud in the Hudson Bay Lowlands. Photo by: Jon Sweetman. The mighty polar bear has long been the poster child for the effects of global warming in the Arctic, but the microscopic diatom tells an equally powerful story. Diatoms are a type of algae that form the base of […]
Russia charges imprisoned Greenpeace protestors with hooliganism, instead of piracy

Russian investigators announced on Wednesday they are dropping piracy charges against 28 environmental activists and two freelance journalists who have spent a month in custody since they were seized aboard Greenpeace’s boat, the Arctic Sunrise. All 30 will still be charged with hooliganism as part of an organized group, which carries a potential jail sentence […]
Russia charges non-violent activists with ‘piracy’ for protesting Arctic oil drilling

In what is being described by Greenpeace as an ‘imaginary offense,’ Russia has charged 30 people with piracy after activists protested against oil exploitation in the Arctic. The 30 charged included not only protestors, but a British journalist and Russian videographer who were on board Greenpeace’s ship, the Arctic Sunrise, when it was stormed by […]
Russian military raids Greenpeace ship, hold activists captive

Russians drop armed guards on to the deck and round up the crew of the Arctic Sunrise, which is protesting against Gazprom drilling Armed Russian military have stormed a Greenpeace ship protesting against oil exploitation in remote Arctic waters. According to the last communications from the Arctic Sunrise before all contact was cut at around […]
‘Heading towards an ice-free Arctic’: sea ice extent hits sixth lowest on record

Sea ice cover in the Arctic shrank to one of its smallest extents on record this week, bringing forward the days of an entirely ice-free Arctic during the summer. The annual sea ice minimum of 5,099m sq km reached on 13 September was not as extreme as last year, when the collapse of sea ice […]
Climate change killing harp seal pups

As sea ice levels continue to decline in the northern hemisphere, scientists are observing an unsettling trend in harp seal young mortalities regardless of juvenile fitness. While a recent study found that in harp seal breeding regions ice cover decreased by up to 6% a decade from 1979 on, a follow-up study in PLoS ONE […]
Arctic melt to cost trillions

Rapid thawing of the Arctic could trigger a catastrophic “economic timebomb” which would cost trillions of dollars and undermine the global financial system, say a group of economists and polar scientists. Governments and industry have expected the widespread warming of the Arctic region in the past 20 years to be an economic boon, allowing the […]
Plants re-grow after five centuries under the ice

While monitoring the retreat of the Teardrop Glacier in the Canadian Arctic, scientists have found that recently unfrozen plants, some of which had been under ice since the reign of Henry VIII, were capable of new growth. While in the field, the researchers from the University of Alberta discovered that the receding ice–which has doubled […]
Featured video: How climate change is messing with the jetstream
Weather patterns around the globe are getting weirder and weirder: heat waves and record snow storms in Spring, blasts of Arctic air followed by sudden summer, record deluges and then drought. Climate change due to fossil fuels emissions has risen the global temperature by 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in the last century, impacting […]
Despite unseasonable cold in EU and U.S., March was tenth warmest on record

While the month of March saw colder-than-average temperatures across a wide-swath of the northern hemisphere—including the U.S., southern Canada, Europe, and northern Asia—globally, it was the tenth warmest March on record in the last 134 years, putting it in the top 7 percent. Temperatures last month were 0.58 degrees Celsius (1.04 degrees Fahrenheit) above the […]
At top of the world, activists say exploiting Arctic is ‘utter madness’

Four young explorers including American actor Ezra Miller have planted a flag on the seabed at the north pole and demanded the region is declared a global sanctuary. The expedition, organized by Greenpeace, saw the flag lowered in a time capsule that contained the signatures of nearly 3 million people who are calling for a […]
By 2050 much of the Arctic could be green

Arctic treeline site near Cherskiy in northeastern Siberia. A new study finds that the Arctic treeline will continue expanding northward as the region warms. Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Research Center. Warming about twice as fast as the rest of the world, the Arctic is already undergoing massive upheavals from climate change: summer sea ice […]
Extreme cold linked to climate change, say scientists

Melting sea ice, exposing huge parts of the ocean to the atmosphere, explains extreme weather both hot and cold Climate scientists have linked the massive snowstorms and bitter spring weather now being experienced across Britain and large parts of Europe and North America to the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice. Both the extent and […]
Global warming to open new Arctic sea lanes

Optimal September navigation routes for ice-strengthened (red) and common open-water (blue) ships traveling between Rotterdam, The Netherlands and St. John’s, Newfoundland in the years 2040-2059. Credit: Image courtesy Laurence C. Smith and Scott R. Stephenson. Click image to enlarge. Rapidly melting sea ice in the Arctic due to global warming will open new shipping lanes […]
Shell suspends Arctic oil drilling for the year

Royal Dutch Shell announced today that it was setting “pause” on its exploratory drilling activities in the Arctic for 2013. Shell’s operations are currently under review by the federal government after the oil company suffered numerous setbacks during last year’s opening attempt to drill exploratory wells in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, including running its […]
Arctic sea ice volume plunges over a third in less than 10 years

Few places are changing as rapidly as the Arctic due to global warming. Last year, scientists were stunned when the Arctic’s seasonal ice extent fell to record low that was 18 percent below the previous one set in 2007. But new research in Geophysical Research Letters finds that the volume of ice is melting away […]
NGOs call on Obama Administration to suspend Arctic oil drilling after series of blunders

Approximate site of preliminarily approved drilling by Shell in the Chukchi Sea. Pink outline is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Image made with Google Earth. A coalition of 17 conservation groups are calling on the Obama Administration to suspend offshore oil and gas drilling in the Arctic after Shell’s attempt to drill there has […]
Arctic oil rig runs aground
On Monday night, an oil drilling rig owned by Dutch Royal Shell ran aground on Sitkalidak Island in southern Alaska, prompting fears of an oil spill. As of yesterday no oil was seen leaking from the rig according to the Coast Guard, but efforts to secure the rig have floundered due to extreme weather. The […]
Greenland and Antarctica ice melt accelerating, pushing sea levels higher

Over the course of several years, turbulent water overflow from a large melt lake carved this 60-foot deep canyon. Note the people for scale. Photo by: Ian Joughin. A massive team of scientists have used multiple methods to provide the best assessment yet of ice loss at the world’s poles, including Greenland and a number […]
Reduction in snow threatens Arctic seals

Arctic snowfall accumulation plays a critical role in ringed seal breeding, but may be at risk due to climate change, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. Sea ice, which is disappearing at an alarming rate, provides a crucial platform for the deep snow seals need to reproduce. Ringed seals (Phoca hispida) require […]
Canadian ice sheet responded rapidly to ancient climate change

University at Buffalo students crawl over remnants of an ancient glacier on Baffin Island, Canada. Photo by Jason Briner, courtesy of the University at Buffalo. Even as glaciers retreat from rising temperatures worldwide, new research says they could bounce back just as suddenly. The study, published Sept. 14 in Science, shows that both small mountain […]
Above the ocean: saving the world’s most threatened birds

This post is an expanded version of an article that appeared in August on Yale e360: Easing The Collateral Damage Fisheries Inflict on Seabirds.
Picture of the day: Shell drilling rig within view of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo ©: Gary Braasch/World View of Global Warming. Twelve miles off shore from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge floats a seemingly tiny man-made device—at least from an airplane—but it’s actually a 160-foot high Shell Dutch Royal oil drilling rig. While the […]
By imitating human voices, beluga whale may have been attempting to communicate

Beluga whale. Photo by: Premier.gov.ru. Five years after the death of a captive beluga whale named NOC, researchers have discovered that the marine mammal may have been trying to communicate with people by mimicking humans voices at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego. Analyzing tapes of human-like speech from the young male beluga […]
Photos: emperor penguins take first place in renowned wildlife photo contest

This was the image Paul had been so hoping to get: a sunlit mass of emperor penguins charging upwards, leaving in their wake a crisscross of bubble trails. The location was near the emperor colony at the edge of the frozen area of the Ross Sea, Antarctica. It was into the only likely exit hole […]
Cute animal picture of the day: baby walruses on the mend

Mitik, an orphaned male, will soon make his way from Alaska to New York City. Mitik is still having health problems. Photo courtesy of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Two walrus male calves were discovered over the summer near Barrow, Alaska, dehydrated and ill, after their separate mothers perished. The calves have been receiving care at […]

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