Polar News and Notes Current News

Climate scientists are leaving few stones unturned as they look for ways to offset global warming, including geoengineering–the deliberate modification of the environment on a large scale. One widely discussed geoengineering idea for cooling the planet has recently been judged to have some potentially harmful side effects.  
The idea was to regularly inject large amounts […]

The jet streams in both hemispheres have risen in altitude and shifted toward the poles over the past two decades. The movement can have significant impact on weather around the globe if it continues, according to research published in the April 18 Geophysical Research Letters.
While the jet streams twist and turn as they move […]

Meet Pierre 
A recent news article profiled Pierre, a 25 year-old African penguin at the Academy of Sciences. Biologists became concerned when Pierre, who was going bald, refused to swim in the penguin tank and shivered on the sidelines instead. Unlike polar bears, seals, and other marine mammals, penguins do not have an insulating layer of […]

There’s evidence of global warming in the Arctic region aplenty, and now you can add evidence that illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing there has become an international criminal activity.
A report, Illegal Fishing in Arctic Waters, from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) shows that cod valued at $350 million was illegally caught in the Barents […]

On April 17, the RSV Aurora Australis docked in Hobart, Australia, with what the chief scientist aboard called “a remarkable data set of observations from the Southern Ocean, covering a wide range of physical, chemical and biological variables.”
A team of scientists had spent the past four weeks on the research and supply vessel measuring ocean […]

PolarTREC (Teachers & Researchers Exploring & Collaborating) has set up its Virtual Base Camp for the 2008 expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. At the Base Camp web site, you and your students can follow the progress of the expeditions, ask questions of the scientists and the participating teacher, view photo alums, and access learning […]

The April 7 issue of the journal Nature spotlights a research commentary article warning that we will find reducing global emissions of carbon dioxide harder to do than we have been led to believe. Two scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado in Boulder and an economist from McGill […]

In Februrary, we posted about a unique dogsled expedition that sought to document the impact of global warming in the Canadian Arctic. Led by renowed explorer Will Steger, the 1,400 mile trek includes five emerging leaders in the field. The team is sharing the experience through video, images, sounds, and text at the Global Warming […]

In the first weeks of April, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will send DC-8, P-3 and B-200 aircraft over the skies of the Arctic carrying instruments to measure air pollution gases and aerosols and solar radiation. In these airborne laboratories, researchers will take a special interest in the formation of the springtime “arctic […]

In March, researchers from  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)  performed sea ice and underwater acoustic surveys in preparation for a return trip in March 2009  to make the first direct measurement of Pacific Ocean water flowing into the western Arctic in winter. This flow plays a role in maintaining the Arctic ice cap .The researchers […]