Polar News and Notes Current News

National Public Radio and National Geographic are broadcasting a series on the impacts of climate change called Climate Connections. The series, part of Weekend Edition Sunday, looks at signs of climate change in the polar regions and other parts of the world, including sections on adaptations, causes of climate change, and profiles of people past […]

Working with National Science Foundation-funded researchers, two high school graduates have built an underwater, camera-equipped “rover” to observe fish in Antarctic environments.
Ryan Garner and Amanda Wilson, both female graduates of Cabrillo High School in Lompoc, California, began working with marine biologist Gretchen Hofmann of the University of California, Santa Barbara, when they were high-school seniors. […]

At its meeting in London, March 31-April 3, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) heard a call from environmental groups to tighten restrictions on shipping around Antarctica. The Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) said many of the ships carrying the growing number of tourists are not ice-strengthened. Vessels that are not reinforced to withstand ice […]

First the lights went out in Christchurch, New Zealand, at 8 p.m., on March 31, and then one by one city and small town lights around the globe followed suit. The lights-out was known as Earth Hour, an event organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-Australia) last year and taken global this year. It aims […]

Highlights from Thursday, March 27 at the National Science Teachers’ Association national conference in Boston, MA included a presentation on IPY science projects and the Polar Discovery expedition series.
IPY Science
Louise Huffman, Coordinator of Education and Outreach for the ANDRILL project, presented an informative session, IPY Cool Science: Hot Topics. An overview of the three […]

A 160 square-mile chunk of ice broke off from the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica on Tuesday. The ice, approximately seven times the size of Manhattan, had started to break up in late February. Scientists noticed the movement in satellite images and were able to capture footage and images of the event.
Unlike sea ice, which […]

The consequences of global warming are often predicted in terms of washed-out coastal cities, displaced populations, and changed weather patterns, but only recently have some warned of armed conflict in the icy waters around the North Pole. A former U.S. Coast Guard commander writing in the March-April 2008 issue of Foreign Relations, says the ice […]

The Arctic Circle, generally recognized as a barometer of climate change, recently became a safety net for the world’s food crops.
Inside a frozen mountain on the island of Svalbard, about 500 miles from the North Pole, the Global Crop Diversity Trust has opened a vault capable of holding tons of seeds in some 4.5 million […]

The Arctic Ocean was once home to a 50-foot-long, dinosaur-era marine reptile. On February 26, Norwegian scientists reported that the fossil found on the archipelago of Svalbard is a new species and larger than the previous pliosaur record-holder found in Australia.
Paleontologist Joern Hurum said that a small car could fit in the reptile’s mouth, […]

Lance Mackey, a musher from Fairbanks, won his second straight Iditarod on Wednesday morning, crossing the finish line in Nome at 2:46 a.m. Mackey’s team ran the 1150 mile race in 9 days, 11 hours, 46 minutes, and 48 seconds. The musher won both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in 2007. He repeated the […]