Polar News and Notes Polar News & Notes

Doing Antarctic research while watching and listening for volcanic rumblings seems farfetched, but it is reality for researchers from the United States, Spain, Britain, Argentina, and Chile stationed on Deception Island. The five countries work here under the Antarctic Treaty, which protects the area from over-use by humans. The treaty is no protection, however, from […]

On Sunday, March 23, Animal Planet will air a 60 minute broadcast about the Adelie penguins of Antarctica and the challenges they face due to rapid climate change. Return to Penguin City will feature the work of scientists Grant Ballard and Viola Toniolo.
Animal Planet’s description of Return to Penguin City:
“Millions of Adelie penguins storm the […]

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 […]

March 20 is Sun-Earth Day 2008, an annual event scheduled on or near the date of the spring equinox. It is sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to engage K-12 schools and the public in space science activities and interactions with space scientists.
This year’s theme is Space Weather Around the World. […]

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 […]

When the USCGC Healy left Dutch Harbor, Alaska, on March 11, middle school science and technology teacher Craig Kasemodel began two weeks of research on late winter conditions in the Bering Sea. The Anchorage, Alaska, teacher will be working with Lee Cooper, chief scientist for several science cruises that will take place in 2008. The […]

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 is an International Polar Year Science Day, focusing on Changing Earth; Past, Present, and Future. It will focus on change over geological time, especially in terms of glaciers, ocean-atmosphere interactions, and climate variations. Celebrate the IPY Science Day by interacting with scientists conducting research in the Arctic and Antarctic. Live from IPY […]

Deep beneath Arctic ice and miles of sunless water lie what are may be the remotest places on earth: ranges of unexplored volcanic mountains more foreign than the surface of Mars. But recently, an international team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) set out to uncover the secrets of this Arctic sea floor. […]