SAN FRANCISCO— Scientists at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center confirmed today that this winter’s Arctic maximum sea ice extent was the second-lowest ever recorded. The announcement comes months after the Trump administration blocked endangered species protection for the ice-dependent Pacific walrus. “This is devastating news for Arctic wildlife like polar bears and walruses that […]
A major shift in western Arctic wind patterns occurred throughout the winter of 2017 and the resulting changes in sea ice movement are possible indicators of a changing climate, says Kent Moore, a professor of physics at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Thanks to data collected by buoys dropped from aircraft onto the Arctic Ocean’s […]
Scientists from Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) have linked the frequency of extreme winter weather in the United States to Arctic temperatures. Their research was published today in Nature Communications. “Basically, this confirms the story I’ve been telling for a couple of years now,” said study co-author Jennifer Francis, research professor of marine and coastal […]
New economic developments in the Arctic, such as trans-Arctic shipping and oil exploitation, will bring along unprecedented risks of marine oil spills. The world is therefore calling for a thorough understanding of the resilience and “self-cleaning” capacity of Arctic ecosystems to recover from oil spills. Although numerous efforts are put into cleaning up large oil […]