SAN FRANCISCO — In December 2006, I sat in a similar carpeted room in this city and listened to scientists talk about an Alaska-size chunk of sea ice that was no longer floating on the northern oceans compared to previous years. That meant that the “refrigerator of the northern hemisphere” was much less powerful than […]
[content id=”79272″] Insulating effect of deeper snow is thawing ancient carbon permafrost reserves Human-caused climate change is shortening the snow cover period in the Arctic. But according to U.S. National Science Foundation-supported research led by Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine, some parts of the Arctic are getting deeper snowpack than normal, and that deep […]
BEAUFORT SEA – U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20) crew and embarked researchers ventured onto a floe of multi-year ice for the first of three multi-instrument ice stations in the Arctic Ocean Basin late July and early August. As the Healy carefully approached and maintained position alongside an ice floe above 77 degrees north, […]
Algae that commonly grow on snow in the Pacific Northwest have been ignored in melt models, but their presence significantly increases snowmelt compared with clean, white snow, according to a study conducted on Mount Baker in the North Cascades, Washington. Scientist Alia Khan at Western Washington University and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at […]