News from the polar regions during August included new research on marine and terrestrial mammals and continued news about glacial loss worldwide. Missed these stories the first time? Read on!

Once scarce (and even thought to be extinct), bowhead whales again inhabit Disko Bay in northwest Greenland. Researchers have found that the whales produce two different sounds which are mixed together to create songs. In fact, the whales change their songs from year to year as they attract mates. Other researchers have used pressure sensors, accelerometers, and magnetometers to study the whales’ feeding habits. They found that the whales reduce drag and conserve energy while filter feeding by moving slowly with their mouths continuously open at the bottom of a dive. In doing so, they are able to filter more than 2,000 tons of water and prey during a typical dive.

While scientists have assumed that young animals are more vulnerable than adults in extreme cold, new research on musk oxen demonstrates that this is not the case. While calf mortality rates are high during winter, infrared sensing equipment revealed that heat loss is not to blame. The study showed that calves and adults lost about the same percentage of their daily energy intake to heat loss. This new data is important because winter storms are expected to increase in number and severity as a result of climate change. While the cold temperatures alone may not be to blame, food shortages and other ecological disturbances as a result of severe winter weather still pose a risk to the young musk oxen.

Wildlife Conservation Society scientists in western Alaska made a surprising discovery: the spotting of a shorebird that had been tagged more than 8,000 miles away in Australia. Birds from all over the world migrate to the Arctic to breed during the short summer.

In northwest Greenland, traditional Inuit hunting techniques are helping Western scientists attach tiny satellite tracking devices onto narwhals in an effort to learn about the population, their behavior, and their location during the winter months. Information gained from the study will benefit both the researchers and the native population that depends on the narwhals as a food source.

Satellite measurements of the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica reveal that the giant glacier is losing ice four times as fast as a decade ago. Scientists now estimate that the main section of the glacier (which is about twice the size of Scotland) will disappear in just 100 years. Scientists believe that this thinning and the retreat of other glaciers in West Antarctica is caused by warming ocean water, but it is too early to link the trend to global warming.

The warming of an Arctic Ocean current by just one degree over the last thirty years has triggered the release of methane from seabed sediment. Most of the potent greenhouse gas released in this way is dissolved in seawater, contributing to ocean acidification. Methane gas is also released from thawing permafrost into the atmosphere, where it can amplify global warming.

The Cook ice cap, located in the French Kergulen Islands of the southern Indian Ocean, is thinning rapidly. Researchers combined historical information and recent satellite data to demonstrate that the ice cap has thinned by approximately1.5 meters per year over the last 40 years. Its retreat has been twice as rapid since 1991. The Aletsch glacier in the Swiss Alps is also retreating – a situation that villagers have dealt with in various ways, including prayer and photographing several hundred nude volunteers on the ice to get the world’s attention.

A northern sea route across the Arctic Ocean is becoming a reality as Arctic sea ice retreats and thins during the summer months. A German company, the Beluga Group, departed Asia in late July with the intent of being the first vessel to cross the Arctic on a commercial passage.

The US State Department has issued a permit for a new pipeline to transport crude oil from Northern Alberta to Wisconsin. While an environmental group says it will seek an injunction to block the pipeline, a spokesperson for the energy company says that construction will begin right away.

The secretary of commerce recently approved a plan that would prohibit commercial fishing in an area of nearly 200,000 square miles north of the Bering Strait. While the area is not currently fished, the plan was based on the assumption that rapid melting of Arctic sea ice would eventually make the area accessible and commercially attractive. It is also the first time the US has shut down a fishery because of climate change rather than overfishing.

Know of another significant news story from August that you’d like to share? Have a comment about one of the stories mentioned? Post a comment – we’d love to hear from you!