Polar News and Notes Arctic

News from the polar regions during September included many applications of satellite technology, ecological impacts of climate change, and calls for continued research in the Arctic. Missed these stories the first time? Read on!
1999 to 2008 was the warmest decade in the Arctic in two millennia, notes a new study. This is a reversal of […]

While cautioning that melting ice sheets are an unknown factor, many research groups have forecast that global warming will cause sea levels to rise in this century, with mixed impacts on coastlines. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected a rise of 7 to 23 inches. Now a team of scientists funded by […]

If we’re looking for a species-rich environment, the place to go may be underfoot, according to an article in the National Science Foundation’s online Discoveries page.
Biologist Diana Wall of Colorado State University in Fort Collins is quoted as saying, “The unseen, and mostly underappreciated, realm beneath us is teeming with life. Earth is really brown […]

A team of researchers from Great Britain and Germany, funded by Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council, went to West Spitsbergen, Norway, to study how much methane might be released from Arctic seabeds as the climate warms in the future. To their surprise, they discovered plumes of methane bubbles rising from the seabed now.
The researchers chose […]

The sea anemone Bathyphellia margaritacea found directly below the North Pole now has the distinction of being considered the world’s most northerly species.
The living creature was collected by Russian explorers when they took two submersible vehicles under the pole to plant their country’s flag. That area of the Arctic Ocean has been hidden by a […]