arctic

changing Arctic

The Arctic may be a rugged place, but it is also fragile. A new report from the Obama Administration sets the stage for moving in the right direction, but now the government must take concrete steps.[read more]

The presidential and congressional elections dominated the American news cycle in 2012. And although climate change took a backseat during the campaign, energy played a surprisingly prominent role.[read more]

World CO2 Chart via Wikipedia -- Look to the top of right sidebar for the current month's CO2 level Via Climate Himalaya, The Guardian reports on the record greenhouse gas emissions, melting Arctic sea ice, natural disasters and extreme weather – and the world’s second worst nuclear disaster. The year 2011 was another ecologically...[read more]

As long as no tipping points are crossed, many believe, there will only be insignificant rises in temperature and sea level, while any dangers are far away in the future. However, the boiling point analogy may more appropriately describe the risk of Arctic methane releases, and the window of opportunity we have to act.[read more]

“What would happen if a Deepwater Horizon-type oil spill were to happen in the Arctic?” is a question Arctic coastal nations have been asking themselves for almost a year now. It is important to stress that this is not a high-flown hypothetical. The USGS released a report in 2008 saying that there could be up to 400 billion barrels...[read more]

At a casual meal on the weekend, I met a couple in town from Iqualit. The capital of Canada's northern Inuit territory of Nunavut is located on Frobisher Bay in southern Baffin Island. They told me that when they left home in mid-December, the ice on Frobisher Bay was not frozen. I almost coughed up my food; that can't be possibly be...[read more]

After a false alarm earlier this month, the 2010 Arctic sea ice melt season has come to a close, with sea ice extent reaching the third-lowest in the satellite record. This continues the steady and steep decline in sea ice cover during the past few decades, which scientists have traced mainly to emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as...[read more]

SCARY GRAPHSOMEWHAT SCARY GRAPHMOSTLY NONSCARY GRAPHScary plot from treehuggerLess scary plot from NSIDCNon-scary plot from Meteorlogy NewsAll show the SAME DATA.A nice presentation by CalTech postdoc Ian Eisenman today on the possibility of a genuine Arctic Sea Ice tipping point. Not a "tipping point" but a tipping point. The stuff...[read more]

A study about attitudes toward drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge sheds some light on how conservationists might influence public opinion in favor of climate change legislation. When the United States Congress finishes its work on health care this Fall, the next big challenge it will take on will be climate change...[read more]

Among the phrases you really, really do not want to hear from climate scientists are: “that really shocked us,” “we had no idea how bad it was,” and “reality is well ahead of the climate models.” Yet in speaking to researchers who focus on the Arctic, you hear comments like these so regularly they begin to sound like the thumping...[read more]

This time of year, there’s a lot of talk about what the ice at the top of the planet is doing, so here’s an Arctic ice eye candy round up. Consider it a brief right-brain vacation; I’ll get back to flow charts and numbers and other left-brain things soon. On September 15-16, 2007, at the time of the Arctic sea ice minimum,...[read more]

The title of this post is one of the scariest numbers I’ve run across in my energy and environmental research is a long time. Nine hundred billion metric tons. What is it? That’s the trend of net ice loss from the Arctic every year over the last few years. That’s 900 cubic kilometers of ice. Every year. (Drive down a straight, flat...[read more]

It is on, and our horse has taken the lead by a nose.Image: NSIDC[read more]

This article belongs to the Polar melting, Arctic mining and mineral resources story arc. ottawacitizen.com : Canada has published the first comprehensive atlas of Arctic geology - everything from continental plates to rock types that signal where to hunt for gold, diamonds, gas and oil. The atlas contains $1-billion worth of data...[read more]

The Independent has an article about global warming in today’s edition that raises some very disturbing questions. Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole: It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it...[read more]